The man was tall, cool and handsome. He almost walked like a model into the long corridors of GIM, confidently into the HQ where the top brass lived.I was just coming out after a meeting with Jesus, where he cracked jokes, shared thoughts and entertained me and a couple of my co prof's who would be organising an industry interaction effort......Madam secretary was not on her seat when he arrived at the HQ reception..... He waited for a while and then took his mobile phone out and rang up some one....
Mr Manohar.... he smiled and smoothly whispered, as if to his girls ears.... I am Valmiki Gupta from Mumbai, hope Mr Sharma of AICTE has spoken to you about me.....
Silence....
Yes I am outside your office,but very well inside GIM, lost in the spectacle... continued Gupta...
A glass door opened and came out Mr Manohar, who was another Director of the B school,not in charge of academics, which Dr Jesus took care of , but in charge of quality assurance and overseas relations.
Manohar ,was the son in law of Dr Joy,whom his daughter had wed after an embattled love life which her father and brother was opposed to. Manohar was Hindu, who was a blot in the evangelist family who could convince others to adopt the way of the cross but their own son in law was an exception and a glaring one...... Manohar and his wife lived in the US for sometime where he ran his own software firm which became big and big and burst one day in the bubble burst. His love for his daughter made Dr Joy carve an office for his son in law, out of nothing and from nowhere....and make him seated in the same HQ where he sat with his son in a cabin adjacent and VC next to it...
Yes Mr Gupta..... welcome welcome... thundered Manohar as he walked out of his office with arms thrown open to receive the seemingly elite guest. After the exchange of pleasantaries they sat in Manohars plush office, every corner of which vied for attention.
I should tell you that you have a beautiful campus and a very charming office... said Gupta
Manohar flashed a smile, a rare one which when he does probably made hearts flutter and made the rise of the son in law to the nucleus of the GIM empire...
That is what everyone says....blushed Manohar.... and the credit goes to the visionary Dr Joy who happens to be my Father In Law.....
Oh ! I did not know that....Gupta looked apologetic even when he did smile and Manohar returned it with a you- better -know- it- you- ass smile....
The two proceeded onto a discussion which lasted some minutes, most of it for mutual admiration and to the fag end for actual business.
Now shall I proceed into my assignment? asked Gupta
I wish you a happy week ahead and hope that after your training our students and their soft skills will get polished up... said Manohar as he stood up to bid farewell...
Wouldnt you be checking my credentials?.... asked Gupta
Mr Sharma says and that is the best credential as far as GIM is concerned......smiled Manohar, this time business man like, adopting it fully from his father in law.......You can meet Dr Joseph our executive director in the second floor, who will let you know the plans for the week.
As Valmiki Gupta walked out, Manohar picked up the intercom and in haste dialled Dr Joseph and told him that the guest is coming , dialled another number,held for a while and then kept the receiver impatiently back to the cradle. He took a piece of paper and wrote....
"Daddy,
Valmiki gupta is here and I have decided to use him as the soft skills trainer for the next one week. Dr Joseph is being asked to take care of. I would be happy and thankful if you can ask Jesus to keep away from this....
Manohar
****************************************************
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Blame me.. Blame you.... PART II
Not that any one in GIM was unduly perturbed over the glitch about the student quality and the subsequent industry feed back, but that it was a reason why come December and before a new year dawns the fault finding mission started ,was of worry to at least some .....
Who is to blame for the issue which year after year looked impenetrable...?
Now again it is seen that the recruiters are of the opinion that students lack in general awareness, soft skills, and even grooming... announced Dr Joy from his raised pedestal in the meeting room inside his chamber....
VC and ED sitting left and right as would the proverbial three monkeys, shook their heads in complete agreement......
I should say...Prof Ram mumbled from memory (He too was a veteran) ...that the onus is on the faculty, who somehow somewhere is failing in their duties....
I should say...Said a grim looking Dr Joy as if he was repeating what Ram said.... that the faculty should take the responsibility for this failure that they are facing...
Oh he changed the sentence....said someone
But the idea remains the same... quipped another
As a matter of fact we are planning certain changes in the way the faculty evaluation would hereafter be taking place.....went on the King
Evaluation...My goodness.. I never knew that they are doing anything of that name... came a comment from my back...
Student’s selection is the root cause and we don’t need to do any research to know it...stood up Prof Ram, the outspoken... it is simple, we are trying to build palaces on pig waste...
It was an assault; an open call for war and Ram the revisionist had just made the bugle sound….There was a stunned silence in the room.... It was this man who always called the spade a spade, when others sat silently and even worse, nodding heads as the famous dolls of Tanjore would do.
I felt guilty… I too belonged to that tribe…....
I have seen many girls and boys whom the first round selection panel has rejected, later sitting in the class... is it not a mockery..? Before the faculty gets to teach them aren’t they given a message that if you have the cheque ready we have the seat vacant for you? …. Ram seemed to be decided to take on the battering….
But it is all happening everywhere ....stood up VC, the Chanakya..... how can we only be different and in any case the talent of faculty lies not in making the best the best again but the bad the best....do you agree?
That was one of his aces, Subramaniam Iyer, the shrewd VC, knew that he will get some ye ye from the crowd and the division would be done...
Ditto it happened and heated debate followed after which there was more disagreement than agreement and the only agreement was that this was the 'classical chicken or the egg' question...
Dr Joy continued his monologue and at the end established that what he said was right and others (those who disagree) could search for other options.....
He said making a funny face as if he was an accidentaly born offspring when Benito Mussolini slept with Imelda Marcos ....I’m a democratic leader...I believe in discussion....debates...disagreement...... But then this B school is my baby and I have a dream for it... either you are with me in this journey or you are not....
He sounded like George bush declaring war on Iraq for non existing reasons…
It clearly was a ploy and this meeting was just a farce like many other meetings....
My mind says that something more is yet to come.. this is just test marketing... I said to Prof Ram, once we left the room.
Let them Sukesh...no prostitute can go on giving chastity speech like this... Fumed Ram as he walked violently to the faculty room….. One day this man will stand exposed…. thread bare.....
