Thursday, January 29, 2009

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?

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