Commercial break !!!

Chicken curry is getting cooked.. and will return with more spice and twists... pls keep waiting as I return from the holiday mood....

Say’s law…

Anand and me had very few things in common and yet we complimented each other so very perfectly. Things but had changed after the discourse by Ram in the canteen. The friend that I found in Anand had suddenly died and the trust that I had slowly developed in him evaporated. Not that Srilaxmi was the issue (!) but the way he handled it was. I some how had got into an impression that as a friend he will and should share everything with me as did I , a fool whose heart lay open and anyone could access it like a free software. I but this time was sure about my insistence and determination… I need to repackage and reposition myself….

When Dr Joseph the ED called for a weekly meeting, this time with subject allocation for the upcoming semester as the agenda I decided not to take my notepad and not to be seated near Anand for sure. It was easy for me as the meeting room was just next to my cabin, the pigeon hole where I sat, under a camera. Anand was in his usual best walking from cabin to cabin, with jokes and camaraderie which came naturally to him. For once I despised it, as I sat there seeing it, the loudness of it, the emptiness of it. He didn’t go to one cabin and that was Sri Laxmi… thanks to Ram ,or else I would never had had noted it…

Bastard… I muttered even as I waited for him to come to me with his charm and wit…I wanted to tear him into pieces ….

The meeting began and this time I sat in the front row, even as Dr Joseph rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Ram sat next to me, but that was suitable in the changed circumstances.

It is decided based on our last meeting... said the ED… to introduce a couple of new subjects in the current semester and the respective faculty members are already working on them…

A murmur ,albeit a small one erupted from the 25 or so faculty members of GIM who sat with mixed set of reactions in their faces. The more experienced ones were more composed and apathetic but the relatively newer ones showed fear, hope and joy when names and subjects were announced.....

This made GIM a funny place -the demand supply game and GIM believed in Say’s law which famously said that the supply will take care of its demand…In simple terms the economics guy will get to teach Consumer Behavior and the operations guy will be asked to handle Marketing I …. I kept switched off from all the courses and people until he said my name… Mr Sukesh Menon this time will handle International Marketing and Mr Anand Mohan will handle Advertising and Promotion Management.

My paper.. given to Anand….? Said my mind as my heart beat went up…fuck the ED….

He hadn’t said that fully before I raised my hand, and shouted .Ram was aghast by my voice so much so that he almost fell off as I spoke.

With due respects sir… I said to the ED…. Can I know the reason for such a change… I mean the logic?

The ED scouted for a reason and for the right words to sell the reason to me… I got confident seeing his plight.. he ostensibly wasn’t prepared for this and I could read it from the old man’s face …and I had a kind of courage that sprang up as a surprise even to me, a shiver that spread to every cell... all the habiliments of a moderate psuedo loyal that I wore was torn off suddenly.

What reason do you want? He finally countered me with a question…

I smiled… a question for a question cannot be the answer!!!

The logic for this sudden shift… the course which I have handled for three years and perfected it, I need to know why it is taken off from me.. I asked

I knew that the crowd was getting restless at this abrupt defiance from an otherwise obedient me… and I knew that the ED knew that IF he had to give me logic, he would end up doing that to everyone who got a new and even worse, unrelated subjects to handle.

Who said you have perfected it? .....asked the ED in what I thought was a poor attempt to skirt away from the question…

I saw a smile in Anand and a couple of others, but by and large I saw support and sympathy in other faces which emboldened me.

What more you want than the student feed back? ….I asked even as I stood up… and I want you to discuss that in this meeting… and in any case that was not an answer to my question which you are trying to drift away from.

The ED looked insipid and anemic … I even thought that he will faint, if I could trust his looks at that point of time.

There is a point in what he is saying… said Prof Ram, and it was a support that I needed much in that battle.

Why not we allow people to pursue with their favorite areas, particularly when they have proven it? ....said some one else..

