The best on Indian B schools----Strategic management and the chicken curry...!!!

The subject expert - part I

2011-02-10T20:18:00.000+05:30

Dr Joseph the ED , the VC, the family (the father, the son and the Holy Spirit) and some of the top most of the GIM team were huddled together on the first day of re-opening… The entire junior batch was there in attendance in their new role as seniors. I found almost every face- and why not?.... GIM didn’t allow leave letters and no grand mothers could die and no uncles could be hospitalized when GIM had work…

Ram came frantically to me as I stood in the main portico exchanging pleasantries with the kids who came back after some life- most of them looking their age and refreshed.

Have you got a copy of the time table? .... Ram crash landed near me….

I didn’t have and I didn’t bother… You mean the new semester?..... Was my immediate response…

Yeah the one beginning today – said Ram, suddenly smiling at the boys and girls standing around me , as if he hadn’t seen them before the sudden flight he took down to the portico.

May be the meeting is all about that …. I said ... and in any case I don’t think they will have classes today….

Ram gave me a HAVE YOU GONE BONKERS look!!!........ GIM and NO CLASSES? ….Impossible..!

Finally by 9 30 am the time table came out , the papers were more or less the same ( children who insist in crying gets the milk- and hence my papers weren’t touched) and then by 10 am the auditorium was full with welcome speeches , experience sharing and the stuff….. I kept off from most of them except when the situation demanded my presence… Like for instance when Jesus called me to the meeting room inside the HQ which happened to be in the ice cold North Pole.

Some things had changed in GIM like the Madam secretary who now learned to smile at people, particularly me as I walked in and out of the HQ..(when I was with Jesus the Smile went even broader) . ( to make a confession) I used to walk into HQ just for the heck of it and then walk out just to see her smile- not that it was one great smile which a man like me would walk up and down for, but then it was great to see a moron queen coming down to smile at lesser mortals….

Back to Jesus and his call… When I walked in we had the HOD Prof Cherian .. Huh..! I hate to call him a Prof, just Cherian would do, the VC who was long missing in action, and Dr Joseph – the ED …. Again it looked like a blame storming session or even some enquiry commission or whatever the hell… My heart went a torpedo dive until the evangelists voice woke me up….

Here we have the subject expert ........said Jesus quite animatedly…

One thing was clear… the subject cannot be women or bitching as Dr Joseph was there already , It couldn’t be politics or back stabbing as the oil faced HOD was there in full glory, it couldn’t be hiring and firing either as the ace VC was there as well… The subject expert sat down in a chair given to him…

Jesus laid down a file before me….

GIM is going for a repositioning .. he told me like a Marketing expert…. ( now that is the 'subject' in question !!! I sighed as I relaxed in the chair )

I didn’t get a thing from the file.......may be I was too much of an expert or may be my expertise was only a piece of fiction…

Mixed pieces of roughly made ad copies were arranged in the file in some random order.. Each one looked different and had various conflicting tones and hues but three things were common in all the 5 ad copies that I saw in the file…

The BIG GIM building, crammed full copy, and an endless parade of bullet points ….

I didn’t read it, as I threw the file in disgust.. well almost in disgust I must say... … It couldn’t be true for me… at least you can’t call it 'repositioning' – saying the same stuff that you had been saying for ages and that too making it even more grubbier ….

The idea is to make a mark above the rest.. said the VC in his Oxford English ( I guessed that he would have written the copy of the ads as well) …

Dealing with competition.. said the HOD and even before he could finish it the VC shot into his mouth…

You cant call it competition Cherian, WE do not have any ...... we lead and the rest just follow…

Jesus had a smile which showed a tint of arrogance, a very rare one for the evangelist ..

Emboldened by the smiley approval of the Prince, the old man continued.. I pity those guys if they suppose that they are competing with us… he talked liked a medieval noble whom I have seen in plenty in English drama…

I sat silent reminded of the lessons on competition that we taught the kids at GIM.. They knew better than these grand oldies, but then that was the rule of nature- the one who know wouldn’t be the one who decide…

Cherian sat silent as well, having got his mouth full, and the ED sat looking at me as if he finally had agreed that I was a subject expert indeed.

Why are we thinking of a repositioning? …..I asked Jesus breaking the deadlock…

Times have changed,… said Jesus quite confidently and then......... he dragged… … or may be I can.. errr ummm uhhhh … I guess it’s time to have a new image for GIM …

The three musketeers nodded their heads… I even heard some sounds from my HOD’s head, could be that it’s because it was the emptiest of them all..!

What’s the current image of GIM in that case sir? … I asked the panel and for the first time in this meeting I felt to be on the winning side….

Silence in competition with even more silence…

Among whom is the question… the ED tried to complicate….

That is simple..... sir…. among whom do you want to reposition, among them what is the current image of GIM ?… I said sitting straight and looking into the devilish eyes of the VC.. He never looked at men eye to eye and whenever some one locks eyes with his, he will look up and down…This time I was but sure that he will not… wherever he went, I followed…

Is that very important and information for this exercise?....... Cherian asked a smart question …

The Marketing 'HOD' that he was, I would have slapped his face for his “knowledge” of Marketing had I been sitting in the chair that Jesus so very prince fully adorned…

It is not very important sir – I said dramatically….. I would say it is the only important thing at this juncture as far as this repositioning 'exercise' is concerned..

Jesus seemed to agree, not fully though…. I wasn’t sure of the copy writers and pen pullers and I didn’t care either about their state of faces…

The meeting was dispersed even before tea and hot banana fry made appearance and that was highly untypical of a GIM meeting…

I am taking this file sir.. I told Jesus before walking out.. It may take a whole night to read all these ads…

Jesus got the message pretty fast.. I looked back while closing his cabin door and he flashed a smile - this time a plain one with no tone or tint of arrogance.....

The begining of the end !!!

2011-01-24T16:47:00.003+05:30

Vacation time was more than normal for me.. I was the only one senior (?) faculty in GIM who worked (??) through the two weeks when others stayed off and probably lived life…

I sat jaded with morons and oil faces instead…. Missed Anand and Sri Laxmi, Missed Ram (Strange but true!!!) and missed the cacophony that made the GIM faculty room….

Every day I would come, report to Jesus who will take me around for a walk, occasionally to the sea side where he will take a fag and then a walk to the canteen … we looked like lovers who had just got proposed some hours back, as we walked together, laughed and was seen blissful in the company of the other.. Jesus kept telling me the ‘you are like my brother’ thing, I knew it’s a lie and yet as the principle of Joseph Goebbels goes, the more he repeated it the more I fell in love with it.. I even saw a dream where I was driving a BMW X 5 and was received with a salute at the GIM portico .. (You should have seen my arrogance and pomp as I walked with a laugh )and suddenly a huge piece of meat roll, from nowhere, fell with a thud on to my proud and thus held high head …. I woke up violently and with a huge cry in my bed… The flesh mass had resemblance to the face of the KING….

Early morning dreams, they say will come true… HUH !

Prof Cherian called me to his cabin through the intercom as I sat in mine fighting darkness at the 3-I cell in the ground floor. HOD used to keep away from me for the last few months ever since the big quarrel with me and Anand and hence the call came as a shocker…

His cabin has this large HOD board ‘declaring’ that this guy didn’t expect it and when he got this bonus of a tag, he simply couldn’t resist but keep announcing it…

I visualized him moving around the campus with a huge tag around his neck with “HOD” written large and bold in it as I walked in and had a funny smile on my face..

So you didn’t get a vacation … he asked me as if he didn’t know of it…

And I guess you didn’t get one as well.. I asked poking him for the fact that he still came in every day in spite of 'being on vacation'…

He didn’t hang on that……. Did I want him to? I guess I did… huh….!. How I hoped that he did wage a war with me- the oil faced pseudo academic jerk!!!!

There are certain important changes that the management is envisaging … he told me without connecting to my eyes.. He looked every where except my eyes as if my face was something which he cannot tolerate..

If I could sit there seeing his horrible oily face, he very well could look into mine and talk….. HUH again!!!

There is an MBA course coming up.. he said… a university affiliated program unlike our current PGDM batches…

In GIM? … I asked cutting him short…

Would I talk to you about some neighbouring college? …….He kind of mocked me.. Since the bugger had a point there , I stayed put…… Stupid me !

There is a group of KEY faculty that the management is planning to allocate to form the core team of the new course.. Words fell off him, and a special emphasis on the KEY word…

I sensed trouble and could feel a rush of adrenalin on me.. drum beats and some sort of a wild roar…. I knew I shouldn’t panic…. Why should I ?......There was no reason to panic -I told a sweating myself and had to tell a bit loud as my heart beats grew large, like the growing sounds of the college band..

