Pick a house, any house in the gentrified colonies of Delhi, and chances are that you'll find a housewife grappling with low self-esteem. This pretty house in Rajouri Garden in west Delhi for example. Daddy is a wholesale agent of undergarments in Sadar Bazaar who's come up the hard way. His office is a four-by-four hole, but the money rolls in thick and fast as he keeps landing big supply contracts with top designer houses.

Cherished son, named Rajeev and affectionately called Bittoo, goes to an upmarket south Delhi school that's given him a sneering attitude towards his first-generation educated parents which involves a particularly irritating habit of constantly correcting their English, even on social occasions.

Mummy, poor thing, fed up with a constant diet of cable TV, feels betrayed because Daddy says she's too doltish to be taken out on the party circuit and she's twice overheard Bittoo introducing her as the maid to his friends. She sighs, wondering if she'll ever gather some respect, if there ever will be a way out?

There is, now. Quick-fix institutes are springing up all over Delhi that offer on tap: instant emancipation for the behenji. It's being described as a leap from falooda to fettucine, from katthal to caviar, from being perceived as someone who is stupid and boring to someone with pizzazz, with savoir faire.

But it's a big leap, the institutes tell you, for the distance between class and crass is as wide as the Grand Canyon. But with luck everything can be achieved: little things like smart conversation ("helloji, you are sure looking smart."); good "party etiquette" (bhaisahab, please use fish knife for the fish pakoras); proper grooming (like a limit to the gold jewellery you wear to the neighbour's son's birthday party) to more "profound" courses like "creativity and deeper meaning in life".

The cost: ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 500 an hour. Of course, this is a secret malady that requires a confidential cure. So most institutes, usually poky things operating mostly from basements or barsatis, offer "close-door" classrooms or, better still, etiquette doctors who make house calls thrice a week - there are seven which advertise regularly and numerous word-of-mouth operations.

One such person is Manju Saxena, who as part of a Munirka-based training bureau, calls on at least four housewives every week. "Most of them are from rich business families, who feel they are misfits in life," says Saxena, daughter of a Lucknow High Court judge, who studied at Loreto Convent there.

These women are finding out pretty quick that most business families are geared towards getting their women to do nothing. They end up being racked by insecurities: their kids have nothing to do with them, their husbands have seemingly lost interest in them. "They're desperate to win it all back and the way they see it, it'll only come by acquiring some class."

Saxena usually starts out by playing shrink. Four to five sittings are required to just ooze the insecurities out. Then the process of transformation begins. Work is cut out by enacting different situations: a party where you have been invited, a party you are throwing, a kitty party with wives of husband's business associates, a visit to a restaurant, even to an English movie. Saxena guides them through each act with simple thumb rules: "don't head straight for the food", "talking to men doesn't classify you as loose", and "the poached poisson won't kill you".

The piece de resistance of the course comes when the housewife has to take her etiquette doctor to a five-star restaurant where she is made to order and converse with the maitre d' and eat impeccably using the right spoons and knives. A Raja Garden housewife was the picture of poise, doing everything right until at the end she used a toothpick, displaying what she'd wrenched out proudly on the table cloth.

It's an uphill task. Says Himani Jayaswal who runs Neev, another institute in south Delhi that housewives flock to: "The main stumbling block is English." Switch to it and suddenly these women become halting, stuttering, floundering wrecks. In fact, speaking English is slowly becoming a prerequisite for women in business families because in these days of globalisation, everybody's trying to impress the "bahar ki party".

Unanglicised problems can be shattering. A Green Park couple, who proudly winged it to "phoren" (read: England) parts this spring, came back devastated: they couldn't order food, they missed flights, they couldn't direct the cabbie to Oxford Street. Back home, they immediately decided to enrol in a grooming institute. The housewife was heard saying: "I want giranty ki agli baar it will not so happen."

The other big thing is personal grooming. Monika Mehta, a former school teacher who runs a training bureau in Punjabi Bagh, says these women, brought up on a staple diet of films, take cues from Bollywood. It affects everything: the way they talk, the way they walk and, worse, the way they dress. Adds Mehta: "I shudder when I see their wardrobes." Bright artificial colours swirl around like icecream sundaes, necklines plunge and stiletto heels climb, caky foundations besmear and flashy jewels bedeck.

One of her clients refused to heed advice and wore a "bosomy" blouse and loud chunky diamonds to a big business party saying she wanted to look "bold aur smart". Says Mehta: "She came back crying, saying all the women were laughing at her." Now she keeps a strict diary that lists out her dress/jewellery plan for every kind of occasion. In fact, one of Mehta's weekly events in training is to take the housewife to an English movie where she can see how Hollywood does it.

In the end, most grooming institutes say the endeavour is really to give these women a life - snatch back some respect, make them confident and independent. Says Satish Kumar, who runs the Institute for Personality Development in west Delhi: "I try to instill some kind of emotional maturity." Not that it always works.

A Lajpat Nagar housewife suddenly discovered her latent painting talent through a personal groomer. Now she gives out little cloth paintings (that make her husband wince) as "return presents" at her parties. Her talent has even spread to her cooking: her bharta on a bed of rice was laid out like Mona Lisa with aloo dum eyes.

And every day, the business keeps growing.