Mixing up will not help.. let us keep going with the status quo.. said another voice…

A big smile bloomed in me,a very confident one, a one which only a winner can afford, a rare one armed with which I looked back and fixed a glance at Anand.. he but, still had that same smile in his face as if he was unperturbed and all this was trivial for his larger than life persona…

I hated him….

The ED had to heed under pressure but not before putting in place a stare on my eyes before he did and allocate the new papers to the newer people..

I got my subject back and my victory which I snatched from the jaws of defeat . But one thing kept unsettling me…

That smile… The more I tried to decode it the more confusing it became…

Anand and his smile….

How can people smile even in the face of defeat?

The burden of reason!!!

The ordeal of exams was over in a week, but for us the real exam began just then. No…. not the truck loads of answer sheets that was bundled and unloaded with impunity at our pigeon holes, but the dirty job that the King had put on our heads- me and Anand….

I had walked out of the room seeming in anger and rage over the choice… (Why me?) but more than the various factors that the top analysed and finally zeroed in me and my best friend (Did some one say when you have friends like this you don’t need enemies?) what annoyed me was Anand’s irritating glee at the admiration that we won at the Kings chamber… the practical wisdom that he was full of, suddenly became history and it kept fading every time he repeated “ it is a privilege” ...... I felt he was taking it to heart, as kids will learn multiplication tables, without meaning it, or knowing what was the implication.

For me it meant disaster… the more I tried to avoid being on the stage, the more I was dragged into it….

The huge portrait of Dr Joy at the reception was being removed when I walked out, this time alone to the canteen. I didn’t dispute Anand and his delight, didn’t venture to tutor him on how precarious would it be to preside over an enquiry commission at GIM where some students will have to be indicted at the end of the show… it would invite wrath if they were indicted, it would provoke fire if they were not… catch 22 as they call it…

Prof Ram was there in the canteen, with a big book (on strategy) and half a cup of tea which was vying for attention. He didn’t see me as I walked in and it was quiet like an ICU of a hospital. It was post exam break and the kids had gone home- away and free from the world of business studies and books,,, I went far from Ram and sat in a corner and regretted for not having a habit of carrying some book whenever I walked around. It was an easy curtain to hide…... It gave a shield of intellect while saving from glares and stares of a lesser than kind world.

Sri Laxmi walked in as well unsettling my plans of a lone afternoon where I could be myself and seen less and not on stage…

I saw you coming this side.. she said with an infectious smile which she carried as a weapon whenever she needed help…

Ohhh so you came in search of me… I asked sheepishly…

Yeah… she said with a grin and a sparkle in her eyes… I need to … who else but Prof Sukesh Menon , my first friend at GIM can be my saviour…

This time whose toilet ? … I asked her with lavish smile ,the reply for which erupted as a rage in her face. She was about to sit , but hearing me she didn’t and stood there staring at me…

How could you say that…. She yelled after a long gap even as tears rolled out from her cheeks as if they were just there, waiting for a nod…I hated this… God did a mistake by making women, and topped the mistake by bestowing them with the most lethal weapon .. tears which they used like an ATM card ..any where , anytime…

Ram turned around hearing the scream and saw her standing and in tears… I sat there stunned, like a criminal (I was an offender but …) I couldn’t react … in fact I couldn’t even move in spite of seeing Ram getting up and walking towards us…

Sri Laxmi… please… I some how managed to say…. I am sorry…. Please….

She was not that pleased but some how she left before Ram could start his enquiry….

He came and sat just opposite to me with his face full of question marks… Strategy and tea could wait as they were left alone where he sat … It was just a question of whether I would want him to ask me and then would reply or I will start the confession right away…

It’s about the seminar… I said and he didn’t believe it for sure….

Oh yeah… Ram smiled suggestively…. Is she sad that her speakers are not yet confirmed…?