Come to the point you ass.. I kept repeating like a mantra (to myself) and he said…… Needless to say Sukesh, you are one among the key people who will set up the new GIM-SOB …

GIM what? …I dropped my jaws… more than the news of my moving to set up some new God damn enterprise under the GIM flag, its name pierced my ears..

GIM School of Business … Cherian clarified… that is what they would be calling the new entity.. they are starting it right across the garden, next to the canteen building..

Thanks sir.. Let me see what I can do…..I said and stood up abruptly, sending a shiver down the oil tanker…

If I could obey my mind, I would have spit on his board outside his cabin..

HOD - Head of all Dickheads……it trumpeted……

Ding… my chat box threw a pop up as I sat in the spruced up 3 I cell. (Did I tell you how I got rid of the grumpiness of the institute industry interaction cell by ordering….err requesting….. for some lighting up, new painting and some new furniture…That was my major or the only work during the vacation…. I wanted to throw away the morons (as well) who sat there supposedly to assist me but in real to eavesdrop and tittle-tattle. Now that is my plans for the second round of reforms in the 3 I cell…) ..

Now back to the chat box…..

Anand said…. Hey Suk … Congrats….

For what? … I typed some how even as the wild roar sounded to me again and drum beats went to an ugly crescendo …

Oh.... as if you don’t know…. Typed the ass^%&* and added a smiley …:)

I knew it was the SOB thing…. Now the world is going to laugh and I am going to SOB… SOB?..... I asked

WTF? .. he replied….

Well ... guess he hadn’t heard of SOB and I had no intention to discuss it with him until I met Jesus….

GIM becomes the first ever Business school to have provided a car each to its teachers… said Anand…

A car each? When ? where? … for a moment I thought that Joy and co had decided to go liberal and gift a car each as loyalty bonus to the academic herd of GIM…

I forgot SOB; now that I was getting a free car I was ready to SOB or even to be taken for any God damn ride!!!

Back again..!!!

2011-01-24T15:17:00.001+05:30

Its been almost 6 months that I haven't cooked the chicken curry ...... Work, health and family all had its role in my inertia but it was the same old laziness that kept me off from the spicy world of Chicken curry.. Hope to be here till its over !!!!

Loyalty bonus !!!

2010-06-04T10:41:00.008+05:30

At GIM three things were always notable..

The sword of discipline that hung over every head and the strange time sense…

The smiling face of Dr Joy hanging at the reception (in frames that is), which welcomed the visitor….

And the seemingly endless display of cars at the campus… the posh ones driven and /or kept by the management and the lesser expensive and economy ones by the teachers and others in the campus…

Dr Joy liked to see the cars in display as if in a car yard and hence no cars were allowed to be parked in shades.. Ludicrous it was but it was GIM and for him that again was part of brand building… the more cars parked across the campus, the richer GIM will look, he believed …

It was brooding hot in the morning when I parked my humble vintage Maruthi in the line of cars just outside the main building of GIM ….. Two days had gone after the vacation news was out and ever since that was the only talk of the town…. Faculty at GIM behaved as if they are going to attain heaven soon after the vacation..

After all they got two weeks off ... off the huge gates, walls that had ears, spies, oily faces, cameras that could be seen and the ones that couldn’t be, giggles and peeping toms… Two weeks off to sense and then again (alas!!!) they had to be back…

I had met Jesus the last evening and he had promised me a meeting the next day..… and when I walked into the GIM building I had only Jesus in mind and suddenly didn’t see Manohar as he passed me…

How are you doing Professor … he asked me … I didn’t exactly hear what he asked but once he did I looked back ,threw Jesus out of my mind and gasped….

Eh? … I didn’t know what to say ….. I didn’t hear him and since it was Manohar who spoke to the lesser mortals of GIM only once or twice a year I was confused……

I guess I said a weak good morning as he shook my hands…

There is a faculty interview happening and you will be in the panel … he said… the management has decided to include faculty members in the panels so that they get to select their future colleagues ….

I was aghast…

1.It was GIM and any such thing was unheard of.

2.It was the domain of the father, son or the holy spirits but not the son in law..

3.The emblematic question.. Why me?

I still was a pseudo loyal who looked like a loyal … this was the GIM way of rewarding loyalty … a loyalty bonus … you get to sit in the panel with the king and co and ask questions to aspiring faculty members of GIM.. Hurray.. !!!

After throwing my bag and books into my pigeon hole, I searched for Anand.. He was nowhere visible…I did see only Ram but choose to be away from him… at GIM even walls had ears that could decode even gasps, sighs and heart beats and I didn’t want them to hear mine…

I tried to meet Jesus before the process ( to talk vacation) but when I was asked (finally) to meet him he was already in the panel… the king in the centre, the VC on his left, the ED on his right, Manohar, Jesus, and the last seat kept vacant…

The King’s chamber opened before me, once Madam secretary gave the clearance.. My heart beat went up as if I was being interviewed for my first job…

The panel had an enormous smile… Jesus stood up and walked to me , almost hugged me and lead me to my chair next to him….

I felt my eyes wet.. NO ...I didn’t cry but I felt so very indebted to the family, that for a moment I signed a bond with them, to be theirs for ever…

Thank you sir.. I told Jesus… this is such an honour…

He smiled evangelically and touching my hands slowly said… I told you, you are more than a sub ordinate or colleague to me…

Interview processes at GIM was a funny affair.. some Prof X walked in with so and so years of academic experience and when it was time to discuss his Salary or package as it was called , the VC would put a rider.. See Prof X, we would ideally be wanting some one with more of industrial experience than academics.. You don’t seem to fit the bill, seeing from that angle…

X would puncture like a balloon exposed to the summer sun.. once he gets defensive, the deal would be struck…

When Y comes in with a truck load of Industry experience and almost none in teaching, and unload all of it with pride before the panel, the track would change…

The VC would say … that is amazing Y but we would be ideally (Sic!) looking for some one with some more academic exposure… You would agree that you are lacking in that area…

The rest is history… another deflated balloon, another heavy catch for half the quoted price, another round of smiles and mutual admiration…

That afternoon when finally it was over and as we walked out Jesus asked me to meet him in his cabin….

I am sure you know how to keep secrets.. he told me as he sat in his huge chair and gestured me to sit in mine.. His gadgets shown as flickering lights, his mobile phones, PDA set, this and that, wired and unwired habiliments that he wore as a decoration lay here and there on his table …

I was not sure about what secret he was referring to…

The proceedings in the interview room… he told me with a smile… not even Anand should know…

I had an uncomfortable grin… It was clear what he meant….

And yes you wanted to talk to me something… he suddenly reminded…

Oh yes… me.. I mean.. I am.. I stuttered and searched for words… I couldn’t talk ‘vacation’ to him … For the time being I was happy .. no vacation could bring me such a bliss…

Jesus Saves !!!

2010-05-19T11:53:00.009+05:30

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…

All the King's men !!!

2010-02-25T15:51:00.001+05:30

The annual convocation day.

The big wigs of GIM in convocation attire- long robes with all its silk and golden brocades, the hoods, head caps and its golden tassel danglers, the paraphernalia and pomp which every one seem to mirth at , the marching tunes, the rows of students in black robes with golden borders which but by design stood way behind the ones their teachers and the management wore , the smiles , the hugs, the relief in faces that were about to escape, the contented parents, the dinner waiting, the photographs, and the long speeches that was waiting to be vomited from the big guns that sat fully loaded on the stage and finally the moment when each student walks up to the stage with his head held high , shaking hands with the guest and takes his or her certificate and pausing for a photograph…for the ‘convocated’ it was a perfect ending for a not so perfect journey …

Teachers beamed from their seats as the function began. I sat in the second row with Prof Ram next to me and Sri Laxmi just in front. I could see Dr Joseph running up and down with his Aide-de-camp, the oil faced HOD as if they were organizing the whole thing and as if without them, none of the 370 odd kids would pass out that day.

Ram scratched my thighs and said… pretension of the highest order… it is not important how you work, but it is important how you show you work!

Life is a show sir.. I said philosophically......some are show masters

And some just sit and watch … said Ram smilingly…He wanted to scratch again but I skillfully dragged my thighs out of his antenna’s reach…

Ladies and gentlemen .. came Anand’s voice….Welcome to the 16 th annual convocation of God’s institute of management…

Anand was in his best as the anchor … Every year the onus fell on to some faculty .. many have done it but never with the grace and surge like Anand did the MC job… he has immaculate English , with its intonation and accent so spotless and precise , wisdom, wit and words flowing like a clear stream …….

