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?