The paradigm shi (f) t !

It is funny and even amusing that in life sometimes when we look back we find how outlandish we had behaved to certain situations which if had repeated, we would have done better. Alas! Life is not a DVD player, and there is no rewind or repeat buttons… it has to go on…

Looking back is the utmost one can do.. Or is it not?

In my case it was not.. The Sri Laxmi experience some how made me chary. Careful I always was, cautious I had been but there after I looked like a secret agent apprehensive about everyone, as if all were contriving and conspiring against me.. I looked nervous, all the time and spend my time at class and when I had no class, at some corner of the huge library delving deep into a better world, or in the scorching canteen gulping as many hot banana fries as I could .

Sri Laxmi of course remained as my teaching assistant but stopped coming to the class with me, as she got busy with the PARADIGM SHIFT seminar. Forming student teams, identifying prospective speakers and the like kept her running, most of the time from her pigeon hole to the HQ, where Jesus sat with resplendence. Jesus would have been a happy man… the Paradigm shift seminar had given him a reason, I mean an official reason to be with the most beautiful woman at GIM whenever he wished to.

Are you angry with me? Sri Laxmi had asked me after the drama in Jesus’ room.

I gawked at her with derision …

Life is a game… the better player you are the better is your chances of survival … I told her before admonishing her.

I cared the damn if she too was a spy!!!!

You would be seen as rebelling for the wrong reason ….said Prof Ram later during the lunch break where we usually had fun and frolic at the faculty lounge.

I mean..he added seeing my face which for him resembled a question mark … you will be looking like some one who is jealous that she is the convener of the seminar and you had been asked to help her with no official designation per se…

I protested… That was a new angle that this old man was adding into it…

Think about it … he told me before he left me alone but in an even worse condition…

I was in my cabin during one of those torturous days, when the news broke….

The inspection team from Delhi is coming tomorrow… the ED came out of his cabin to the larger faculty hall where we all sat in a row, in cabins that will even put an internet café to shame.

No grand mothers shall die, no one will fall sick…..he announced as if it was some joke, and he was the main joker of the show. Then as usual he started laughing at his own joke in his style with the giggle and gag going up and down with air escapes in between, making him blush and his thick bush of hair at both his earlobes in full erection out of excitement.

Another drama… Prof Ram told me over the cabin walls…

Ohh … lamented some women in chorus... the month end would have been bothering them.. What will the Delhi team feel when they see the GIM faculty in old and used sari and under make up?

Huh… I said to myself…. Life is about priorities…each one has their own !!!

The VC was out of town and that seemed to be the biggest worry for Dr Joseph the ED.

He expressed it overtly in a hastily convened faculty assembly at his chamber to discuss the do’s and don’ts during the one day performance that we all were expected to put up when the three member team from Delhi will walk around the GIM campus, talking to the
MBA guys and faculty, analyzing, eating and drinking, wearing a mask of absolute seriousness, with grave faces looking like dead men walking around , writing on small note pads, leaning on to the next guy and whispering whenever some on talks something in the meeting sending shivers down the spine of the speaker and ending it up, with a foregone conclusion…

GIM is next to heaven, if not the real one…

Farce!!!

I wrote in my note pad, as I sat in the third row corner very far from Prof Ram in what I thought was a conscious decision to avoid the scratch and scorn.

Sri Laxmi was in the front row, suggesting to me her new status.. a loyal she had become..

Incapability had to be compensated after all!.... my jealous mind found a logic and a dirty bliss in it…

It was that afternoon that this new fellow came in to the GIM faculty room.....

He was tall, unfairly handsome, impeccably well dressed, looking almost like a bollywood hunk who just decided to take a break from his shooting schedule and visit GIM....

I turned around at the smell of splashed denim and there he was, standing just behind me, with a beaming smile…

Hi Sukesh …he said with his left arm extended

I stood up with an ensemble of feelings, panicky I was but pleased I wanted to look as I extended my right arm to give the weakest handshake I had ever given.

I am Anand Mohan …he said in style and in a clear husky voice… your new colleague and friend…..joining the Marketing Department at the great GIM today.

Now that was new to me, I bet. The whole thing looked like another episode in the great GIM drama…

Ohhhh….the first reaction burped out quite suddenly from my open mouth even as bewilderment was in full bloom in my dull eyes

I know I know… he blissfully smiled ,as if in me he had met his long lost childhood friend… we are gonna be great company … I know…

I didn’t know the meaning then…
I didn’t know that he was the man who would change my life for ever, change the course of GIM and its inhabitants ….

We are gonna rock dude… he shook me fully with both his arms firmly on my shoulders and then left me after an affable tap on my cheeks…

The fragrance of denim lingered, the smile stayed behind, the charm simply refused to go even as he went to the ED’s cabin and started his formalities of joining.

Anand Mohan!!! I said to my self….Haven’t I seen this guy before?