Who is to blame for the issue which year after year looked impenetrable...?
Now again it is seen that the recruiters are of the opinion that students lack in general awareness, soft skills, and even grooming... announced Dr Joy from his raised pedestal in the meeting room inside his chamber....
VC and ED sitting left and right as would the proverbial three monkeys, shook their heads in complete agreement......
I should say...Prof Ram mumbled from memory (He too was a veteran) ...that the onus is on the faculty, who somehow somewhere is failing in their duties....
I should say...Said a grim looking Dr Joy as if he was repeating what Ram said.... that the faculty should take the responsibility for this failure that they are facing...
Oh he changed the sentence....said someone
But the idea remains the same... quipped another
As a matter of fact we are planning certain changes in the way the faculty evaluation would hereafter be taking place.....went on the King
Evaluation...My goodness.. I never knew that they are doing anything of that name... came a comment from my back...
Student’s selection is the root cause and we don’t need to do any research to know it...stood up Prof Ram, the outspoken... it is simple, we are trying to build palaces on pig waste...
It was an assault; an open call for war and Ram the revisionist had just made the bugle sound….There was a stunned silence in the room.... It was this man who always called the spade a spade, when others sat silently and even worse, nodding heads as the famous dolls of Tanjore would do.
I felt guilty… I too belonged to that tribe…....
I have seen many girls and boys whom the first round selection panel has rejected, later sitting in the class... is it not a mockery..? Before the faculty gets to teach them aren’t they given a message that if you have the cheque ready we have the seat vacant for you? …. Ram seemed to be decided to take on the battering….
But it is all happening everywhere ....stood up VC, the Chanakya..... how can we only be different and in any case the talent of faculty lies not in making the best the best again but the bad the best....do you agree?
That was one of his aces, Subramaniam Iyer, the shrewd VC, knew that he will get some ye ye from the crowd and the division would be done...
Ditto it happened and heated debate followed after which there was more disagreement than agreement and the only agreement was that this was the 'classical chicken or the egg' question...
Dr Joy continued his monologue and at the end established that what he said was right and others (those who disagree) could search for other options.....
He said making a funny face as if he was an accidentaly born offspring when Benito Mussolini slept with Imelda Marcos ....I’m a democratic leader...I believe in discussion....debates...disagreement...... But then this B school is my baby and I have a dream for it... either you are with me in this journey or you are not....
He sounded like George bush declaring war on Iraq for non existing reasons…
It clearly was a ploy and this meeting was just a farce like many other meetings....
My mind says that something more is yet to come.. this is just test marketing... I said to Prof Ram, once we left the room.
Let them Sukesh...no prostitute can go on giving chastity speech like this... Fumed Ram as he walked violently to the faculty room….. One day this man will stand exposed…. thread bare.....
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Blame me.. Blame you....
The canteen was a favourite place for the students of GIM... for three reasons....
1.It was a bit far from the ever so ‘disciplined’ folks who ruled GIM from the main building
2. It hadn’t had AC and such plush paraphernalia but hadn’t had the omnipresent camera which made everyone in GIM a talented actor the moment they stepped into the large main door where sat the huge picture of a self obsessed photoposer Dr Joy smiling like an idiot.
3. There they could sit, stand, talk, crack jokes, run, play and very very important...use mobile phones and be young men and women. Live their age and stop feigning to be managers in the making........
I felt relaxed when I walked into the canteen every time for almost the same reasons as stated above… I was not a student there, I taught them Marketing, but felt the same lack of freedom at GIM as did the students and anyone who worked there in any capacity, except of course the family members and close pen pullers and palanquin bearers like the VC, ED and the ubiquitous spies…
It was in the canteen where I sat alone, that a colleague in the Marketing dept opened the news into my ears…
There is a meeting now… at the Kings chamber….and you are wanted….
What meeting? …..I wondered at that info… till five minutes before I was there hanging around and I wasn’t told….
Industry feed back this year seems to have plummeted and they are worried.. he said in hush, as if the walls too have ears…
In GIM it was possible, but I didn’t find a news value in that piece of narrow cast.. it was a known secret… and this meeting was routine….
And now with the AICTE team coming… it is getting into their nerves it seems.. the ED was announcing this in the faculty room….he went on…
I smiled, at his naiveté for the veteran I was at GIM I knew the real reasons and the real formula that works behind every such thing in that B school…
My canteen sabbatical was over and in ten minutes was plunged into the largest chamber in the world which seems to have been conceived modeled on the oval office, but poor execution made it looks like a villains den, that appeared in almost all below the average Hindi cinema..
The students of the second year of Master of Business Administration at GIM batch after batch had one feature which was carried down as if through some inherited gene, with amazing precision... they all become lack luster, lifeless and lethargic.....life suddenly for them, was over or almost near to it.... studies become a mere ritual and so was other facets of life....
It was clearly not the pressures of management education that was the cause of this disease, for even in the first year they have the pressure and they do enjoy it...
It was not the work load that came in the shape of cases and assignments, work books and log tables, balance sheets and brand report cards, for by second year they should be feeling comfortable with all that and not in the contrary.....
As Prof Ram put it..the first years are good… the second years are mediocre and even poor…. But this is what they said last year also… this is what we are going to say next year as well!!!
1.It was a bit far from the ever so ‘disciplined’ folks who ruled GIM from the main building
2. It hadn’t had AC and such plush paraphernalia but hadn’t had the omnipresent camera which made everyone in GIM a talented actor the moment they stepped into the large main door where sat the huge picture of a self obsessed photoposer Dr Joy smiling like an idiot.
3. There they could sit, stand, talk, crack jokes, run, play and very very important...use mobile phones and be young men and women. Live their age and stop feigning to be managers in the making........
I felt relaxed when I walked into the canteen every time for almost the same reasons as stated above… I was not a student there, I taught them Marketing, but felt the same lack of freedom at GIM as did the students and anyone who worked there in any capacity, except of course the family members and close pen pullers and palanquin bearers like the VC, ED and the ubiquitous spies…
It was in the canteen where I sat alone, that a colleague in the Marketing dept opened the news into my ears…
There is a meeting now… at the Kings chamber….and you are wanted….