I got the sarcasm but preferred to play the fool…

She is missing you in action…. Said Ram and as he leaned over the table hushing his voice to continue…there is a strong rumour in the faculty room…

I got a fright of my life… this bomb was not new to me and had heard it a couple of times ever since the toilet thing happened… ever since ED- the old bastard praised our chemistry… But I some how hoped that it had all died down…

I stared at his face even as I prepared my possible answers…I could defend it but I wanted to look genuine, convincing and not panicky for sure… I could say that we were just colleagues and nothing more that is if he was willing to listen….

He again leaned, this time too perilously close to me and with three legs of his plastic chair on air and one leg ready to take off…

Have you ever seen Sri Laxmi and Anand Mohan together..? he asked me even as he looked both sides to ensure absolute secrecy…He looked like a spy who was in a clandestine meeting selling nuclear secrets to the enemy…

WHAT? ......I asked… I was shocked at this O Henry twist… I rubbed off all the answers and arguments I had prepared in mind and sat fresh… sat straight and erect…

I didn’t hear you …

I said have you ever seen Anand and Sri Laxmi together?.... He repeated… or ever knew that they have some connection?

No was my answer, a firm big blatant NO….but I paused… I did rewind my mind button… it ran fast… backwards… and got stuck at a point… pause…..

Didn’t Anand call me/ SMS me once.. twice from nowhere… many times when ever she came to my cabin from her's to meet me…

Didn’t he echo the things that I had blurted out to her…

And hey Sukesh…. My mind suddenly raised an alarm… Remember she had a smell of denim when she came in to your car once asking for lift…

Anand and Srilaxmi…? Together…?

Yet I was not sure… I mean I was not sure whether Ram meant the same… I but knew that my eyes had popped out and I looked pale and bloodless…

They are lovers… said Ram…. from long time and I am told that he came here on her reference…they don’t talk to each other just to keep stories at bay.. Evenings they are but always together,,, many have seen them….

I was guffawed and Ram could read it easily from my jaws that dropped, and my eyes that suddenly and for no reason got wet..

You did not know this? Ram put his final nail as he took back his chair to a safe landing but making me afloat and more insecure….

Ram left me alone possibly with a contention of having ignited me or even probably wanting to share more but knew that I couldn’t take any more that day….

But I haven’t ever seen them together… I will not believe it until I see it… the rational self told the emotional self in me…the burden of reason, but was painful…

My mobile rang…

Anand calling………it said

Change the world !!

It was like Mumbai after terror… GIM after the rains looked shattered like and it had to bounce back to life….Anand was more than devastated and kept a low profile. To confess it, at first I felt good, my foul ego was finally satisfied, the one which always felt small when he was around, the one which always felt inferior when he walked, the one which always felt worthless when he talked, the one which always felt no where when he reached his targets in gun shot precision…

Later but, as a couple of days passed and when he stayed back in his cabin and I did in mine, as mobiles never rang and SMS never vibrated out, as intercoms stayed silent and as chat boxes maintained a strange silence, I got disturbed…it was for sure heeding to the fact that he has the spell, a sort of magic in him that changed the world around him.

To hell with my ego…. I mumbled as I walked to his cabin where he sat reading Change the world….and the moment I saw his book I started laughing…

Anand smiled in sadness as if he was sitting on a bed of thorns…

What is happening dear fellow… I asked him as I dragged a chair and sat opposite to him…

He didn’t reply…

Anand… what is your problem? ....I put it directly, as I saw no point in being polite and wandering around…

You really think that I created the havoc…?.... He asked me… I mean by catching the ones who copied???

I had a big chuckle…..

They would have done it the way they did it in any case my dear friend… I said taking his hands in mine and reassuring him….

But here, they have done nothing like that before…. Have they?

But here there was never such a situation before… I said with a smile… did you think about it that way?

He looked as if I was a puzzle and he was a kid trying to unravel it…

I mean… the rains, the power off, it all came together…. and hey in any case you are not the first faculty to catch kids copying… I said with confidence…

But I guess I am the first one to get them to the HQ and preside over their debarring… Anand said and there .... there I got stuck…

He was.. he was the first one to do so… he was right as well… students who copy in exams had to be send out… but to where…?