After the long speeches of all and sundry who sat on the stage, the dictums and sermons on life and secrets to success, it was Dr Joy -the King’s turn…

I knew his speech almost word by word…at least the idea remained unchanged year after year and I switched off… I was already hungry… the sounds of my stomach was much more appealing than the empty hum that the unceremoniously fat grand master of the GIM circus delivered that evening…

The best part of the convocation this year was you sir… the kids seem to unanimously declare as they crowded around Anand after the official function and vied to click photographs with him… I walked around unwanted by the photo mongers and feigning to be unperturbed by the flicker and flash that people in robes and their entire din created…As Anand put it once, it wasn’t entertaining to pass off like a ship in the middle of the night…

Looking dull… said Sri Laxmi, as she struggled with a big piece of chicken that refused to plunge into her plate…

And you look quite active.. I said mockingly even when I had my eyes planted at her attempts to get the chicken piece into a ladle spoon and then to her plate with elegance …

You women are quite adamant … I said.. why don’t you take another piece and give way to others..

She wouldn’t listen and tried with even more ferocity as if I was standing there for the same chicken piece… and bang… ! it launched itself to her plate with a thud and with a large gobbet flying and landing on her gold and pink sari…

I laughed and she fumed… For me the best part of the convocation this year was not the show which was done, but this one…

Anand joined us after the photo session but by then we had almost reached the end of our dinner… Sri Laxmi had washed the oil and gravy stains in her sari, which but remained as a shocking reminder of her failed adventure with a bowl of hot chicken curry…

This is awesome .. said Anand .. to see so many happy faces, so many young guys and gals walking into corporate life… I feel so proud….

I didn’t speak; instead I concentrated on the ice-cream…

You no longer go to the gym isn’t it ?.. said Sri Laxmi…

I do….. every month I go and pay the months fees… I said and laughed at my own joke..

Anand and Sri Laxmi that night, either had gone down drastically in their humour appreciation skills, or they had a ploy not to encourage my crude sense of humour.. not any more…

And you don’t feel happy seeing our happy faces… I said with a large globe of ice-cream stuck in my throat …its not every day that GIM gives its subjects such sumptuous feasts…

Anand looked me, and making sure that his fiancé has her attention elsewhere furtively whispered.. FUCK U !!!

The ice cream globe went in with ease !

Ah…. Here is our man… in came the voice of the king who came in with his entourage…. They were still wearing the convocation robes as kids would wear their school dancing dress all the way back home, after the school day…. We stood up- half in amazement at the sudden royal interference and half in reverence ….

Great job professor Anand Mohan… said the king as he first extended his arms to an unsuspecting Anand who still had a glass of juice in his left hand and a spoon on the other.

Then the King hugged the MC of the day and proceeded for dinner with all his palanquin bearers following him.

Sri Laxmi started giggling the moment the group left , and I joined her, much to Anand’s dismay … The group went from corner to corner and table to table , throwing pleasantries at parents and their wards , a shake hand or two to the teachers and the guests and then proceeding to attack the food counter… I could see Jesus clung to his mobile phone most of the time and couldn’t see Manohar- his brother in law who was noted for his absence.. after all such occasion are where the King’s family show cased their unity in diversity..

The Maharajah’s of Mysore ..I said to Sri Laxmi in a hush tone … on a given day every year used to visit their subjects like this…

Sri Laxmi raised her eye brows…

Anand filled in… that was on Dusshera Suk .. and they used to go naked…..

Sri Laxmi sat shocked…and I said..

But I am sure that one would have looked far decent…

And then she laughed… her ice cream fell all over the place, and still she laughed and she almost fell down.. Anand tried to hold her arms but she slipped and fell, this time really down from where she was still laughing……

Anand stood there like an idiot, with one hand up with the spoon still in it and the other one scratching his ass!

The grand commander !!!

2010-02-16T09:40:00.005+05:30

It was my day one in the corporate relations office at GIM which they called the 3I cell...... I was quite hesitant like a kid on his first day to school…As Woody Allen put it, a school for mentally disturbed teachers…...

First of all I looked like an uninvited guest there.. the staff who till that day had seen only Jesus as their boss, were amused by the fact that for the first time they will have a boss sitting there ( or an Ass who pretended to be the Boss) amidst them, probably making sure that they worked… it was out of Jesus’ insistence, that I agreed to sit there half the day in spite of my insentience ….In fact it was full day as per my bosses wish and , I would change my location from the faculty room to the corporate relations office in the 4th floor…I insisted otherwise as I couldn’t even think of a life outside my pigeon hole cabin in the large faculty room.. with all its geo-political grubbiness , if I were to be in GIM, I would prefer to sit there,,,

I had the gumption to tell Jesus that I am basically a teacher and do not prefer to be in an admin seat from dawn to dusk…

Jesus had a laugh.. An all encompassing laugh with which he bestowed the half a day charity upon me…

From day one I began judging the tree by the fruits of it, or the lack of them… I knew I wouldn’t make much of a difference but was amused by the lack of any system in what I thought was one basic pillars in the success of a B school…

Not even proper files.. I told Anand as we walked into the canteen, as if I could give him a shock…I often forgot that Anand was much more realistic than I ever could be…

And hopeless data base… I remember your worrying about the alumni meet… I went on… In fact GIM do not have a data base of its alumni… 15 years in this business.. just imagine where the first batches would have reached,,,, just imagine if properly solicited , where can this place reach…

My discovery ran goose bumps in me, but Anand sat as if he had discovered the wheel years back and was even given the Nobel for it.. I was just reinventing it… He kept sipping his carrot juice…

Carrot juice is good for the skin.. he said… and it keeps you young….

I was for sure not amused, not even an inch for his words of wisdom unconnected to the topic of discussion..

He saw my angst…

You are not there to take a stock of what we don’t have...... why don’t you make it.. let history speak of Prof Sukesh Menon , who bought some sense and system to the hitherto unruly world of industry interaction at GIM…

I beamed....

I was already in a stage where arc lights threw abundance of light on me, where flowers showered all the fragrance on me,where crowds sang my eulogy in all joy,where my name was unveiled in a huge roll of silk that came down and flashes from camera lights jostled to get the image first…

The King turned back after unveiling…he was wearing a crown and a bundle of diamond studded knick-knacks…. his heaps of unemployed fat dangled from everywhere and it moved as he turned his back… Dr Joseph and Prof Cherian- the HOD, stood left and right with daggers and spears, as if they are two Gurkha orderly officers, and as if they were the other name of valor.. Cherian looked a bit too polite… unnecessarily polite I must say…

The King took his huge sword and as I knelt on the investiture stool, he touched my right and then left shoulder with his sword and said.. I ordain you as a lord of all the land and seas in my command and proclaim you as the grand commander of the GIM empire….

I guess I laughed, and Anand had to hit my shoulder quite hard and made me crash land…

Two students of the senior batch walked in , and walked to us.. when I saw them amidst the pain that my dear friend left on my shoulder they were almost next to us…

The senior batch is giving a thanks party sir…. One of them said-I had forgotten the name.. and we are here to invite you…

Hey … Anand exclaimed in joy as if he was a kid an his dad just offered him a trip to Disney land … that is so cooooooooollllllllllllllllll …. I always told you are one awesome batch…

That is some thing every teacher tells his passing out batch… Huh.. I sighed in disgust….
Anand stared at me for a spilt second at my contemptuous sigh and my even more condescending looks and then returned to the invitation committee…

This is after the farewell or with it? - He asked …

After the farewell sir.. said the other guy ,whose name(again) was in the tip of my tongue but refused to come out…

This is between us and the faculty… They said as they handed over two copies of hand written invite cards to us…farewell is given to us by the juniors….

Anand had a rewarded laugh on his face….

Thanks Gopi and thanks Suhail… said Anand standing up and shaking hands with them and then hugging them….

Oopppsss!!!! that was Suhail Khan and I didn’t remember his name….

Haven’t you been to a party before? ....I asked him in disdain …

Anand was still in his carrot juice… He didn’t bother to reply…

I cannot understand some thing.. I said ……I hate all the pretensions and we will miss your batch talk… we really dont miss them ..do we?

Anand gave me an Oh you do? Looks…

When we were walking back to the main building, Anand still hadn’t talked…. when he talked, he talked like a river… it’s had a lot of waves and whirlpools, but when he stayed silent he looked like the sea… vastly unpredictable and much more dangerous…..

As I was packing my bags that evening, I saw his Orkut status update which said…

“Some people never understand, some….. never want to understand”

In Hot and Sour chicken soup !!!