What meeting? …..I wondered at that info… till five minutes before I was there hanging around and I wasn’t told….
Industry feed back this year seems to have plummeted and they are worried.. he said in hush, as if the walls too have ears…
In GIM it was possible, but I didn’t find a news value in that piece of narrow cast.. it was a known secret… and this meeting was routine….
And now with the AICTE team coming… it is getting into their nerves it seems.. the ED was announcing this in the faculty room….he went on…
I smiled, at his naiveté for the veteran I was at GIM I knew the real reasons and the real formula that works behind every such thing in that B school…
My canteen sabbatical was over and in ten minutes was plunged into the largest chamber in the world which seems to have been conceived modeled on the oval office, but poor execution made it looks like a villains den, that appeared in almost all below the average Hindi cinema..
The students of the second year of Master of Business Administration at GIM batch after batch had one feature which was carried down as if through some inherited gene, with amazing precision... they all become lack luster, lifeless and lethargic.....life suddenly for them, was over or almost near to it.... studies become a mere ritual and so was other facets of life....
It was clearly not the pressures of management education that was the cause of this disease, for even in the first year they have the pressure and they do enjoy it...
It was not the work load that came in the shape of cases and assignments, work books and log tables, balance sheets and brand report cards, for by second year they should be feeling comfortable with all that and not in the contrary.....
As Prof Ram put it..the first years are good… the second years are mediocre and even poor…. But this is what they said last year also… this is what we are going to say next year as well!!!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Raw material !!!
Leeladhar Reddy came from Guntur in Andhra pradesh, eldest son of a poor farmer, and was doing his second year masters in business management in GIM. An average student by any standards as far as I have seen him but keen to know things and learn life…Just like a most of his class mates, he was miserable in communication inspite of the LONG admission process that GIM claimed to have adopted to “ensure better quality of raw material” but his attitude to life was positive and that would be the only reason, why he will end in his dream job if he does.
I met him in the corridor outside the academic office, adjacent to the HQ portion of the main building, where the top brass was deliberating on the King’s feat in Delhi …..The poor youngster was sobbing uncontrollably.....
I am suspended sir, for two weeks and that means my whole semester is gone.. I will have to repeat the sem with the juniors sir.......the guy lamented as tears rolled down his cheeks.....
But for what.. what did you do? tell me ....I can try to help you.....demanded the professor in me but after a split second I regretted…ITS GIM .....PROFESSOR... I told a resentful myself….
I was sitting with Mary anand mathew in class, she touched my hands,touched my legs and..
mmm ..thats enough and you are caught..? Now I regretted even more for that blind assurance that I gave him just then..
Did I say that? What was the wording… I started going back….
Did I say I shall try to?
Or did I say I can try?
Or was it … I will help u..
What the hell did I???
I didn’t seem to hear his problem..... Mine was getting bigger and messier…
And now she is no where in picture sir, now it is said that I did everything and she....cried Leeladhar.....
mmm ... I muttered as if I disapproved it..... well I mean I disapproved it for sure but how did it matter?
I resumed walking into the HQ where the management sat ruling the GIM empire with iron hands and clay heads .....Leeladhar and his adrenalin rise was a non issue , atleast I tried to convince me that….
Mary anand regularly attended classes and probably scratched more thighs, but Leeladhar was left languishing outside the HQ in a vain attempt to see Dr Jesus- the Director of GIM...every morning he will show up at 8 and wait...Jesus will appear all of a sudden ,go in to his room as if he is a horse and is banned from side vision, get firmly saddled in the larger than life chair in his tech savvy, plush office which will put even Bill gates to shame, move in and out making Leeladhar Reddy stand up and sit down, every time with a hope smiling at his face that he may be called in....tea will go in and empty cups will come out, guests will come and go, lunch will happen ,all the women folk will be entertained and they inturn will entertain their boss... and later Jesus will disappear through the lift and into one of his saloon cars into an' undisclosed location' as his secretary would sheepishly say after he has left...Leeladhar would wait, in forever belief that he would be called in anytime.....but in vain....
After many days of this sordid drama, he was called suddenly by the secretary ,and as he woke up from his half slumber in the reception area ,trembling and shivering out of joy that at last he was called in...
You have to bring your father and by tomorrow 9 am he should be here- pronounced the proud lady (the priest has to be prouder than the Gods..Right?)
But madam.... fumbled Leeladhar..... Can I not see Dr Jesus.... and tomorrow.. My father is in Andhra... how can ...I ...god... madam...can..?
That I dont know...Dr Jesus has instructed me to convey this to you and now you can go....Clarified Madam secretary...
Leeladhar walked out cursing his stars and the moments when he felt that it is ok and even exciting to be caressed and cuddled by a girl,and that too in the darkness of a Management class room with chilling AC creeping in and when a boring portfolio management session was in full swing and when got caught, his body couldn’t come back to react and say a sorry and finish it there.... He still had a smile which the Prof took as an act of defiance and shamelessness which landed him in the mess that he was in.......
What will I tell my father... and how will I come out of this quandary..? Was the question that bothered him.
No one bothered.. the offender was a culprit and the ones seen with him, would be equally considered guilty.. Friends vanished and so did onlookers… It was surprising how life could be so cruel,,, but then when your life is more important why put it in peril for the sake of some one else…
Inside the HQ the celebrations had begun... the AICTE had almost cleared the proposal of a seat increase... Yes an inspection team would come, but then GIM has ' seen' many inspection teams in the past....
What is the big deal...? exclaimed Dr Joseph, the ED of the
B School, as he broke the news in the faculty room...
He looked beaming , the loyalist that he was to the King, even more than the King himself !!!
I met him in the corridor outside the academic office, adjacent to the HQ portion of the main building, where the top brass was deliberating on the King’s feat in Delhi …..The poor youngster was sobbing uncontrollably.....
I am suspended sir, for two weeks and that means my whole semester is gone.. I will have to repeat the sem with the juniors sir.......the guy lamented as tears rolled down his cheeks.....
