Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Chess board !!!

That was the last day of the annual campus placement season. GIM was no IIM and hence there was no placement week and no day zero’s and day one’s. It still was far better than many thousands of also ran B schools which never saw a corporate stepping in to select students for jobs… the last day the number of students attending the recruiting programme was quite less (others having got placement offers already)

I had just returned from my last but one class where contented faces gave me quite a respite….. I didn’t care whether they where relieved that finally it is over or whether they were actually in love with my classes… Cheerful professors sat, stood and shared jokes in the common area of the faculty room…for most, their teaching plans were hitting the last lines and in a day or two the teaching shops will close shutter and leave students for their study leave….

After the camaraderie and patch up that followed the big fight, it was all serene.. For a long time of a week, GIM looked like an ideal place to work.. People took care of their business, and I was slowly getting attuned to the change that Anand always prophesied would come.. Meeting happened between me and the HQ about my taking over the corporate relations team,( under Jesus of course) and after every meeting I got convinced why I should not walk into that trap. I but couldn’t say a no , in spite of the awareness that most of the problems in life came from either saying a yes too fast, or saying a no too late.. In my case the NO was an issue..

The announcement is coming today Prof Sukesh Menon… said Anand as we sat in the common area, sipping tea…

I knew… even with the fight and fury among my co prof’s in the back ground, my worry was the summoning to the Kings cabin…

The corporate relations team is being widened…. Prof Sukesh Menon will now be in charge of the 3 eye cell… said Anand as if he was the kings’ drummer…

Anand had gone mad. He didn’t even care that Ram was there just next to us, and as I dreaded he turned to me and said…. You know why? Prof Agarwal who was handling it has resigned … it is supposed to be secret … this guy left on incompatibility reason …….

I sat with a question mark blooming on my face …

With?... I asked quite a stupid question… at GIM all such areas as corporate relation fell under the direct regime of Jesus and the faculty who “coordinated “ it under him often has nothing much to do…At least that is what I understood till then ….

And you are simply walking in… said Ram as if he was reading a condolence message… he didn’t say that I was the first outsider to ever have had the good fortune to do this job (thankfully) !

Simply… !! HUH.. how dare he say that…I mumbled... I didn’t walk in simply….when I met them, I nodded and approved all the theory as to why it was “important for my career to also take care of the industry interaction part along with my teaching and whatever research I was doing”…

I smiled in endorsement of all the pep talk as to how good it would be to have a team of my great self, Jesus and the others in the I-I team.. I was all in concord to the gorgeous picture of GIM and its perfect I-I team. The only gap was mine and only I could fill it… The VC made the cake and Jesus topped it with his “you are my brother” icing… I hated such cakes but I ate them too often without any protest…

So that means…. ? I asked naively looking at Anand, as if he decided things, (but only after Ram left the place)…..

Anand didn’t blame my stupidity… I guess he was used to it by then,,,….

That means you are chosen because they think you have some compatibility with Jesus…

Jesus… I called out inadvertently...

How can be such a serious area handled with such laxity… I wondered as words fell out without my consent…

Laxity is your assumption suk.. said Anand and he sounded real… They are playing a game.. like chess ..until you can foresee some three moves at least in advance you possibly cannot survive…

I was flabbergasted .. I didn’t see so much of postulation and hypothesis behind my meeting the management and then again, I didn’t know them as Anand knew them …

The power to ideate, fantasise and assume makes man different from other animals.. said Anand…

Shut up.. I said….. you sound like you are the next Ram here… why do you see only negative… ?

Well dude,,,,, what is a positive without a negative? He asked…

I didn’t reply… I couldn’t win him in arguments …

You cannot defeat me possibly by your tit for tat…. I still said …

I don’t have to…. said Anand… you are doing it yourself…

Anand always told me - not every smile springs from a smile… at GIM for various reasons, smiles looked like smiles for me and if at all I read between the lips, I read it wrong…

I was being moved in the chess board ..I saw kings and queens who planned and executed strategy.. I saw brave soldiers who fought and died battles for some one else… I heard a lot of sound and fury, saw a lot of blood and dust!

But what the hell was a joker doing in the chess board?

GIM is back ...

After three months of silence that now looks strange to me, the GIM world is back.. read the new post here in some time...