The male gynecologist!!!

Prof Ram was like a senior male gynecologist, he was an expert and knew the thing, but was very rarely in demand. He was never my role model and idea guru but I with awe had admired the courage with which he called spades as spades and not garden tools.. the guts with which he stood up and shouted at enemies who often simply ignored him either by design or by default ….

I but went to him seeking his advise (after a long gap) for the EMEP show management which after the launch fanfare was entirely left to me as my headache. When women gynecologist is not available, don’t we for want of an option accept men??

What is the objective?...... he asked me a question which every prof asked his students who did some project….

I didn’t have an answer, a clear one I mean, just like every other student who did an academic project and happened to be across his or her prof answering funny questions….

You are coordinating it aren’t you? .....asked him with mockery that oozed out of his bearded face…

I didn’t reply... I knew he didn’t expect one….

It is a farce….. he said in a boring monotone…. this whole thing… EMEP and all this humbug….

It wasn’t a new piece of breaking news for me... at GIM it surely was a travesty but I didn’t expect ram to put it so unbolted to me…a hapless me was there before him seeking help and not advises... a me who till the other day was jubilant and whom he had praised as the only outsider to have got chosen to do this job… a me who now was left with no friends to turn to…

Nothing can replace classrooms…Ram kept saying… when we don’t have sufficient time to finish classes you should have known that this will become a burden for you….

Even I agreed to the first part but the second one was disgusting… I didn’t decide.. I didn’t even know and everyone knew how it was blissfully passed on to my unsuspecting head…

Yeah sir… I kept mumbling but my face would have said a NO.. a big NO… I realised it suddenly when Ram got struck… he read my face and knew that my YES meant a NO….

I didn’t mean to hurt you… he said mollifyingly …

Oh yeah… I said to myself but this time smiling as if I was pacified…

What all you have in mind? ….he asked me suddenly

I kept wondering… I for a moment forgot that the topic of discussion was the EMEP programme where I was supposed to engage all the 400 odd MBA guys and gals of GIM every afternoon and with no class rooms and lectures it was challenging for sure but more importantly it was a pain, day in and day out….

Corporate theatre ….The great debate … quizzes….. and what more???

Please present to us a plan… a detailed item to item proposal… we have planned it meticulously ….now the execution has to match it….had said the VC….

We will have sub teams.... lead by faculties and with students implementing it…one day one team… a week five teams… had reminded Jesus…

Other than that I had nothing in my mind….. it was just empty….

Ram couldn’t help much and I sat in the canteen that afternoon with the plan sheets and activity charts that were refusing to take shape. I remembered Anand and his ideas for the programme…the plans we made.. the tsunami of change that EMEP could be bringing to the GIM world,,,,

I missed Anand and his energy… he was the one who began it and then in between disappeared…Why was it that no one missed him?.. no one ever spoke about him?? It was almost 3 days since he had done the vanishing trick and the great change agent was not visible anywhere by his absence… the only one who missed him was me… and may be Sri Laxmi…. Her thought suddenly bought a smile unto my tired face… her face bought a breeze into my barren thoughts.. a drizzle happened on my dry sands of hopelessness..

Yeah man… I patted my own intelligence… I had got it.. the game… I just couldn’t believe that I could be that smart…. In this game of chess, Sri Laxmi was my next move…

Back in office, the plan got ready as dramatic as the launch of the EMEP programme.. I modeled on the management style that never consulted but JUST conveyed… I sent out mails to all the five selected faculty that they will be in charge of one particular afternoon and that is it.. to add to the safety I just added a small clause… "In consultation with the director, it has been decided that you will be the event coordinator for the quiz afternoon/debate afternoon/ "etc…the intelligent ones would understand it, but in GIM they wouldn’t have survived hadn’t they been intelligent….

What is corporate theatre? Sri Laxmi called me over the intercom obviously after having read the mail which proclaimed her role in the EMEP programme…

Why do you sound rude? .....I asked in half romance and half satire…..

Ohhhh... ok then...What is corporate theatre..? she repeated in full satire…

How will I know? .....I asked with a stupid grin that she could see (!) from here cabin some half a kilometer away…

What you mean? you conceived it and you should know… she retorted…

It was the great Anand Mohan who did it… and who better will, than you Madam Sri Laxmi will know of his conceiving abilities?…

You mean to say I got to call Professor Anand and find out?.... She asked, ignoring the double meaning…

Next time when he calls please do…..I said and before I banged the receiver onto its cradle, added… make a plan and give it to me.. you have 24 hours…

I went to Jesus to report on how fast things were moving (and how smart I indeed was) and told him of the plan in a broad outline… he kept calling people, and attending calls,taking printouts, cracking jokes to the women crowd who made his office look like a harem, and when he got time ,in between attending to me in half interest.. It was not my headache whether he got it fully; I just wanted to keep him in the loop…..

Prof Ram was walking frantically next to my cabin, ostensibly in the look out for me… I hadn’t made him an afternoon coordinator, knowing his apathy to the whole issue..

Come on… he dragged me out of the room to a silent corner near the stairs where the GIM world opened to 1,2500 square feet of management education…

Why is Sri Laxmi crying..? he asked me….