But for what.. what did you do? tell me ....I can try to help you.....demanded the professor in me but after a split second I regretted…ITS GIM .....PROFESSOR... I told a resentful myself….
I was sitting with Mary anand mathew in class, she touched my hands,touched my legs and..
mmm ..thats enough and you are caught..? Now I regretted even more for that blind assurance that I gave him just then..
Did I say that? What was the wording… I started going back….
Did I say I shall try to?
Or did I say I can try?
Or was it … I will help u..
What the hell did I???
I didn’t seem to hear his problem..... Mine was getting bigger and messier…
And now she is no where in picture sir, now it is said that I did everything and she....cried Leeladhar.....
mmm ... I muttered as if I disapproved it..... well I mean I disapproved it for sure but how did it matter?
I resumed walking into the HQ where the management sat ruling the GIM empire with iron hands and clay heads .....Leeladhar and his adrenalin rise was a non issue , atleast I tried to convince me that….
Mary anand regularly attended classes and probably scratched more thighs, but Leeladhar was left languishing outside the HQ in a vain attempt to see Dr Jesus- the Director of GIM...every morning he will show up at 8 and wait...Jesus will appear all of a sudden ,go in to his room as if he is a horse and is banned from side vision, get firmly saddled in the larger than life chair in his tech savvy, plush office which will put even Bill gates to shame, move in and out making Leeladhar Reddy stand up and sit down, every time with a hope smiling at his face that he may be called in....tea will go in and empty cups will come out, guests will come and go, lunch will happen ,all the women folk will be entertained and they inturn will entertain their boss... and later Jesus will disappear through the lift and into one of his saloon cars into an' undisclosed location' as his secretary would sheepishly say after he has left...Leeladhar would wait, in forever belief that he would be called in anytime.....but in vain....
After many days of this sordid drama, he was called suddenly by the secretary ,and as he woke up from his half slumber in the reception area ,trembling and shivering out of joy that at last he was called in...
You have to bring your father and by tomorrow 9 am he should be here- pronounced the proud lady (the priest has to be prouder than the Gods..Right?)
But madam.... fumbled Leeladhar..... Can I not see Dr Jesus.... and tomorrow.. My father is in Andhra... how can ...I ...god... madam...can..?
That I dont know...Dr Jesus has instructed me to convey this to you and now you can go....Clarified Madam secretary...
Leeladhar walked out cursing his stars and the moments when he felt that it is ok and even exciting to be caressed and cuddled by a girl,and that too in the darkness of a Management class room with chilling AC creeping in and when a boring portfolio management session was in full swing and when got caught, his body couldn’t come back to react and say a sorry and finish it there.... He still had a smile which the Prof took as an act of defiance and shamelessness which landed him in the mess that he was in.......
What will I tell my father... and how will I come out of this quandary..? Was the question that bothered him.
No one bothered.. the offender was a culprit and the ones seen with him, would be equally considered guilty.. Friends vanished and so did onlookers… It was surprising how life could be so cruel,,, but then when your life is more important why put it in peril for the sake of some one else…
Inside the HQ the celebrations had begun... the AICTE had almost cleared the proposal of a seat increase... Yes an inspection team would come, but then GIM has ' seen' many inspection teams in the past....
What is the big deal...? exclaimed Dr Joseph, the ED of the
B School, as he broke the news in the faculty room...
He looked beaming , the loyalist that he was to the King, even more than the King himself !!!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The loyality curve!!!
There are three types of people in GIM..the loyals, the pseudo loyals and the revisionists...
I fell into the second category by default than design for want of choice and where the survival of the loyalist was a key word, why risk life......
Jesus didn't shout at me but told me in clear terms that a faculty should have time sense and that should be the most important thing that we should be teaching the kids particularly through our actions...
Dictums...Directives...Definitions.....I was not very glad and cheerful about the ordeal but relieved that he did not heave up his voice as he usually does and made me look exposed before the inquisitive women who formed the support staff team at the HQ....
You are like my brother Sukesh... Jesus said with a smile, that was unique to him..
I wouldn't call it disarming but yes, it has some power in it that made people trust him.. The evangelist that he was, he knew to speak well, to smile at the right time, to modulate, to quote, to play humour , to pause and break in at proper intervals... brilliant conversationalist he was but hiding behind that brilliance was an inherent weakness that surfaced time and again making him look like a split person.. some one who had two faces... he suffered from an acute inferiority complex... He had everything and yet he had the lowliness feeling about simple things like his make up and complexion....
The loyals never saw it.. the revisionists had better things to think and worry about... but the insecure pseudo loyal saw it and knew it...
Chairman is coming back from Delhi today... he told me with glee... I have to go and greet him.... That was one practice which I felt was good... his dad was never referred to as Dad but Chairman and that, I presumed came from his education abroad....
Do we have some happy news coming up? I asked with enthusiasm to which he just flashed a smile as he walked out...
Dr Joy had been to Delhi to woo ( read it as whatever you want) head honchos of the AICTE in the capital city. Now for those who have not heard about that 5 letter word...... it is a statutory body, where in all the technical education (and bizarrely that includes management education and engineering along with a host of others) in this country are approved of and accredited to. That in simple terms mean, that if you grease the Hindi bosses sitting in the Indira Gandhi Complex office in New Delhi, their pan coated holy teeth will sparkle and if they do not you simply cannot run anything which is "technical" education in this country.....
Dr Joy was referred to in GIM as the King and king he was.....to be honest to the man who from selling alcohol and merely be a baron to thinking of a business school was far sight and his flag flew high for sure...... His far sight,according to Prof Ram was worth appreciating...
The Delhi visit and the Kings feats there was the hot topic of discussion that fine morning in the common seating area of the faculty room in GIM...( the faculty in GIM spends most of their free time there with tea and gossip, arguing about futile nothings, claiming how they would have run GIM if they were allowed to, assuming, ridiculing, and with pain going to classes( and most of them had quite a lot of classes going by the large student contingent at GIM and the paradoxically low number of faculty members) and rest of the time planning for the week ends...The women never or very rarely joined as they always had better things to do -like discussing on a new saree design or a jewellery shop offer as seen on that days newspaper)....
