Coaching centres of Delhi: The ecosystem that feeds on aspiration

A rickety staircase leads down to a cramped room within the basement of a four-storey building in South Delhi’s Kalu Sarai. Nearly a dozen students are attending a class in a room with no windows, preparing for their IIT-JEE exams. The houses in this lane are so cramped that even sunlight barely makes it through the narrow gaps between the buildings. Low-hanging electricity wires hover barely a few inches above the heads of pedestrians packed into the lanes.