Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Jesus Saves !!!

The 3 I cell in GIM was a dark and grumpy place .. The three souls that lived there ( along with a hell lot of lizards and cockroaches) knew only one boss and that was Jesus himself.. The first day of my adventure into the cave like dim lit place snubbed and pooh-poohed my thoughts and beliefs about the make of an industry interaction cell of a reputed B school.. It slapped on my face for having assumed that GIM actually meant it when from a large board that hung outside the cave it proclaimed.....“Industry Institute Interaction Cell”…

Post convocation is a lean season …all the familiar faces passed out , most of them joining their jobs, some of them taking a respite at their homes after having seen no life at GIM for two years.. Some of them joining their own business with an MBA tag.. Some quoting high prices in the marriage market with the tag and yet some jobless, hopeless and clueless in spite of the tag, or rather BECAUSE of the tag… GIM without its kids was a blank place and the immensity of the place added to the barrenness that glowered from classrooms and corners, from the canteen and the car park.. the noise was gone… a college without its students, was like a rose without its fragrance…

The teachers were all heavyhearted not because the kids had all gone but at GIM there was no concept of a vacation like in ordinary places… so even when the two – three months when the teaching shops where empty, the unfortunate teaching society had to languish in the frightening interiors of the huge place…

In a way it is better for the management to leave us on vacation .. said Ram as I came in to the faculty room where all my colleagues still sat.. I spend half my time in the 3 I cell with the lizards and cockroaches- they were far more amiable than the three odd faces that treated me as an alien and whenever I wanted to be normal , I climbed the stairs to reach the faculty office…

Why so? …… asked some one....

The idler we are, the more we gossip and statistics says that idle employees talk 90% about their management only….

And the rest 10 %? .. Anand asked..

Ram laughed and even before he could stop, I blurted out inadvertently.. May be rest 10 , they write letters about how if allowed they will change the system….

Ram didn’t laugh for this but all others did… I but didn’t hear the others; I just saw the power off in Ram’s face… I had a tint of regret but when I saw Anand and his positive reception I guess I quickly changed track…

Anand was still laughing when Dr Joseph came in calling for attention right from the door….

Now I have an announcement for all of you…he said…


Silence fell in the room as if Dr Joseph would have picked up the first guy who spoke and ask him to do a belly dance…

Just then Prof Cherian, the HOD also came in….

If winter comes can spring be far behind?.. mumbled Anand and needless to say, I produced an involuntary snicker…

ED puckered his brows at me, but didn’t venture to initiate a wrangle on that…

There was a representation made to the chairman asking for a vacation of one month for the faculty during the month of May –June.. he announced , for a moment immersed in the paper in hand and the next moment facing the audience, resembling a cow drinking from a bucket kept in its front

I looked Ram, so did many others, huh…in fact almost every one,,,… he was the regular letter writer after all.. He sat shocked at the atrocious unanimity with which the academics at GIM at a split second decided that if it is a letter, Ram would have written it… …

Now it is decided that a sabbatical of two weeks will be granted for the faculty on rotation basis and at the discretion of the respective heads of the departments… .. ED went on...

It sounded halfhearted and half complete… questions galore and I could hear more of laugh from the ED than answers and his typical laugh with air escapes and giggles in between was more irritating than the idiots at GIM who panicked around him…

I stood up and walked off…this is one thing I hated in my fellow academicians, all through an MBA programme the teacher tells the students to work hard, think of no vacations and stuff and now this scramble..No wonder why teachers never become what they make their students off…

For me it was a fore gone conclusion… the HOD and his oil face lurked in my mind… Cherian would play a foot ball with my request, if ever I made one, I knew….

Why should you ask Cherian..? Said Anand as we retired to my new office at the 3 I cell… Jesus is your boss…

He leads … said Anand with a smile… lead me oh Jesus.. Why don’t you lead me in the middle of the air, and if my wings should fail me, wont you give me another pair?

I laughed at his acting… he was flapping his hands like wings … he was singing like a kinder garden kid….

And you know what, there is an LTC in the offing.. a leave travel concession… GIM at last is waking up to its HR issues…Anand stopped his wing flapping…

I wouldn’t believe it… GIM would be one last place to think of its people as Human resources…if at all people are counted it would come as the last, after brick, mortar, and all the inanimate stuff that modern management considers as of least important in organization building…

My face sulked… more because of the thought of an unfair vacation season where I may have to work and less because I may have to work alone… Did I for a second, hate my decision to pick up quarrels with my HOD and be his enemy?

And hey … that is bad Suk… said Anand with an open smile… just a minute ago you accused THEM of being so naïve and kiddish that they want a vacation.. and now ..?

Anand left it unfinished.. I knew I had to begin from there…

I realised that I was just another one in the annoying crowd….. I wanted to go.. I wanted to break free and attain salvation and who else but Jesus could be the savior and the only route…