What?.... I know I looked stupid, but why was it that the buck stops at me…

What did you tell her…? She was crying and ED was pacifying her… your name was being taken… be careful…. he said and quickly departed….

I didn’t venture to go in… I couldn’t go out either,,,, I stood there alone at the long corridor thinking…..

Why do some guys run behind issues that they know they are not going to solve?

I had no answer.. the closer one was this.....

Why do dogs run behind cars which they know they are not going to drive?

The curtain raiser !!!

GIM did everything new with a lot of fanfare.. Course launches, batch inauguration, building openings and the like was an opportunity for the B school to get photographed and bask in sheen. Dr Joy and his family show unbelievable camaraderie, Jesus and Manohar hugged each other making the audience (those who know the inside story) awe in bafflement and the others envious of the unity in the family….everyone smiled and everyone was a friend of everyone…. It was UTOPIA….. perfect and ideal…

Experiential Management Education Programme (EMEP) inauguration was no different. I, as the convenor had a tough time in scheduling the programme and getting it approved. Running from pillar to post was better than from Dr Joseph to Jesus to other larger than life jug heads who for nothing found fault and asked for a change often because the other guy had liked it.. No one was that bothered about the EMEP programme per se as they were about the inauguration….

We are getting the head of one of India’s largest FMCG majors… said Jesus in one of the first EMEP meetings…. to launch the EMEP ….

Jesus did what he promised generally and had the right contacts and networks.. why not ? used to say the likes of Prof Ram… He is a rich kid of an even richer father… and could afford to spend and be promiscuous to befriend the right guys….

I never agreed to it… I knew many even richer guys who hadn’t had even half of the network that Jesus had…

It’s the flair … the attitude…and also the money….in that order and Jesus had it all in the right mix….

The building was decorated as if it was a marriage hall… I felt a bit odd at times, but proud to be the main anchor (technically though!) of the show. It was a Jesus show and everyone knew it… Sukesh Menon was the convenor of EMEP, the first outsider who was bestowed with such a task at GIM.. de facto but it was His Grace, His Highness the Crown prince of GIM who ran the show…

When Dr Joy had his new picture in the portico ( in which he looked even worse than the old one, where fat hung from all his face like a pug) inaugurated by the guest, when as the convenor I walked down with the guests to the fully crowded auditorium (it was after all compulsory) when the King gave his usual speech in his drab and monotonous tone( the same brauhaha repeated with same inertness) when the anchors touted the GIM and its programmes ,particularly the EMEP as a revolution in management education (!!!) when speeches vied with speeches as if it was the Biggest Bore Competition, when finally the lamp was lit by the guest and when he went on with his speech, when at last to a group of tired faces, standing at the podium I had to give a vote of thanks… I just searched for one face….

Anand Mohan !!!

And he was missing… And I felt odd… I wanted him to see my show… wanted him to correct his notions that I was an incapable idiot… Proclaim to him and his types that EMEP is going to be MY SHOW and not OUR SHOW as he seemed to believe… I missed him….

At the lunch room were the show of camaraderie was repeated Ram came to me in between and took me to a corner… in fact he dragged me ,an unsuspecting me who was trying to grab some fat chicken pieces from the Murghi Mugalai bowl.

Anand has left …Ram said… he left in a hurry….

Left? .....I asked loud…. You mean resigned?

I felt a kind of dubious pleasure at the exit of my enemy….Anand Mohan had bruised my bliss and in the last few days ever since I had declared a silent war on him he came across me a couple of times in what looked like just accidence but I wanted to believe otherwise.. Wanted to think that he did everything- even walking- with hidden motives and intentions…..

No … he was there in the morning but then left.. saw him rushing out to his car and then ….said Ram even as he dipped his finger in the green palak juice and licked his fingers…

I forgot the chicken and the lunch… for the workers at GIM such lunches and dinners gave them the rare chance to seek revenge… eat as much as possible or even more than possible…

When the fanfare was over and GIM had fallen into a post lunch siesta, I but got into EMEP with more vigour and energy… Anand –his presence and absence had made me a competitive animal… had scheduled a meeting of the EMEP organizing committee, but before that had to brief Dr Jesus of my EMEP plan…

You will report to me as far as EMEP is concerned ..said Jesus… that way your main concern is over…ED will not interfere in EMEP…

A smile, a vicious one was shown in his face for a split second which out of the blue got into something more sympathetic and I CARE FOR YOU type…

That was not my main concern… in fact that, at that point was not my main concern at all…My anxiety was the implementation… the grand plan had earmarked every afternoon for the programme and no class room type stuff was allowed…

Games, Drama, Debates…. We had a blue print before the show was inaugurated and the rest was left to be decided LATER….

We will have sub teams.... lead by faculties and with students implementing it…one day one team… a week five teams… he said

I didn’t like the idea.. IT was MY show…I didn’t like this with Jesus… he made me the hero and launched me… I was just bathing under the glory of arc lights and attention when another 5 sub heroes suddenly came from nowhere….… this plot didn’t look good for the launch of a hero…

I but for want of a choice, kept quiet….

One day one team… I kept mumbling as I sat drawing up a plan….

It was silly.. this whole thing ..I knew but at that point of time, it was life and death and I did not want to die..

Simple !!