2010-01-12T09:57:00.003+05:30

It gets funny when adults behave like kids.. most of us know that but quite often we do not… If we sit and watch unconnected, most of the games people play would look toddle like, and some times even worse…

GIM after the awards looked like a crèche where kids played unperturbed by the outsiders world… I for a few days was one among them, refusing to come to terms with the fact that I hadn’t got a toy which some other kids in the crèche had been given to play with and hence I wouldn’t talk to them- any of them … I sat alone most of the time as if I was practicing the role of Devdas the lost lover, sans the bottle of course… it was naïve but for me to realize the extent of my naiveté, Anand had to come back…

Exams had begun and as usual at GIM the teachers who supervised were more strained than the kids who wrote their papers…the ubiquitous camera that made instant actors, forced us to be in our toes- as Johnie walker ads would say- keep walking…

On the second day of exams, when I came to my cabin after handing over the days answer sheets, remaining question papers and all the stuff to the exam department,there lingered a strong smell of denim.. Anand was back, I knew… …

What about a lunch out Suk? ......He asked me as we met… He looked far better than he was when he left fifteen days back… he still was a poor version of his earlier self but for me, Anand by then ,was some one who was more important than his looks were.. he had slowly walked over the definition of charm and charisma… even with his frail figure and bald head he was as alluring as with his David posture and macho looks…

When you hug me… he said .... I feel a lot relieved..

I laughed and said… it should have been my dialogue.. you snatched it from my lips you @#$%^&*…

Sri Laxmi drove her car and surprisingly chose to remain silent…..she was a slow driver and every time we traveled with her at the wheels, Anand showered his consummate sense of humor on women driving quite unkindly and she used to reply in her usual aggression… That day but, she was neither the same chatterbox who she generally was, nor the tit for tat specialist that she was with me…

What if you get an offer from another B school? … Anand asked me suddenly, catching me quite raw with my reaction…

Another B school? ….

Yeah……said Anand… a better one.. a better managed one, where dining tables and board tables would not be the same, where jerks don’t do things at the whims and fancies and still call it management, where they teach management and practice it as well…

GIM was none of this, and I know that ….but …..

Sri Laxmi and her car had taken us to the restaurant …

I didn’t dare to restart the topic.. I know Anand would…

Sitting with his soup bowl he did as I anticipated… his eyes, which once had an unusual glitter now had gone deep inside… his head showed signs of his hair coming back but his wavy hair that would flutter in the breeze was for sure missing…….

Would it be wrong if I say that you have gone jealous…? He asked me, in a voice which but was sharper than ever before, as I was taking in my first spoon of hot and pepper chicken soup…

It got stuck… the soup and the question….a drops of tear each, from my eyes made it impossible to see anand, again because of the soup as well as the question….

Jealous of…?.... I managed to ask finally, leaving the soup on the table….

May be every one, except me…he said….

I am not .. I protested… yeah ....you deserve to be in the ten, but not many of the others,,,,,

Is that your problem, or the fact that you are not in there… He again asked as Sri Laxmi sat stirring her spicy parsnip and carrot soup bowl, as if she was hunting for some treasure….

Both are same.. I said as even as he stopped me …

No .. he said firmly…. and you know that…..

I didn’t know that but now I knew that there was a me in me that I didn’t see, but he did…

I deserve to be there Anand… I said … that is my only problem….

You know why you are not there? ... he asked unabashed....

I didn’t know… I wanted to know though…

We teach in a B school Suk… here the kids learn from us in the class but more than that from outside the class…. Anand said as if I didn’t know that basic funda of B school teaching….

I gave him a "PLEASE DON’T GIVE ME A LECTURE" look…

I know you know that.. he said with a smile…. But you don’t know that outside the class you are a zero… you haven’t left a mark on the minds of the kids….you couldn’t be a role model for them… you couldn’t stand up in their minds when they think of a teacher they adore…. Anand Mohan could easily be that but my pleasure will be the day when Sukesh Menon does it…

I had my eyes wet again, this time not for the soup….. I had long forgotten it, it wasn’t leaving any nice tingle in my mouth… he hadn’t say anything new.. I knew that, and yet I didn’t know any of it….

Sri Laxmi continued her treasure hunt in the soup bowl , even as Anand finished his soup and the bearer came to take further orders….

Forget EMEP, forget all the dreams to change the system.. but remember Operation applecart.. he told me holding my hands,,,, You have the thing in you Suk…. You just have to see it… hold a mirror to your inner self…

I didn’t need a mirror.... with Anand sitting opposite, I really didn’t….

Forget Management … he said and called the waiter.... let's order some Chicken curry !!!!

The Rules of Differentiation!!!

2010-01-06T10:54:00.006+05:30

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....

The Chess board !!!

2009-12-29T17:00:00.001+05:30

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 ...

2009-12-29T16:42:00.001+05:30

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

The birthday boy - Part II

2009-09-25T10:17:00.005+05:30

The debate wasn’t yet over! It had just begun ,but how would one predict the future at that point of time when from the Kings chamber people came out ,all in smiles and shaking hands…

It was not an angry sermonizing from the majesty’s side with all of us including the mighty samurais who fought, in thoughtful listening… the king took a “Look you are all professors, who am I to advise you” tone, which I thought showed him as shaken…

Professor Ram was asked to speak to which he said he was thankful( as if he was giving a thanks giving speech after having got the Best teacher award) and went on to describe how for Professor Mathew everything what others did, he did in particular,was wrong…

Everything? ......asked Jesus with a kid like face.. His black face was an abode of expressions and he was a first-rate actor..

One day Anand Mohan applied some body spray before he was walking to a class… said Ram…Prof Mathew shouted at him for that….

People looked into the oil tanker as if he was a gang rape accused sitting in the trial room..

Anand was sitting next to me and he nodded his head in acceptance.. yeah My HOD did that .. his nod said…

He makes fun of my articles and research papers and terms it well packed nonsense… said Ram, making the crowd laugh.. I am sure the terminology went well even with the king and his left and rights, as I could see a giggle running amok for a second and then bhoomm… evaporating…

Professor Mathew Cherian remained soundless, quite oddly, given his character he should have by now stood up and put another brawl…

It is a problem even if we have some loud talk.. said Ram, this time looking at me… I mean it is a faculty room; interactions are bound to happen… the management does not expect us the teachers to work in water tight compartments do you?

The management didn’t reply… did they expect us or didn’t they? No one said and Ram didn’t seem to expect a reply either….

The HOD looked like some one, a moron who despised people talking to each other, a tyrant who detested free flow of ideas, voice, noise and people, a despot who even hated the smell of denim..

“What a mischievous sprite!!!!” I was sure people would have branded him…

It was interesting… the whole process.. At GIM such things were new.. the fighting among the faculty was new because there was a common enemy always – the HQ – with whom every one fought at least in the war zones inside their own minds…. The trial was even more amusing where every one sat, people spoke and every one listened….

What you think will happen?...... Anand asked me…

I shrugged.. I missed my note pad where I expressed better than I did in my face…. I was not an evangelist after all!!!

I told you things will change… Apple cart is running…

This is not your change.. I ridiculed him… this is mere accidence...

Think before you talk Suk… Anand smiled… the fight was an accident, not the reaction to it…

He probably had a point…

What an amazing birthday for you dude.. he said and smiled ….

Professor Mathew refused to talk when he was asked to… I felt glad that he didn’t..the dirty me in me, giggled as the old man sat there ,oil dripping from his face , and with an odd feel of remorse and revenge in his face, like a strange cocktail that adventurous drunkards experiment with….

You should raise such issues in a proper forum Professor Ram.. said the VC pitching in… I hadn’t seen him for a long time in action, old age was catching up in his face and in his speech as well,,,, ……don’t you agree that it was a flaw on your side to have flared up on such minor irritants?

I thought Ram would explode yet again… Minor irritant is a term that would have made even me detonate.. Ram but remained smiling… He wasn’t the same Ram who reacted for everything in his own predictable way… no one was the same.. not even me… IS this the change that Anand talks about?

I guess this issue needs a serious attention… said Anand standing up and stirring my silent bucket of thoughts…

This fucker is so unpredictable, I thought….

He didn’t look like Moses the savior, he didn’t stand in a posture that made him look like David.. he was now bald and his frame much bony than that of the past…

This meeting is indication enough that the management is fully considerate of the consequences of what happened today… he said in clear tone that made every one listen….. under the roof of this great institution, under the eyes of our students, when teachers fight like street dogs…

He paused and looked at Dr Joseph the ED (who sat stressed beyond recovery) and said .. Even though I was answering to an accusation I think I went over board when I fought with you sir… I sincerely apologise…

Now this was the Googly…I always think that I knew this guy like the concepts of marketing that I teach and when I underline the thinking he mutates into something new…

He was still standing when I saw his eyes clogged and his words fell on the table like hot drops of blood…

This is a just a symptom, like bleeding nose for a cancer patient.. The sooner you detect the reason the better it is for the system…

Pain and more pain ripped through the faces in the room.. this was one of the instances where silence was a torture , more than words could ever portray ….

