Daggers and sheaths...part II

GIM was near to the sea, not the red one but the one which some one somewhere named as Arabian sea and the sight from the GIM building was simply stupendous. The central courtyard gave a panoramic view and as one went up in the lift, one side of which was open to the outdoors with a fibre wall, would get mesmerized by the sheer beauty..

It looked boundless, the vast expanse of green earth with ease merging with the blue sea….

Endless and eternal… as time…

Good Morning sir… some one said and I came back to life, I was in the lift going to the 5 th floor where an MDP meeting was scheduled and I was one of the invitees….

Hi… Good morning…. I said with a hangdog expression of having seen by a student in my dream world.

Suhail Khan … he said with an arm extended…second year MBA

Ohhh yes… I said with a smile… I knew only the guys who took Marketing .. this one was not one among them…

I am into Operations and HR sir… he said as if he too was a mind reader…

Too many of this tribe in GIM.... I thought…

I guess I miss some good lectures in Marketing… he said with a smile… that is what I hear from my folks…

I flashed my uneven row of teeth at the free appreciation that was coming on my way and that too from some one who never had attended my classes.

It was debatable whether he would have had the same opinion if had attended !!

Ha! ….I said…. you made my day Khan… I said with a beam and I meant it… Praise was something I liked, and that too about my teaching skills which I was not that convinced about.

Anand Mohan sat next to me at the MDP room where some corporate clients had come and where presenting their case, some sales issue which the think tank of GIM was trying to make look as a strategy issue with an intention of selling more of their expertise than to solve the client’s issue.

I now had to keep away from this new dare devil as well… Ram was a head ache always but it was easy to avoid him and take distant seats and in meetings like this one he would always prefer the front row and will be there discussing and debating quoting from the GE story and the like…Anand seemed adamant and stuck on to me, wanting to look like thick friends who had met some 15 years after graduation. I liked his presence but not his gallantry which he seemed to be putting on display even at the most inapt spaces….

The Delhi team has recommended for a seat raise …he told me in a hush tone

I stared at him for the outdated news that he was sharing… I mean it was an inevitable finale which all knew particularly after the meeting which ended up as a sham.

The Delhi team (who had come and gone) had been in a fix after the infringement from Anand and the high hopes that he raised in the process. I assumed that Prof ram would jump in the fray, outperform Anand and explain why the FACES were not telling it all…and why as a professional committee who had taken the PAINS to come all the way from Delhi ,how unprofessional it was to depend face reading as a tool to assess employee satisfaction of an institution.

Anand Mohan sat after the intrusion, pleased as his job was done, and possibly expecting veteran mouths to carry on .Ram was the alternative( at least as I saw it) but strangely he did not and bingo the VC stood up. Subramanian Iyer the shrewd tactician was on his legs when I wrote in my note pad…

THE GAME IS OVER!!!!

Let the faculty also speak… he said in a careful tone with an American accent that came naturally to him …. But since everyone cannot speak,due to the time factor, let us have one to represent us….

The chosen one was one of the loyals, who feigned surprise but it showed like the pre practiced expressions of wonder and marvel that the Miss world’s display when the crown is announced….

After the astute move, the master stroke by the VC it all went haywire… I found Ram dumb, Anand still smiling, some others fuming and most of the others falling back to reality after the brief and short lived hope… I always knew why Dr Joy and his team like mad depended on this old man…

I did not know the game here…Anand told me as if in a confession box and I came back to the MDP room.. Some one was still in argument with some one over something that was petty……. I did not know that the one who was asked to speak would sing praises and make it easy for the Delhi team

I smiled, with a ridicule at his ingenuousness.. I saw that the charisma and aura which was the other name of this man was failing but was the dirty mind in me sunny and gleeful at it ?

But you know what Sukesh…. Anand Mohan is a winner….. he said, in what if others would have said would have sounded like an empty audacity but for him suited well…. And the game has just begun…

He didn’t scratch thighs but left deeper lines in my mind…

Ram was better, he never carried himself into my thought and most of the time with him, I heard him, but rarely listened to him. Anand was different… he looked fearless, sounded bravo and up to the point…

That evening when I was about to leave and had just kept my bag and a fat copy of some business book( to give the serious intellectual look most prof’s carry one or two books home and back everyday) in the back seat of my car, a voice interrupted …

Can I get a lift sir…? Said Sri Laxmi as she stood just back to me, with her long flock of hair waving in the soft sea breeze and her large dreamy eyes in full flicker … she looked like she was carved out fresh from the setting sun…

A splash of denim fragrance out of the blue spread in the air… I hadn’t put any denim for a long time and it was for sure not from her either…

The game has just begun… some one whispered into my ears…