Almost everyone was present at the 'gupshup junction' as they were curious to know the outcome..... Dr Joseph, the Executive director or ED as he was called, led the discussion for a short while before he left to the HQ when called by the bosses and their anxiety knew no bounds .GIM wanted to be in taking another 60 or 120 students the coming year thus making it the largest B school in this part of the country...
More numbers= more students=more fees=full coffers=happy Joy+ Jesus+ their family=Increments for everyone....... Aha....!!!!
It was that dream equation that was driving the discussion over tea that morning as I walked into the room trying to drift away my thoughts from the utopian world where Jesus flourished to the banana republic where we guys simply subsisted...
He will make it... said some one
by hook or by crook.....said Prof Ram with his classy wicked smile and a scratch on my thighs ( I hate his manners... he wanted me to acknowledge and nod in acceptance but the pseudo loyal that I was, I could no way be a party to this side of the show....
....you should not have called him a crook.... quipped the English prof in his witty but cunning style...
Aha now you are putting your literature into my mouth.... said Prof Ram with a smile...
Right? he asked me ,this time without the scratch but with an even more blatant stare on my face...
I don't know... I said... and Why are we discussing this? ....I knew I sounded stupid , but I didn't care...
mmmm come controversy and he will ask this.... alleged Prof Ram...... as if it will ignite me .. a non reactive inert me.... fire my passion and flare me up...
And successful he was...
That is because I have a family my dear sir and unlike you I dont have bank balance, real estates and gold deposits....I live on this... I retorted with an apathetic gusto which was rare to me...
A moment of silence crept in and no one talked...
what is the news? are we getting a big cake? ...... to ease the tension, some one asked....
Wait for Dr Joseph to return... he is there waiting outside the HQ to see the king... said another prof as he stood up to retire to his cabin, probably getting reminded of the fact that some one above them ,was watching it all......No... not GOD but the cameras that dotted GIM and that made people inside the buildings and corridors actors... some good and some miserable!!!
****************************************************
I fell into the second category by default than design for want of choice and where the survival of the loyalist was a key word, why risk life......
Jesus didn't shout at me but told me in clear terms that a faculty should have time sense and that should be the most important thing that we should be teaching the kids particularly through our actions...
Dictums...Directives...Definitions.....I was not very glad and cheerful about the ordeal but relieved that he did not heave up his voice as he usually does and made me look exposed before the inquisitive women who formed the support staff team at the HQ....
You are like my brother Sukesh... Jesus said with a smile, that was unique to him..
I wouldn't call it disarming but yes, it has some power in it that made people trust him.. The evangelist that he was, he knew to speak well, to smile at the right time, to modulate, to quote, to play humour , to pause and break in at proper intervals... brilliant conversationalist he was but hiding behind that brilliance was an inherent weakness that surfaced time and again making him look like a split person.. some one who had two faces... he suffered from an acute inferiority complex... He had everything and yet he had the lowliness feeling about simple things like his make up and complexion....
The loyals never saw it.. the revisionists had better things to think and worry about... but the insecure pseudo loyal saw it and knew it...
Chairman is coming back from Delhi today... he told me with glee... I have to go and greet him.... That was one practice which I felt was good... his dad was never referred to as Dad but Chairman and that, I presumed came from his education abroad....
Do we have some happy news coming up? I asked with enthusiasm to which he just flashed a smile as he walked out...
Dr Joy had been to Delhi to woo ( read it as whatever you want) head honchos of the AICTE in the capital city. Now for those who have not heard about that 5 letter word...... it is a statutory body, where in all the technical education (and bizarrely that includes management education and engineering along with a host of others) in this country are approved of and accredited to. That in simple terms mean, that if you grease the Hindi bosses sitting in the Indira Gandhi Complex office in New Delhi, their pan coated holy teeth will sparkle and if they do not you simply cannot run anything which is "technical" education in this country.....
Dr Joy was referred to in GIM as the King and king he was.....to be honest to the man who from selling alcohol and merely be a baron to thinking of a business school was far sight and his flag flew high for sure...... His far sight,according to Prof Ram was worth appreciating...
The Delhi visit and the Kings feats there was the hot topic of discussion that fine morning in the common seating area of the faculty room in GIM...( the faculty in GIM spends most of their free time there with tea and gossip, arguing about futile nothings, claiming how they would have run GIM if they were allowed to, assuming, ridiculing, and with pain going to classes( and most of them had quite a lot of classes going by the large student contingent at GIM and the paradoxically low number of faculty members) and rest of the time planning for the week ends...The women never or very rarely joined as they always had better things to do -like discussing on a new saree design or a jewellery shop offer as seen on that days newspaper)....
Almost everyone was present at the 'gupshup junction' as they were curious to know the outcome..... Dr Joseph, the Executive director or ED as he was called, led the discussion for a short while before he left to the HQ when called by the bosses and their anxiety knew no bounds .GIM wanted to be in taking another 60 or 120 students the coming year thus making it the largest B school in this part of the country...
More numbers= more students=more fees=full coffers=happy Joy+ Jesus+ their family=Increments for everyone....... Aha....!!!!
It was that dream equation that was driving the discussion over tea that morning as I walked into the room trying to drift away my thoughts from the utopian world where Jesus flourished to the banana republic where we guys simply subsisted...
He will make it... said some one
by hook or by crook.....said Prof Ram with his classy wicked smile and a scratch on my thighs ( I hate his manners... he wanted me to acknowledge and nod in acceptance but the pseudo loyal that I was, I could no way be a party to this side of the show....
....you should not have called him a crook.... quipped the English prof in his witty but cunning style...
Aha now you are putting your literature into my mouth.... said Prof Ram with a smile...
Right? he asked me ,this time without the scratch but with an even more blatant stare on my face...
I don't know... I said... and Why are we discussing this? ....I knew I sounded stupid , but I didn't care...
mmmm come controversy and he will ask this.... alleged Prof Ram...... as if it will ignite me .. a non reactive inert me.... fire my passion and flare me up...