He had a smile as he sat, the pain in his eyes refusing to blend with, or even accept the smile in his lips…

I didn’t clearly see what happened next, I knew that Prof Ram had shook hands with Prof Mathew ..

I saw tears, I heard laughter and when I touched reality, Anand Mohan looked like David Copperfield, the Magician …

UFO>>>>!!!

2009-09-19T10:35:00.004+05:30

I returned with a heavy heart, (well! a heavier heart) than I left when the King called me… petrified like a cattle in the meat shop I was in a dawdling crawl to the kings abode but in return I ran, literally… what happened there is but a different story altogether…

I returned to the faculty room to witness a huge noisy hubbub.. I could hear shouting from a corner and could hear Ram’s voice…I could see a crowd and that included some students..

You are an impossible psycho…....came up the voice of Prof Ram.. and you better get treated before you totally rot this place….

Now this was too much, I mean..... it was not at all a clue at the GIM faculty room…it could be any one on the other side.. almost every one there, could fit into that title...... Impossible psycho…

Do you know whom are you talking to…… I saw as I walked (or ran? ), the well oiled face of Prof Mathew Cherain, My HOD..

I hadn’t had any moment’s gap to think whom to support… I needed no gap to judge, in a flip of a second that it would be the oily jerk that would have created the ruckus…

I am the HOD.. screamed the man from his cabin.. he was shaking like a drunk facing a storm ….

The story is public …..retorted Ram in such big decibel that will put even airports to shame….… even the gate watcher knows how creeps like you make it to the top…

Dr Joseph , the ED was seen rushing from nowhere frenetically, seemingly to save his aide-de-camp … his face was more distorted than normal and had turned crimson…

He, looked like was called to fight the fire that was on…

What the hell are you all doing here? …. he shouted at us- the on lookers…Anand and me in the front row…

ED seemed to have forgotten that 'when shows are on, crowd will gather',,,,

People went back a little but stayed put, the show was so entertaining to let it go..

What is this ? ….I asked Anand hoping to hear the story from its beginning…I was like some one who walked into a cinema post interval... the climax wasn’t spicy without knowing how the story developed…

Will tell you… this was brewing for some time now.. said Anand with a wicked smile… volcanoes better erupt than hold back..

The HOD looked like an overflowing oil tank….. slipping and flowing now and then ,here and there.. worlds failing to match his fiery facial expressions…

Now this was new for me.. the most revered senior professor at GIM fighting with a greasy lunatic… when the one professional I adored, was in battle with a qualified schemer , I knew for sure who would be the reason…

What is his problem.. argued Ram with the ED who tried to pacify the war lords.. … why the hell he has to poke his nose into my affairs.. ?

And his dirty ass into almost every ones.. said Anand with a stupid grin…

I laughed and laughed a little loud…

The ED turned to us, leaving the battle front..

Now aren’t you ashamed..? he asked me and Anand.. you are enjoying this nonsense..…

We were startled, I mean I for sure was.. I didn’t had the time to see and analyse Anand and his face,,, I just didn’t get enough time to even form my defense before be jumped on us again…

Sir.. would you stop it… Anand raised his voice to the old man who looked like he was about to eat us alive… Now if YOU cannot control your colleagues fighting that is because YOU fed it.. YOU groomed and nurtured it.. That is your headache.. Don’t try to put a show on our expense.. You are no bloody KING here…

What? …..Taken aback, but not to give up the old man barked bizarrely like an angry dog would when thrown stones at it..… What did you say…?

The war front had changed… the crowd now got a new show to watch.. I don’t remember what Ram and Mathew Cherian did at that moment because in this new flank attack that Dr Joseph had opened, I was also a party…

I said what you heard.. said Anand smiling.. if the faculty are fighting and when you ask them to stop ,if they don’t stop, that is because you have given them the wrong leadership by example.. You have been impotent and incompetent as their boss… now just because you think we will obey and never question don’t try to attack us… the same guys who pay you ,pay us as well…isn’t that clear?

Dr Joseph and his red face look like a broken tomato.. Why not? ....Hit so hard, it had to smash…

Stunned stillness provided a strange background to this uncanny anti climax.. No one talked and every one retired to their cabins and pigeon holes, waiting for the next step…

I saw Dr Jesus coming in, I knew it was going to happen but compared to what I thought would happen, he went directly to Ram’s cabin .. Heads that didn’t dare to show up till then slowly came up..

Buzz… Anand came in my chat box online……

You don’t talk if we are called.. he wrote.. I will do the honours…

I knew he was quite disbelieving about my conversation skills in testing times, that too with the bosses…Anand had this.. he was always certain and cheerful.. may be that is why I wanted to be him ….

I had a smile while I waited…

We will have a meeting… announced Jesus after his talk with Prof Ram standing at the centre of the large room where the faculty sat, lived, played, shared jokes, gossiped, read, prepared, made cut copy and paste research and now fought as well … in another 10 minutes in the conference hall… I request all you ladies and gentlemen to be there…

He walked out with the intended pun looming at the troposphere and Jesus looked like an alien who just came out of a UFO that was parked in the garden outside…

The traces of my birthday cake were still lying scattered here and there, laughing at me and the whole system…

The birthday boy - Part I

2009-09-16T11:14:00.002+05:30

Why do we celebrate birthdays? ..... asked Anand while I was engrossed in that day's Business line….

It was my birthday and no one at GIM knew it…. now this question woke me up from the illusion that no one knew it…

I do not … I said unflappably …. So may be I wouldn’t know…

Anand laughed as he came and sat near to me in the common room.. it was the first tea break of the day and the faculty room was full of talk and laughter…

You didn’t answer me but ..insisted my friend…

I do not know… I think it is just to declare ones self importance.. existence… may be like brands advertise…

There you go… he said….. so GIM is implementing this new style of advertising from today…. The management would be hereafter celebrating its staff’s birthday officially…

I didn’t say a WOW but an awe escaped through my larger than proportionate mouth, to nowhere….

HR policies being reframed… said Anand with conviction looking at my 'not so appreciative' face… the change agent in him wouldn’t die…

By the way suk…. Happy birthday… he said and caught my hands... his eyes sparkled even though the doses of medicines and the therapy had made him a poor looking cousin of his past… you could have told me at least…

But I don’t… I protested feebly….

Happy birthday professor Sukesh… said someone from their cabin to my astonishment….. I saw Ram coming in and many others even as I tried to retire to my pigeon hole cabin…. I saw a group of office boys from the HQ coming in and taking the centre table at the sitting place and putting a larger canteen type table there with a white cloth over it… it looked like a drama set scene to scene transformation, from garden to the palace interiors and from the palace to the market place.. within seconds flowers came in… the king size chairs arrived and so did the king and his court… a large cake appeared on which my name was written ….I was caught in the fanfare, where people smiled ,made noise and rejoiced.. I still didn’t come to terms with the happening inside the faculty room that afternoon…

Anand was seen here and there among the crowd and as Jesus and Manohar came in there was a sudden silence…

Every one stood around the cake… And the King spoke,,,,,

Our employees are our friends… he said looking into the cake and then to each of our faces for a second each… here there are no superiors and sub ordinates…

The VC , ED and the others in the top management team nodded.. When the king spoke, they were all by habit attuned to this nodding no matter what he said….

I switched off and instead kept scanning the crowd.. most of them were surprised and shocked like me, some looked and stared at me as if I was hosting the show, still others seemed jealous at my propulsion to the centre of fame …. I knew that this would be the new game floor and I wasn’t prepared for that….

When the speech was over, Jesus said a prayer and after which I was asked to cut the cake… the first piece was stuffed into my mouth and then the creamy sticky mass was cut into smaller pieces and send around …

We all had had birthdays ..said some one sarcastically ,making sure that the top had left the room… but some are more equal than others…

I was in a smolder …. Pain and agony ran untamed as I sat in my cabin …

The tit bits and residuals of the cake was spread all over but my worry was the grimy looks and the puny faces that the whole show had left as residue…

Happy birthday sir… people kept on saying the whole day... students , staff, colleagues and others… in the lift , at the canteen , in the library and even at the toilet… I just wanted the day to be over soon.. the day when I had told Anand that I do not celebrate birthdays…

Professor Ram was waiting for me, walking nervously up and down outside my pigeon hole when I returned from the loo …

Why do you think, the lot again fell on you? .....he asked the moment he saw me….

I didn’t know… I was worried as well why I am the chosen one always… why I am again the first outsider who had the honor to have the king arrive and sing songs on his birthday,,,,,

Be careful… said Ram… I smell a rat in this sudden celebrity status …

Cats always smell rats.. I said to myself but tried to look cool.... I didn’t want Ram to know of my anguish….

