A 39- year old Kolkata school teacher allegedly got fired from his job a day after he released an autobiography narrating his experiences about being a homosexual. Avjit Kundu, a teacher at Calcutta International School was issued a termination order by the school a day after he released his book at the Kolkata International book fair. When EdexLive got in touch with Kundu, he said he was too upset to go into details but promised to speak when he had recovered from the shock.
Kundu, a Masters graduate from Jadavpur University told EdexLive that he joined work in June last year and was teaching Math and Physics at the Calcutta International School. On February 4, the teacher released his book at the book fair in the presence of renowned poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay and the very next day he allegedly was issued a termination order with immediate effect. "On February 6, I was out of school, unemployed, unnoticed, dejected and destroyed from inside," he said in a Facebook post.
The teacher mentioned in his post that he did not speak about the issue for days because the school owed him his last month's salary and therefore did not want to have a confrontation with the administration before he was given his pay. "They threw me out so abruptly that I did not even have the chance to react. Just a week before this happened, the institution was discussing a long-term plan for subjects to teach, academic schedules and other teaching methods and plans. And then they just showed me the door," he said.
According to a report in the Indian Express, the school denied the allegations, the Principal of the school said they knew he was a homosexual and claimed that Kundu himself had asked to be removed from a full-time position. They also said that there were incidents where he had touched students "inappropriately". However, Kundu denied these allegations.
Kundu said that this was not the first time that such an incident was happening, "The harassment did not start on February 5, there is a history of such incidents taking place from the day I joined the school. They say they are an international school but that is just a joke. There is institutionalized discrimination and bullying taking place in the school. People keep asking why members of the LGBTQ community are not in respectable jobs. Well, how can they expect us to when this is the environment we are exposed to?" he questioned.