And successful he was...
That is because I have a family my dear sir and unlike you I dont have bank balance, real estates and gold deposits....I live on this... I retorted with an apathetic gusto which was rare to me...
A moment of silence crept in and no one talked...
what is the news? are we getting a big cake? ...... to ease the tension, some one asked....
Wait for Dr Joseph to return... he is there waiting outside the HQ to see the king... said another prof as he stood up to retire to his cabin, probably getting reminded of the fact that some one above them ,was watching it all......No... not GOD but the cameras that dotted GIM and that made people inside the buildings and corridors actors... some good and some miserable!!!
****************************************************
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
In God we trust!!
God's institute of Management is a fully residential quality oriented management and business school where, the students are imparted training by professionally qualified and continually motivated managers, who also focus in research and......
Holly crap.. thundered Professor Ram, to whom the Vice chairman Prof Shanmugham Iyer had given a piece of literature to read.... I wonder who writes such stuff... looks so very monotonous.... and far away from truth....Others who sat in the common sitting room having tea, laughed at the astounding ways of Prof Ram... he always did it .....he said it out ,what he meant in a typical lingua, often forgetting that he had left the industry and is now with the GIM....and is a Professor..
It is a contemporary expression of a colossal..... Said another prof, no prizes for guessing, he taught English in the afternoons to classes, who where only half receptive, the other half being asleep......
I sat there blank, unable to take sides( let me admit it here, I was "loyal" to the GIM management, not that I was happy to be so, but that I was wanting a choice !!) and feigned that I was reading The Business line...
Why dont you tell the VC (Prof Shanmugham Iyer- the vice chairman was often referred to as ) that it is utter nonsense? .... inquired Prof Anandalakshmi , sipping her tea and reading from a Finance text book as well...
Now that I have done it in your presence, will I have to take the pains to go and tell him too ?..... quipped Prof Ram in a tit for tat and the place reverberated with laughter at the joke...I saw her face burning in disbelief at the statement..
Ram had ignited a fire , and all of us could see it....he had just opened a Pandora’s box by talking out something which others always felt to be true but wouldn’t dare enough to talk out.
Anandalakshmi was a Tamil Brahmin and so was the VC and together (with some others) they formed the heart of the Tambrahm (Read Tamil Brahmin) clique which made GIM a very funny place....I was more than aware of the fact that she was a SPY ,as GIM circles called an informer and believe me we had them in plenty.....
Everywhere, lurking like blood thirsty vampires, dying for information which they will gather, analyse, add, multiply, subtract, divide, garnish with spices make it hot and take it to the bosses at the HQ.... You in this B School will never know who is a friend and who is a foe... the guy who sat with you and bad mouthed the Bosses, may be the one who will ditch you behind your ass..
I have with wonder and often with amazement seen her smart ways of rising in the ladder in spite the poor feedback that she so skillfully 'managed’ to get semester after semester....laughter persisted and she walked out of the common room and barged into her cabin, ostensibly unable to defend the group assault and the fact that no one, not even her fans ..her associates in the clique, did dare to support her in a hour of need...
*******************************************************
I was late to the class that day and the kids were up in their peak of disorder.... some came out of the amphitheatre where the class was scheduled and stood in the quadrangle facing the sea.... it was a beautiful sight there to see the distant sea from the quadrangle of GIM... a truly beautiful sight.....But not as per Dr Jesus.... The chairman's only son, the Director of GIM, US educated soft-spoken administrator but at times flaring up like a forest fire which made him behave like a crown prince ( which he was) and earning him the sobriquet from the North Indian students who studied there- Samrat Natvardhan or in short nattu .....He was also an evangelist( by profession or passion you may say, for Jesus was confused which one was true) which some accuse as the families another trick for making money...the family- if one closely observed could see - how they were into the two most happening businesses -Education and God....
Why are those people standing there? ......shouted Jesus calling out Jansi william , the secretary in the faculty office.
The poor lady trembled, muttered and murmured for want of words and things to say.... It was no way in connection with her job but again neither she, nor the authorities in GIM knew what her job was.. she came.. sat in the faculty room at the centre table.....did all the work the faculty gave her, often dumped on her without grace and with impudence, ran to the head office when some one called her asking her this and that, often things far outside her knowledge and area of expertise and got abuses and statements which made her eyes wet the whole day..... and very often get kicked ( not literally ) by the frustrated students who saw her as a safe place to vent out.....
I am asking you...Thundered Jesus.....
I don’t know sir... she shivered as she said...whose class is this now ?
It is Prof Sukesh..sir....
Ask him to meet me before he goes to the class.... and tell the class representative that he is suspended for the next one week...Jesus walked into his Plush cabin and Jansi ran to the faculty room, half relieved that her life ,for the moment is saved and half trembling as to what will happen next.......
Holly crap.. thundered Professor Ram, to whom the Vice chairman Prof Shanmugham Iyer had given a piece of literature to read.... I wonder who writes such stuff... looks so very monotonous.... and far away from truth....Others who sat in the common sitting room having tea, laughed at the astounding ways of Prof Ram... he always did it .....he said it out ,what he meant in a typical lingua, often forgetting that he had left the industry and is now with the GIM....and is a Professor..
It is a contemporary expression of a colossal..... Said another prof, no prizes for guessing, he taught English in the afternoons to classes, who where only half receptive, the other half being asleep......
I sat there blank, unable to take sides( let me admit it here, I was "loyal" to the GIM management, not that I was happy to be so, but that I was wanting a choice !!) and feigned that I was reading The Business line...
Why dont you tell the VC (Prof Shanmugham Iyer- the vice chairman was often referred to as ) that it is utter nonsense? .... inquired Prof Anandalakshmi , sipping her tea and reading from a Finance text book as well...
Now that I have done it in your presence, will I have to take the pains to go and tell him too ?..... quipped Prof Ram in a tit for tat and the place reverberated with laughter at the joke...I saw her face burning in disbelief at the statement..