There is a talk among the folks… said Ram…. I don’t know how far that is true…

Now that was too much for my garb to fall… my habiliment worn off and I stood like a naked beggar… he could see me raw but I didn’t know how I looked like..

I am sure I would have looked shocked…my face would have gone pale and blank.. my lips would have dried up… I could see that in Ram’s face…. A sort of a dirty glee appeared there…

Ram had this… he knew how to spin a yarn of suspense and clasp one in it…I was for sure caught in curiosity …

Jhansi Williams appeared on the back ground….

Sir you are wanted by the chairman .. she said and disappeared…

I didn’t look into Ram’s face , I just walked off tongue-tied….

Experiential humbug- part II

2009-08-06T11:59:00.005+05:30

After the flop show of the alumni meet, no heads rolled, no fault finding missions were launched where oily faces and dirty giggles sat around and passed the buck.......

The father, the son and their holy spirits were all too benevolent on women....even when they erred and screwed up royally, they were treated with chivalry.....

Sri Laxmi was as young as the guys and girls who passed out in hundreds from GIM every year; some were even older than she was….. As the convener, she was taken non seriously by insiders and outsiders and the alumni… That was mistake number one ....

She took it lightly (worse!) and assumed that at GIM the HQ will take care of and she will just have to smile, shake hands with the hundreds that will throng the meet and deliver speeches and sound very nostalgic…That was mistake number two…

No one communicated properly to the alumni, some were invited, some were not, some got long mails, some got short ones, and the data base was to be blamed. No one ever FOUND OUT that it was not the alumni’s job the make and maintain a proper data base.. That was mistake number three….

And people hated GIM, most of them who left GIM would never want to come back ,no matter how beautiful and young was the convenor who invited was .. her starry eyes could not that easily replace the horror that they lived in their eyes... no one realised it and that was mistake number four....

Why the hell…? ....

I threw the note pad on which I was jotting down the reasons why the meet failed… no one blamed anyone, worse no one talked about it and the day next was just another day, except for the welcome banners that hung here and there and the gloomy faced students who were made to sit a whole day listening to dreary discourses and self eulogy ……but then gloom in there faces was an everyday phenomenon like the deep fried banana's in the GIM canteen...

So the conclusion is that when the inspection team is here we all should together work for the accreditation….team work matters…… it’s our common dream… said Dr Joseph…

Anand sat next to me in the conference hall and seemingly knew that I had left my body there and my mind was wandering….

He smiled and wrote on my note pad… GIM is trying international accreditation…The team is coming…. Another show to be put up…

I woke up to the real world from my one man commission ,finding fault with why the alumni meet bombed like a big fart and yet why it didn’t smell ….

Is it?....... I asked loud in a fit of fury mixed with anxiety topped with suspicion and seasoned with apathy,,,,,

Dr Joseph stopped his speech and paused for a second before asking… Yeah it is Professor Sukesh… Why? ....... you have any doubts…?

No sir… I muttered… I couldn’t tell him that it was just a co incidence and I was not replying to his insincere blather on team work…

He went back and listed on what was to be done by each faculty and others when the team comes calling...…

I could hear the likes of Prof Ram and others (who still thought of change and change agents) debating, suggesting, fighting, compromising, convincing, and arguing from the front rows..

I could see women (most of them the juniors) looking bored and worn-out from this cacophony to which they had no reason to connect to....

I could smell acids from hungry stomachs… it was a typically atypical sight…

I could feel team work…. Two teams were in action – the actives and the passives…

Every meeting in the conference room of GIM had this setting.. Half the crowd spoke.. the other half didn’t, the management will have a set agenda, which will remain intact after all the debate and disagreement which the first half will be bothered and the unconnected second half will not be, the first half would look into the clock and their watches wanting more time for the meeting, the second half would do the same but in desperation to flee…

Hungry Kya ? … Anand asked me…

It was about 1 pm and the hard sunny day it was ,I had a huge appetite …

Dominos? ... I asked in reply and we both laughed….

It seems Professor Sukesh Menon and Prof Anand Mohan has something valuable to contribute… suddenly said Dr Joseph (who noticed that we were not listening to his talk).

I was taken aback by this googly… it was unexpected….

Very true sir… announced Anand as he stood up….. I was even more shocked by this response…

I just have one question… what is new? said Anand....

What? .... Dr Joseph asked portentously….

This is like a school play enacted year after year… for those who have been here during the last visit by the same commission, it is the same…. The plot… the characters and even the dialogues… announced Anand with the same charm and power with which he had stood up like Moses the saviour, the last time when such a meeting was held.....

I didn’t hear the roar of the red sea this time…but could see the blue faces on the stage…..

The women (still unconnected) stared at Anand who stood there,waiting for an answer….

I flashed a smile…. At Anand and then to the ED’s face which had turned Red from Blue…..

Bloody bastards … he seemed to have said…

Same to you ,you ugly rotten creep… I said with impunity…

the home coming !!!

2009-07-20T12:14:00.007+05:30

Anand and his home coming went unnoticed in the hullabaloo of the alumni meet. After the initial pleasantries, he went straight to the auditorium where he sat with the other teachers who were not seemingly perturbed by the scant attendance of the alumni in the alumni meet.

Prof Ram was seen walking in between the front rows cracking jokes and pulling legs and big laughter was heard. I preferred to stay out, not because I didn’t want to be part of the fun, but because I was in the reception team and my place was at the huge portico, where Dr Joy’s large photograph hung, with a smile. There was not a big turn around to receive and when my team told me that totally 6 people had registered it was ten minute past 9 30 and the prayer song could be heard.

Dr Joy had nothing much to say except the things which he says everywhere he has a captive audience and every time he is given a mike,,,,,,

No wonder why people don’t turn out…. Said some one in my team and the rest of them giggled… I feigned to be deaf and preferred to walk up and down the long corridors of GIM……

Unfettered and unafraid I was for I was sure that the cameras were'nt seeing me, with the top brass locked in the hall where the King was waxing eloquent on how and why alumni should maintain good relations with its alma matter. Nothing, I heard about the other way round… Nothing I heard about why for any B school, its alumni was one of its building blocks… He would have known it, but it was his trait, and that ran in the entire family …. Outdated and arcane they may be for the others, but sacred and hallowed for him.

Lucky you… said an SMS from Anand… you are saved from this ordeal…..

I didn’t reply, I smiled and returned to the reception table where the girls in my team started reading some film magazine which they produced from no where (GIM taught this- planning to perfection) and the guys cruised in their mobile phones and other gadgets which they could use inside the campus only for that day just because they are in the organizing team.

Is this the alumni meet reception? ....asked some one suddenly, whom none of us had noticed walking in…

There stood a guy, small and lean with top-heavy lanky legs, and outsized specs occupying a large part of his small face. He looked tense and looked here and there with fear, suspicion and angst …

He sure was an alumnus of GIM!!!

Welcome …. I said with a smile, which he would never have seen at GIM….

He shook hands quite diffidently ….

My team got into action as a team of starved hyenas has got its prey… He gave me his business card which read

Abhimanyu Raj Mishra
Vice President-Operations
Barclays bankPLC
1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP
United Kingdom

I looked again into his face, the large specs trying to hide his large sparkling eyes but I could see success, a sea roaring inside the small frame of the guy who looked more like a comedian than a hero.

Please come in..................... I led him to the hall where Dr Joseph,the ED was behind the mike, laughing at his own joke and the audience as usual refusing to share his grubby giggle.

I took the guest to the two rows where the 6 or 7 alumni sat scattered and apparently jaded…

The programme had just started and yet!!! GIM was good at this again, to bore people to the core…

Seeing the guy, Dr Jesus came rushing from his seat, and hugged him as if he got back his long lost brother…
I saw the old guard of GIM hurrying to cuddle ,clasp and clinch the small frame of the visitor…
I noticed silence on the stage where Dr Joseph waited for the drama to be over to continue with his boring speech. Murmur spread in the crowd, largely students in their formal attire, blazers and ties and all the gear…..

I stood there unable to decide what to do next… leave the hapless guy to the merciless hugging crowd of GIM or take him to his seat so that moron on stage could resume his sermon….

It is his fate… I pacified myself as I walked out from the large intimidating hall to even large corridors of GIM …

The guys of my team joined me in my canteen trip while I asked the girls to stay back to receive some one incase they come…

Why is it sir, such a low turnout?..... One of the kids asked me in canteen…

I paused, took a break from my banana fry and hot tea… the question was simple but the answer was not… I mean, as a teacher at GIM I couldn’t and wouldn’t discuss with them the issues that really made people refuse to come back to their alma matter….

Would you come back if we call you..Say two years from now..? I asked him a counter question, in an attempt to pass the monkey….

