Teach the teacher !!!

Srilaxmi walked around in GIM dawdling & dragging, as if she was a new bride lost at the newness of her groom's house….

The large place threatened her.... a topper in her MBA
which she passed just a year back, she had no clue of what her career should be… May be teach at a business school, she had thought somewhere.. but neither for the admiration for the profession nor for the ardor to contribute to the development of it, but simply because her tradition bound parents would not allow her to work otherwise.
She send an application with a one page CV attached, when GIM had called last time for faculty recruitments (another regular drama that GIM undertook, foolish as per the critics but a smart way of Brand building as per Dr Joy), the VC called her for interview and because she looked good and could speak english, was appointed as a faculty in the Marketing area of GIM....

The characters in the faculty office tried their level best to make her uncomfortable, as they did with every new entrant.....telling her spiced tales of how the ever-over expecting crowd, whom they call 'students', in GIM would behave with you......how this piece of paper which the student gets to fill at the end of every course, which they call 'faculty feed back' would behead you....how thankless the deadly devils, whom everyone called 'the management' would suck your blood out and leave you empty and alone in the vast sea where everyone was a pirate or a sea wasp ...

I for one didn’t enjoy torturing her but to confess- was never very comfortable at the idea of a 20 something girl teaching Marketing to a set of over zealous 20 something’s…

Can you give me some tips..? She asked me one day while I was in the library trying to make sense of some heavy article in some international marketing journal…(those really help me when I was in deep problem.. I sit with one of them, try to read it and then get some peace of mind that my problems are far simple…. at least explicable and hence dealable) …

That was the first time she talked to me, that is after the formal introduction round where I was the chosen one… She rarely looked pleasant, when she moved around ,smiled once a while and that too faintly as if there was some thorn stuck to her permanently, somewhere …and I was surprised when she came and sat opposite to me and asked for TIPS…

Tips? …I cried… for what??

The Vice chairman told me that you are one popular teacher in Marketing… As you know I am new … I mean… I have no teaching experience… I mean I have no experience at all…so ..you know… I mean… She mumbled in inarticulate stream of utterances where words came out in an asymmetrical chain, the tone went up and down, the pitch was less than discernable but her eyes said it all….

she was petrified and needed help…

Well Madam… I said with humility that I wore as a decoration, when I felt elated…

Elated for what ?( later I kept wondering)…

The VC has told her that I AM popular as a teacher”……Hmmmm…. so he has noted it…
So…
So what ? nothing ….I knew the answer but the fact that the second top man in the GIM management knew it and has in fact recommended some one to take tips from me was worth to be jubilant…

I told her things which I was in no doubt that she didn’t understand… she was impervious not because she was arrogant but because she was ignorant… I felt pity at her plight, as I knew that her evident gullibility may turn expensive for her…

Never use the text book in the class, for instance… I said with her mouth open, suggesting to me that she was planning that, exactly that…

Cases, deep analysis of brands and issues, updated information about Markets and marketing…the sites, the blogs... the books that I read... I went on and she sat there showing me mixed expressions of fear, angst, loath, scorn and disbelief … her beautiful face was in radiance, her big eyes glittered like blue diamonds in spite of her dreary expressions ….

Come back you bloody flirt… my mind warned my wandering self…... Hey Sukesh you are a professor….

She smiled at me the next day and the comfort, for me looked like the handiwork of my TIPS….That was the day when she had to launch herself….the prospect of walking into a class which is a semi theatre with almost 100 young boys and girls sitting there with skepticism freely circulated along with the cold air from the Air Conditioners made her upset but her new friend was there to boost her morale… who else..? ME…only me....!!!......

The moment she introduced herself and Sales Management-the course which she was to 'teach them’, hands went up in the air.....

Mam do you have experience in sales..?
Mam you are just one year senior to us, how can you teach us the complexities of sales as a subject and practice..?
Mam.. Mam…Mam do you...
how?
what? Mam...

It was a semi dark room, and even other wise she wouldn’t be able to see anything.......She wanted to tell them that the VC of GIM has prejudiced her that as long as she is beautiful (which she is) and she has the command over the language, she could teach anything.....

She, but didn’t want to tell them that for her this was a stop gap arrangement, when someone comes asking for her hand in marriage, this job will make her more saleable....

Sales management was the issue, selling her in the marriage market to be precise and alas I had no TIPS to offer in that domain !!!