Ram had ignited a fire , and all of us could see it....he had just opened a Pandora’s box by talking out something which others always felt to be true but wouldn’t dare enough to talk out.
Anandalakshmi was a Tamil Brahmin and so was the VC and together (with some others) they formed the heart of the Tambrahm (Read Tamil Brahmin) clique which made GIM a very funny place....I was more than aware of the fact that she was a SPY ,as GIM circles called an informer and believe me we had them in plenty.....
Everywhere, lurking like blood thirsty vampires, dying for information which they will gather, analyse, add, multiply, subtract, divide, garnish with spices make it hot and take it to the bosses at the HQ.... You in this B School will never know who is a friend and who is a foe... the guy who sat with you and bad mouthed the Bosses, may be the one who will ditch you behind your ass..
I have with wonder and often with amazement seen her smart ways of rising in the ladder in spite the poor feedback that she so skillfully 'managed’ to get semester after semester....laughter persisted and she walked out of the common room and barged into her cabin, ostensibly unable to defend the group assault and the fact that no one, not even her fans ..her associates in the clique, did dare to support her in a hour of need...
*******************************************************
I was late to the class that day and the kids were up in their peak of disorder.... some came out of the amphitheatre where the class was scheduled and stood in the quadrangle facing the sea.... it was a beautiful sight there to see the distant sea from the quadrangle of GIM... a truly beautiful sight.....But not as per Dr Jesus.... The chairman's only son, the Director of GIM, US educated soft-spoken administrator but at times flaring up like a forest fire which made him behave like a crown prince ( which he was) and earning him the sobriquet from the North Indian students who studied there- Samrat Natvardhan or in short nattu .....He was also an evangelist( by profession or passion you may say, for Jesus was confused which one was true) which some accuse as the families another trick for making money...the family- if one closely observed could see - how they were into the two most happening businesses -Education and God....
Why are those people standing there? ......shouted Jesus calling out Jansi william , the secretary in the faculty office.
The poor lady trembled, muttered and murmured for want of words and things to say.... It was no way in connection with her job but again neither she, nor the authorities in GIM knew what her job was.. she came.. sat in the faculty room at the centre table.....did all the work the faculty gave her, often dumped on her without grace and with impudence, ran to the head office when some one called her asking her this and that, often things far outside her knowledge and area of expertise and got abuses and statements which made her eyes wet the whole day..... and very often get kicked ( not literally ) by the frustrated students who saw her as a safe place to vent out.....
I am asking you...Thundered Jesus.....
I don’t know sir... she shivered as she said...whose class is this now ?
It is Prof Sukesh..sir....
Ask him to meet me before he goes to the class.... and tell the class representative that he is suspended for the next one week...Jesus walked into his Plush cabin and Jansi ran to the faculty room, half relieved that her life ,for the moment is saved and half trembling as to what will happen next.......
Monday, August 18, 2008
The S class just arrived !!!
It was a bright sunny day…
In the reception of God's Institute of Management, the premier Business Management school in the state, some commotion which was unusual to the place was visible ..It was new to me, the crowd that made the portico lively in an otherwise dull place…Walking out of the Library, into the long corridors of the "truly world class" B school as GIM claimed to be, my mind simply refused to give up...
Dr Joy has bought a new car.. It is just coming-- someone from among the crowd announced while the crowd released an awe....I remember I flashed a smile as I couldn’t see any news value in that piece of broadcast, and turned back in an attempt to walk to the faculty....
It is a Merc S class sir... u know the price... 98 lakhs- some one said seeing me turning my back to the spectacle ....
I saw Prof Ram among the crowd with curiosity written all over his bearded face and was annoyed as he turned back and invited me to join the throng waiting to witness the elegant chairman of GIM charitable trust arriving with his pomp and pageantry in display....
No it is only some 80 -85 lakhs- clarified some one...and this is Dr Joys 37 th car ..amazing no..?
Prof Ram had a smirk on his face as he scratched me…
I wondered at the kid like curiosity the otherwise ferocious Professor of GIM was showing and at the ease with which he was crowding with the students and the rest of the staff who looked like village kids mobbing a passing by car..
I dragged him and my boiling self to the faculty room, ( why did I do that ? It is a question better left unanswered as of now) where in one last meeting Dr Joy had refused the idea of a National Marketing Summit to be hosted by GIM, simply because GIM was not cash rich to hold "such extravaganza"....
In the reception of God's Institute of Management, the premier Business Management school in the state, some commotion which was unusual to the place was visible ..It was new to me, the crowd that made the portico lively in an otherwise dull place…Walking out of the Library, into the long corridors of the "truly world class" B school as GIM claimed to be, my mind simply refused to give up...
Dr Joy has bought a new car.. It is just coming-- someone from among the crowd announced while the crowd released an awe....I remember I flashed a smile as I couldn’t see any news value in that piece of broadcast, and turned back in an attempt to walk to the faculty....
It is a Merc S class sir... u know the price... 98 lakhs- some one said seeing me turning my back to the spectacle ....
I saw Prof Ram among the crowd with curiosity written all over his bearded face and was annoyed as he turned back and invited me to join the throng waiting to witness the elegant chairman of GIM charitable trust arriving with his pomp and pageantry in display....
No it is only some 80 -85 lakhs- clarified some one...and this is Dr Joys 37 th car ..amazing no..?
Prof Ram had a smirk on his face as he scratched me…
I wondered at the kid like curiosity the otherwise ferocious Professor of GIM was showing and at the ease with which he was crowding with the students and the rest of the staff who looked like village kids mobbing a passing by car..
I dragged him and my boiling self to the faculty room, ( why did I do that ? It is a question better left unanswered as of now) where in one last meeting Dr Joy had refused the idea of a National Marketing Summit to be hosted by GIM, simply because GIM was not cash rich to hold "such extravaganza"....
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The prologue !
India has some 1000 plus B Schools and the plus is more than 250,mind you..And the future here definitely is not lying in the bottom of the pyramid .I passed out 11 years back from a university, which was ranked fairly well, but then the influx of private B Schools hadn’t happened then. It was not all about merit, though it was not all about money either..