He laughed and didn’t shrink as I thought he would… instead he chuckled…

To be frank Sukesh sir… said another guy …none of us want to…

I looked at the guys face where audacity ran amok… it was a rare sight in GIM …

We just want to leave this place, for whatever good that this place has done to us…said another one even as the first guy still cackled….

It wasn’t breaking news for me for sure… GIM was tough to its kids… discipline in a strange form ruled the place and was applied in disproportionate quantities among students… all were equal but some were more equal than others….

I guess, with me that day I had a group of just EQUAL guys;;;;

My mobile vibrated…

A message

Anand mohan

Suk… were ru… come and listen… alumni and their plain speak….

I didn’t want to sit and listen to discourses which had no sense of reality but now it seems the season of plain speaking had arrived…

Abhimanyu Raj Mishra was on stage when I went into the hall with my entire team….we stood at the darkness of the back rows… discipline and decorum largely never reached the dimness of the back rows…

I mean we hated this place so much so that we even had a count down calendar in our hostel rooms… the speaker said to a stunned audience… I didn’t know who all where there in the front rows but was sure shocked at the first sentence that fell on my ears. I could see sparkle in the eyes of the guys who had told me the same, in the canteen some five minutes back.

I mean the pressure that GIM put on us was so tremendous and so merciless that I was sure that GIM would never make it into my list of fond memories… he went on in a strange baritone that was a mix of all emotions… he choked, and yet he was smiling, he didn’t look the same weak frame that walked in to the GIM main building some time back….

My guys flashed a smile.. See- we- told- you grin, I must say …

But when we went on to face life, I must now admit that the pressures that we got used to here made life look simple… no bias was a bias, sleep less nights weren’t enough, no shouting was a shouting and surprises usually didn’t work with us…. and no waiting was waiting we have done it enough outside the directors rooms here,,,…. Thanks to GIM,,,,

............He said even as a half reluctant crowd semi applauded as if they didn’t quite knew what to do…

I have not come back to praise GIM… it could go a long way… this meet may be the first step…and with my appreciation let me also share my admiration to whoever has conceived this impossibility….

when I am back here I remember the old song which said....

You're that innocence
That serenity.....That long lost part of me
You're like a Sunday morning, pleasin' my eyes...
You're a mid-summer's dream under a star-soaked sky...
That peaceful, easy feelin' at the end of a long, long road..
Oh, you're like comin' home

The words were simple but had tremendous power.. it went around the hall, reverberated and landed like an atom bomb....

The crowd applauded, this time in full measure as I walked out and saw Anand in the corridor….

Appreciation, admiration… ahem ahem… I said as I hugged him…

How I hope..he said looking at the large smiling image of the king…. this guys realized that it is not brick and mortar that makes organizations…

The Sound of Silence !

2009-07-08T11:43:00.005+05:30

Anand , called me when I came out of the Kings Chamber to inform of his plan to come back to GIM .I saluted the man for his spirit for I knew that he still had traces of the disease that dreaded him, left on his face and body. His hair had all gone, his skin lost its texture, but he was Anand, as gleeful and spirited as ever,,,, he still had time to recuperate but he wanted to join back.

Back in the faculty room when frowning faces flowed with a strange silence setting the tone as if announcing an impending disaster and I still smiling and walking around in confidence having defeated the other team in the first round, Sri Laxmi called me to the canteen….I could see ED and the HOD closeted, and regrouping as would a group of injured animals. I preferred not to see it when I walked out but the my eyes captured the image before I joined Sri Laxmi who was waiting…

She was looking too very feminine that day.. she always had it -the effeminate effulgence but her vibrancy often hid it… That day but she wore timidity over her beauty and stood in the garden waiting for me….

Your man is coming back… I said with glee… you should be jumping with joy….

She didn’t smile, instead she told me how sad she was for his new looks…

The charm of a man is in his character… I said as if I really believed it... I knew that for some one like her, his looks also mattered…Why her? Looks did matter….

I know that Sukesh sir… she said as we got into the canteen hall which was empty and lifeless.

We sat in a corner table after ordering our regular stuff.

Then what is it that you don’t know?... I asked…

My parents now want me to marry some one else… she said with a drop of tear oozing out of her eyes that spoke volumes…

And what do you want to do..? I didn’t wait to ask….

I value my relations more than anything else… she said…

I still didn’t get my answer… not that I didn’t know that when wanted, women had this unique ability to talk symbolisms but then I wanted her to tell me directly…

She didn’t….

Don’t tell me that it’s your parents who decide… I said sarcastically

I do it … and Anand is mine..she said smiling even when her eyes drizzled…

Uffff … I sighed… then what is the problem….?

She went into silence again…I preferred to remain the same..

When I couldn’t understand her silence, what will I do with her words…?

I am the new alumni relationship co ordinator… she told me as I gobbled banana fries that was one of the very few experiences that people at GIM would love to come back for.

May be they know how much you VALUE your relations… I said with a laugh…. Right person for the right job....personality job fit theory…

She showed her naughty face…

And for the alumni meet next week they have made you the co coordinator now… I got amused… with just a week to go…?

And you didn’t ask why me?... she laughed… I haven’t completed even a batch of teaching and I am the chosen one,,,
May be the King and co thinks its good that way… you don’t know them and they don’t know you… it’s a great way to kick start a relation… I said…

She beamed ,her clean and well placed rows of teeth in display … She could have been in acting, I thought….

I kept wondering at this ability of women to swing their mood as they pleased…

I also kept thinking that if for the alumni meet, the former students didn’t turn up in expected numbers; will she be plotted against?

May be it was just a paradox that Anand came back to GIM, the day when GIM at last decided to hold its first Alumni meet. It was Anand’s brain child that the meet finally took shape and against all odds and 101 reasons that the eccentric management of GIM had against such an idea. I remember how tough it was for the guy with denim smell to go from cabin to cabin and convince every jug head as to how and why it is important for a B School to cultivate its alumni and have good relations with them…

Anand walked slowly from his car and I ran towards him at the first sight. I was in the reception committee of the alumni meet and our job was to stand at the portico and register the names of the alumnus who will grace the occasion. The guys and girls of my team were all well set, well dressed and well behaved… roses and incense were in place, sweets to honour the guests who came back to their alma matter hence nostalgic, and a lot of smiles glittered… Every one smiled, even the ED and the HOD (God knows WHY!!!!)

It looked perfect and every single element was there except the alumni… None of them turned up and it was about 9 30, just half an hour to the show where Dr Joy will light the lamp and tell the GATHERING how important for GIM its ALUMNUS were…

With no one to receive, garland and give sweets to, my team got tired, their smiles disappeared .. the girls in particular seemed regretting for all the efforts that they have taken in improving their looks, having gone vain…

That was the moment when I saw Anand, walking from the canteen side, after parking his car. He wasn’t the same in elegance, he walked frail, looked thinner than I saw him last at his home and wore a cap to keep away glaring eyes from his bald head. When he shook hands and when I hugged him but, I felt relieved… a lot of my pressure oozed out…. He still had the smell of denim and the smell of a winner…

How’s the operation applecart going? He asked me with a smile that had all the charm that was entirely his…

I guess I have upset the whole applecart.. I said even as we walked to the main building of GIM….

He stood there for a minute and said… hey Suk....the key to change,is to let go of your fear….

I stood there even as he walked, and by the time I realised that I was standing there alone, the music had begun ….

So much of sound and yet a lot of silence ....

The show had begun ….

Experiential Humbug- Part I

2009-06-30T15:52:00.010+05:30

At GIM one could hear of reforms quite often and I was party to one of the programmes that aimed at changing the GIM system..but the problem at GIM was that it was peculiarly bureaucratic…. It all started with good intentions and began well but as the old saying goes, the smallest deed is better than the grandest intention and it often got screwed at various levels. The same happened with the EMEP show..

The great Experiential Management Education Programme- the brain child of the ice cool HQ chambers, which the likes of Prof Ram called as Humbug, which the audacity of Anand had prompted me to take up as the great opportunity, which fell on me as a result of God-knows-who’s – plot, which got to start with a lot of trumpet blast and display just to die a sudden death as corporate theatres and debate sessions gave way to the academic pressures … As Ram had put it “when we don’t have sufficient time to finish classes you should have known that this will become a burden for you….” Easier said than done… HUH!!!

When the day the top brass called me finally to announce the death of the EMEP programme which they put it as “shelving for the time being” and the outsider that I was, I was the last one to be formally told. Every one else discussed it, laughed at it (in secrecy of course) and passed stupid grins at me as if I was a criminal caught with illicit liquor.

Jesus and Manohar sat next to next in the King’s chamber where I was summoned. VC and his files were in attendance and so were a couple of senior Professors. Ram was missing but Dr Joseph the ED was there as the Snowy dog of the Tintin series, present in every frame.