At GIM that was a big riddle….

I don’t know Suk…. He said with sheer condescension…. I don’t know what next…

I know … I said, half convinced as I had to tell something to cheer up the guy… the savior… the chosen one… the commander in chief of Operation Apple cart…

Right then Jhansi Williams came in with hesitating steps…

Dr Joy wants to meet you… she said with agony dripping from her face as if it was a bad news.. Well it was, but how would she or we know that then unless we had Nostradamus like abilities to predict…

Hmmm Anand… I told him as I got up and prepared to leave… you meet the king and come back… I shall wait …

I was wondering what it could be and why Dr Joy was the caller directly and that was when Jhansi said to me with more anguish in her face and voice…. You too sir.. Both of you in fact…

Did Anand have a flash of smile …? I don’t remember but yes, he felt comfortable at that news… he apparently felt that he was in company ..good or bad better left to time ,to decide….a calm look appeared in his face..

Manohar sat first in the King’s cabin, then the VC who was followed by Dr Joseph the ED .Dr Joy sat in the central chair and they all looked grim and gloomy. I got tense seeing them all together and the actuality that it was for us that the TOP of GIM was waiting for… Dr Jesus was notably absent and that made me uptight even more… Anand sat next to the VC and now the only two chairs that were left were one near Manohar and another one near Dr Joy. I didn’t had much of a choice as Dr Joy signaled me to the one near Manohar….

When is the EMEP programme starting? Dr Joy asked me even before I was settled in my chair…

Well … I formed an answer quickly and tried to present it but words simply refused to move out like a line of cars wedged in a traffic jam….

Whenever you are…. Said the VC…. Please present to us a plan… a detailed item to item proposal… we have planned it meticulously now the execution has to match it….

Sure sir… I said with a smile, reading between the lines of the chanakya… I knew this old man and could conjecture the countless meanings that he would imply for each word he uttered and a smile was my response….

Professor Anand and Professor Sukesh… said Dr Joy when I was about to assume that they had called us for a discussion on EMEP and its implementation…. You are two brilliant teachers at GIM and we need your help at this juncture…

I smiled at the eulogy even as I doubted its authenticity that it came from a man who did it quite often to get his work done… Anand sat with a stoic silence, and no smiles as if he didn’t want the brilliance that was just bestowed upon him….

You know the incidences that happened the other day… said the VC… it is highly condemnable that in a B school like ours, such unruly mob behaviour did happen….

He sounded plain and insincere…. He should have been India’s home minister.. I wrote in my mind as the note pad wasn’t a good idea in such a meeting…

The management but do not want to look hasty.. said Manohar…. We want to go to the roots…. and find out what is the problem….

Now this was getting interesting… this pattern that unfolded… this sequence that looked well rehearsed… this carefully worded mumbo jumbo….

What is the ED going to say? .....that was my worry ..... in any case his is the turn next….

The management has decided to form a faculty panel which will investigate into the happenings and recommend corrective action .. said the ED putting an almost end to the suspense that I had…

Now Anand and me looked left and right as the baton was passed from player one to player two. We looked like viewers in a tennis match….

So my dear friends….said the King with some drama added… We have decided based on various factors that it will be you two under the able guidance of Dr Joseph who will do the job… I wanted you to know this before we announce it.

I didn’t smile, but this time Anand, to my horror was doing it.. he looked as if he had been conferred with the Bharat Ratna and was waiting at the Ashoka hall to get it pinned to his coat…

Stupid fellow… I muttered…..

Wouldn’t you be glad to help GIM in this endeavor?… asked the VC with his eyebrows up, arched in suspicion….

Oh yeah… shouted Anand… it is a privilege…

I didn’t shout but felt the quagmire that we were walking into… Anand with a smile dancing on his blushing face and me with fear flowing out, no matter how hard I tried to control it…