It was a win win for all parties and that was better .Today out of the thousand plus, that we are discussing only a handful are delivering what they are expected to deliver..they can satisfy only a small part of the demand, and when the economy is in its fifth gear race, the rest of them too are expected to contribute.I have an MBA from an Indian university and another post graduation from one located abroad and I know the difference to an extent.
What makes the difference ?
Why is it that for some it is about quality, merit and performance.. about better instructor quality( pay peanuts, you get monkeys), industry interaction and intellectual capital development and for the bulk of others its only about money and to the max ..cosmetics?
Why is it that the Govt bodies like AICTE, NAAC and NBA, who should be owning up the onus of responsibility, isnt no where in picture and the bulk of the best B Schools are those who has nothing to do with this regulatory bodies?What are the reasons? who are the culprits? and what can we do?
My blog is not an answer to all these.. it is no one stop shop for the queries and no solution provider for the young lads who want to know what you get where in a B school..
It is no B school directory, neither does it have any ranking of B schools( and in any case most of the ranking is a farce as you will know if you keep reading this blog )or how to catch the CAT stuff...
It however will tell you one thing- Business school education in India today misses the crux and that is what I am searching here... I don’t use statistics because I am no drunkard to use it for support more and illumination less !!!
And the name. Strategic management and the chicken curry... It , for me is a one sentence definition of the current state of affairs in this domain...
Read along . I am sure you will be wanting more !!!
It was a win win for all parties and that was better .Today out of the thousand plus, that we are discussing only a handful are delivering what they are expected to deliver..they can satisfy only a small part of the demand, and when the economy is in its fifth gear race, the rest of them too are expected to contribute.I have an MBA from an Indian university and another post graduation from one located abroad and I know the difference to an extent.
What makes the difference ?
Why is it that for some it is about quality, merit and performance.. about better instructor quality( pay peanuts, you get monkeys), industry interaction and intellectual capital development and for the bulk of others its only about money and to the max ..cosmetics?
Why is it that the Govt bodies like AICTE, NAAC and NBA, who should be owning up the onus of responsibility, isnt no where in picture and the bulk of the best B Schools are those who has nothing to do with this regulatory bodies?What are the reasons? who are the culprits? and what can we do?
My blog is not an answer to all these.. it is no one stop shop for the queries and no solution provider for the young lads who want to know what you get where in a B school..
It is no B school directory, neither does it have any ranking of B schools( and in any case most of the ranking is a farce as you will know if you keep reading this blog )or how to catch the CAT stuff...
It however will tell you one thing- Business school education in India today misses the crux and that is what I am searching here... I don’t use statistics because I am no drunkard to use it for support more and illumination less !!!
And the name. Strategic management and the chicken curry... It , for me is a one sentence definition of the current state of affairs in this domain...
Read along . I am sure you will be wanting more !!!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The beginning !!!
This is an insider’s view about the business of running B schools in India and it all began, when by a twist of fate I became a teacher or a prof, in a B school in the south. I have changed three jobs ever since but remain in the same career and see the same things, of course with varying degrees of the Good the bad and the ugly. Never but I have thought that I am going to pen them down one day with facts and fiction interspaced ,garnished with some satire and a little spoof .
It came out of me as a blog some time back and kept coming but soon it got stumbled in a writers block, I had to let it go and take rest. But it refused to be bogged down and kept coming back and here I am again with this new blog to take you through the world of B schools in our country. I have not spend sleep less nights researching on this and writing, but for sure have spent a lot of passion and dedication to put all the scattered memories and characters that I know, from my experience and from what others, partook with me…
Inspite of all that efforts on compiling, Strategic Management and the Chicken curry may not become an eye opener, for only the sleeping can be awaked, not the dead nor the pretending, it may tickle some conscience and for sure will serve as a discussion forum for prospective MBA students and aspirants who fall in the tier two and three B Schools of this country...
If it does sound like a guide of does and don'ts in a b school, it is not..
It is about life and the lack of it in the years that one spends in a B school, no matter how big or small it is…
It is also about how some guys brave it, dare and live life and still come out flying with colours…
It is about the corruption and coteries that run the system and ruins it beyond recognition…
It is my honest attempt to bring to you the ups and downs of a B school and all the ifs and buts attached to it.
No efforts are taken to slight any one or harm the reputation of any soul, in the progression of this work. No efforts are taken to spare anyone either and any semblance whatsoever with any one, it is only natural, to have the tint of familiar environments...
Laugh and enjoy you may if you find it worth , but ponder, because the business of running B schools in India, at least the major bulk of them is just about business and nothing more….
Welcome on board if you are ready for some soft reading but hard introspection..!!!
It came out of me as a blog some time back and kept coming but soon it got stumbled in a writers block, I had to let it go and take rest. But it refused to be bogged down and kept coming back and here I am again with this new blog to take you through the world of B schools in our country. I have not spend sleep less nights researching on this and writing, but for sure have spent a lot of passion and dedication to put all the scattered memories and characters that I know, from my experience and from what others, partook with me…
Inspite of all that efforts on compiling, Strategic Management and the Chicken curry may not become an eye opener, for only the sleeping can be awaked, not the dead nor the pretending, it may tickle some conscience and for sure will serve as a discussion forum for prospective MBA students and aspirants who fall in the tier two and three B Schools of this country...
If it does sound like a guide of does and don'ts in a b school, it is not..
It is about life and the lack of it in the years that one spends in a B school, no matter how big or small it is…
It is also about how some guys brave it, dare and live life and still come out flying with colours…
It is about the corruption and coteries that run the system and ruins it beyond recognition…
It is my honest attempt to bring to you the ups and downs of a B school and all the ifs and buts attached to it.
No efforts are taken to slight any one or harm the reputation of any soul, in the progression of this work. No efforts are taken to spare anyone either and any semblance whatsoever with any one, it is only natural, to have the tint of familiar environments...
Laugh and enjoy you may if you find it worth , but ponder, because the business of running B schools in India, at least the major bulk of them is just about business and nothing more….
Welcome on board if you are ready for some soft reading but hard introspection..!!!
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