The Rules of Differentiation!!!

Anand again went on leave for his periodic check ups and medication.. I couldn’t get him to advise me every time I wanted to..If I was allowed I would have secretly video taped all events and meetings and show him to read between the lines, hear the unspoken among all the spoken words and unknot each smile,,, … Students were away on their study leave ,only to be seen in one’s and two’s, here and there…

It was during one of those days the announcement came. The annual increments for the ten best faculty and the best teacher award (that the king had promised) were announced. I could hear murmur when (in an unusual style) an office note that passed from cabin to cabin by the hands of Jhansi William, declared the winner who was a dark horse that emerged from nowhere… I guessed the mumble was both about the person and the method of communication…

For the normal, it would be a search in to find their name in the list.. it was money and more over there was no point in being there if you couldn’t be in the first ten,,, But at GIM everyone weird and wonderful… people clamored and discussion started right in the spot .. the paper refused to move from cabin to cabin… it got lost some where but didn’t matter, everyone knew the content..

The fortunate ones smiled, the less fortunate ones garbled and the doubtful ones, with no pre agenda and notice, assembled at the common area of the faculty room…

I didn’t smile or stupor… I for sure knew that I wasn’t the best of teachers, but could have easily placed my self in the first ten.. Among the 40 odd teachers at the B school, but in reality,I was not in the first ten and I didn’t complain.. I didn’t bother to read the list again… for me it was only the case of a missing name- mine…

Sri Laxmi joined me at the canteen… I knew she will start the topic..Why? What? Did you know and all the stuff.. But she didn’t .. she sat like that was no news at all…

Women always amuse me by their strange demeanor … you could never predict them… She didn’t ask or talk anything and strangely I felt odd.. I wanted her to initiate the talk so that I could lash out.. may be growl at the mammoth system like a dog barking on darkness … she but chose to remain like a mobile phone.. ring only when she is not expected to, and not to ring when she is badly anticipated to… Miserable !!!

Your problem is simple.. she said at last, leading to the topic…see me.. I am not worried because I didn’t expect.. where there is no desire , there is no despair..

She had a “am I not great” look in her eyes which glistened.. her stupid philosophy didn’t entreat me to reply but her logic did…. Where is she and where is ME?

What the heck? ............I almost shouted… I didn’t desire for anything.. and even if I did what is the harm..? I know I deserve it…

She giggled…. Sir you know what.. you are contradicting … you didn’t desire it but you know you deserve it and now you have gone desperate …

I didn’t speak, for loss of words for sure and the sight of good old Prof Ram coming in to the canteen…

He walked straight to us… I knew you would be here.. he announced even as he was only half way through…

It didn’t take a genius to guess my where about in times of stress.. stress.. Why should I be stressed.. WTF? ..........I kept telling my boiling mind…

Don’t you think that the whole thing is a sham..?

Ram said as he sat, with a smile of having proven his postulate of "Nothing will change in GIM"…

You mean the award..? asked Sri Laxmi as if she didn’t know the art of speculation…

Of course….. Said Ram with a thump on the table… what is the criteria, I am asking?

Asking whom… ? .....I said to myself…
Me, who only know to run to the canteen revengefully to eat banana fries when driven to a corner ?
Or this stupid girl who never ever wanted to be a teacher in the first place?

He answered to that mind talk of mine… I know you are the wrong person but was wondering whether you still think that these guys can get anything right…

I told him a feeble NO but Ram as usual could see me.. why Ram, any one could read my face like a comic book…

I don’t want it to sound like – you didn’t give me the award so I rebel… said Ram.. but the criteria should be transparent…

Ram was in the list of Best Ten… so I guess he didn’t dispute that part… the criteria of the best teacher award was the only issue … HUH….. I said to myself and took another banana fry to eat…oil dripped from each piece like my HOD’s face…

Each banana fry, for me represented the sullied system.. I knew it is bad but I was in it….
I couldn’t fight it, hence I ate it…

I stood up even as Sri Laxmi looked perplexed and Ram clearly agitated…

Where are you going? … asked Sri Laxmi visibly shaken at my irreverence …

To my cabin.. I said with ridicule… I have to work hard.. I have to be in the number ten list at least next year…

I didn’t look back as I walked out with a thud which later on looked to me like too much of drama for the wrong cause, enacted to the wrong people… The apple cart that Anand used to talk about was upside down… I didn’t care what Anand would have said to this reaction…. Being an ardent fan of the likes of Stephen Covey –he would have said some absurd thing like “it’s how you react to an issue which makes the issue look important”

Suddenly even the theory of relativity that I used to rely on every time a student feed back is taken also looked invalid…Some strange rules of differentiation were being applied.. if f(x) = x n then ..HUH….. I never got it right….

Suddenly, I saw a plot… shady figures devising stratagem to unseat me… I saw slimy and oily shapes of all sizes descending down and dancing around my very existence.. Their holler and cry broke the silence,,, their long and foul tentacles stabbing through the gruesome darkness caught me….I didn’t want awards and increments… I cried….just let me go…. please…

If it was not for Jhansi William who woke me up ,I would have cried out loud….or did I?

Sir.. there is a meeting at the chairman’s cabin… every one has gone….she said looking at me as if she was a kid who just came out of a scary house and I was the operator...

I looked around.. no dirty creatures as in tooth paste ads… no heart breaking laughter.. no friends and foes.. I was all alone and for the first time I felt good ……for a change, silence and darkness didn’t threaten me, at least not as much as the maddening crowds that lived there....