Every time I stepped into the larger than life place, I shuddered and shivered for no reason.

After the intro and the shelving for the time being phraseology by the VC, all the faces looked at me seemingly expecting me to blurt out, react or at least respond. But I preferred to be silent. I knew the trap; I sensed it on every face. The large photograph of Jesus the lord was the only one which at GIM remained the same, the same compassion and solace beamed, the same comfort and serenity in display. All others either stared, or scowled, some looked confused, some at times bewildered, often amused, some smiled, and some kept gazing at the ceiling as if Pablo Picasso had painted it and just left. I could see the trouble in the Kings face that for all his verbosity now looked silent and it was strange…

It is a failure that we didn’t take the EMEP programme to its desired levels of success… said the VC … clearly in what to me looked like the GIM way of orchestrated accusation.

I just wanted to know who will make the WE sound YOU and point the finger at me..

Manohar? He had nothing to do with me.. virtually nothing…

Jesus..? Will he? After all I was like his younger brother… will he?

Or any other professors? ... who looked like odd men out in the gathering..

Or Dr Joseph?… he could be the chosen one and he could be happy to put the first nail on me…. I could see a dirty bunch of hairs that rose to the occasion, from his huge ears..

Will it be Prof .Mathew Cherian my HOD, the oil faced jerk who had a lot of axe to grind…

Jesus sat a bit forward and leaned on to his dad’s table. Silence ensued as Jesus has this unique ability to convey a lot when he spoke and a lot more when he didn’t…

You were the convenor of the EMEP programme Professor Sukesh Menon and when it has failed … he said in an outlandish direct assault which was so atypical of him…. you should be answering..

I didn’t react because I couldn’t react.

Was it because it was Jesus who was the aggressor? Or was it because the total aggression was unfounded and biased? Or a combination of both…?

I kept looking at Jesus in disbelief, guess I still had a feeling that it wasn’t he, or even if it was he it wasn’t he who was talking ..he was just reading out a dialogue from a script that some one had penned in this absurd drama….

I hated Anand for the confidence that he bestowed on me to take up the job, I hated Ram for praising the first outsider who got SUCH a task at GIM… I hated myself for being so gullible, for walking into this trap with such appalling naiveté ….

You could have said if you were not interested….said the ED, smiling and looking at the HOD… together they looked like Shakuni and Duryodhan ,the plotters in Mahabharata…. Hate fumed in their eyes and I suddenly saw myself as the hapless Draupadi who got trapped in the Kaurava court!

No one wanted the EMEP, may be no one except the management, the students didn’t take the spirit of it as it was seen as another programme which was planned and send down by the top, the faculty hated it for the same reason plus the extra work for no BENEFIT as they saw it , the management forgot it after the launch for they had better things to do and for me it was hot potato that I could neither swallow nor throw away ….

I guess you can give an answer … said the King in whose hands he had an egg shaped paperweight which was an antique piece that came with him after one of his travels. He played with it as if he didn’t want to look at my face even when he talked…

Yes sir… I said suddenly…. I can… the answer is simple…. Every time a programme like this is planned, its closure is planned as well. To my knowledge that is why here things don’t work the way it should be.

Eye brows went up and disbelief spelled with oil and anger… I wasn’t being valiant in the large room which threatened a simple being like me, but was just being an animal defending it self when driven to a corner….

Academic community is the worse when it comes to politics and back stabbing…. I said without doubt and with poise….. and here we have that in abundance.

You are deviating from the topic.. said the ED, annoyed and upset…

I raised my hands, disallowing him to finish, stared at his ugly face and pasted a firm look on his full to bursting eyes . Sure enough he went silent but not before looking into Prof Mathew his co plotter to take over.

I don’t know what they all tell you sir.. I said to the King and his son… outside the HQ its all a game.. whatever you plan they want it to fail and they will make sure that it is failed…

No one spoke….

I looked at Jesus, the real one who looked frozen like a child who forgot his next dialogue on stage…
I looked at Jesus, the one in the picture who still smiled at the dirty crowd with compassion….

Anything more sir? …. I asked

Nothing Sukesh.. Said the King, putting and end to the drama even as the crowd waited for an anti climax… you may go now….

I stood up with a smile which I never had the spine to smile, shook the big guy’s fatty hands, turned to my left , bowed at Jesus and Manohar and walked out.

My mobile vibrated….

Anand calling.. it said….

Strategic withdrawal !

2009-06-19T15:07:00.004+05:30

It was the weekly counseling day. The students of the Finance specialisation had a very peculiar problem to rise in the counseling sessions.....(The new HOD had introduced this reform where each faculty was assigned a group of students whom they will spend a full session with inside the campus and COUNSEL them…. Often it ended up as complaint sessions where the faculty would just hear things that they could in no way control or change….. For me even that didn’t happen as there was a fear… after all I was the Management’s left hand man…

No faculty ever complained of this Tuglak style reform and no student too, for them it was like a paid holiday….

Very few of their faculty was permanent, said the kids of finance repeatedly ,and the core was mostly drawn from various companies locally and hence when others were in classes they dragged on in the awful canteen or in the students area and when others went back to hostels or with their girl/boy friends for some outing, they sat in classes pretending to be in love with all the jargons and high funda that flew left and right their heads but never into it...And those faculty who joined as full timers either didn’t knew what it meant when they joined and ran away in between( when they realised it) leaving their jobs ,leaving behind more names in the long list of faculty who quit GIM or simply continued defying all notions of a faculty's survival and existence being directly proportional to student likeability ........

The game went on and so did Dr Subhajit Agarwal ,who was with GIM for the past 7 months much to the chagrin of the 'being taught' students of the Finance stream but to the delight of the Management for having employed some one who had the right people in Delhi .....

When I was in the common area with Prof Ram and a host of others chatting about simple nothings in life he came in with a smile and joined us… Ram with his uncanny ability to drag unnecessary people into unnecessary conversation, pulled him into a debate about "why not all good researchers are good teachers or some crap like that".. Sensing danger, I escaped and was walking out when I could still hear loud debates as if at the end of this debate, the King will come down and reward the winner…. ...

For the students he and his like were a tragedy, and no debate could change it, they simply couldn’t understand what he was talking about, not the hard finance, but the simple English....

For the faculty colleagues of his he was a comedy,( me and Anand laughed like hell the first day we met him) .......they wanted some one to giggle at and about, and to prove their point that the HQ (of late) recruited with intentions other than teaching ability in mind....

For the business of business education he was a disgrace, for someone who has written 23 cases and published many a research papers, would look like an asset in paper but in practice he was an NPA... a non performing asset who soon, for GIM was becoming a liability....

You know something… Asked Sri Laxmi who came opposite in the long corridor.. as I was walking out and my destination was the library…

I looked her enquiringly…

Library? .. she asked

I nodded in affirmation, and waited for her to open the news bulletin…

She kept mum as we walked down the stairs…. The classes were all in full swing and it reverberated in the quadrangles…

Demand and supply.. Inflation and deflation… Strategy and blue oceans…. The lessons echoed and created a funny ensemble

I feel hungry ..Sri Laxmy said with an unusual smile…. Heard that our canteen has some real good Chicken curry…

WTF?.............. I mumbled even while staring at her…

Library at GIM was a huge place…… partly HUGE by design but partly also because it was empty all the time, except when they took photos for the college brochure or promotion material when the kids in blazers were made to sit like robots and pretend to read from gigantic books that they never knew ever existed and would never again come in tryst with in life…

Will you listen to me if I tell you something?… she asked as I dragged a chair to sit and as she was already seated…

Women had this; they knew to ask the most unanswerable questions and yet asked them with all the innocence in their faces… How I hoped I could locate the FAQ genes in their brain and crush it…

I smiled, hoping she would understand that better than my spoken words…

Will you.. ? she insisted…

Depends… I said with anger brewed in apathy

Then I will not say…. She acted like a kid who was in her pre school…

Get lost..!!! I almost said but swallowed it when I saw the flutter in her eyes.. I could ignore her tantrums in exchange for the info that she seems to be having and was dying to divulge to me…

I will ..I said… You can trust me…

She didn’t buy it …. It wasn’t her fault.. it always happened.. my eyes defeated my intentions too often than even I could imagine,,,,,

HOD thinks that you need to be axed… she said suddenly even while I was wondering what it would be…I heard him talking to Dr Jesus….

Ever since the enquiry report , which tried to shoot the suspected en masse, went back from my table to the HOD’s with a strong rejoinder and with no signature of mine, he hated me…

But axe?....... I sat bewildered…

I was with Jesus when this call came … she told me in a hush tone…. I grasped the major part of the conversation from the way Jesus responded… it was you… your name… your behaviour….your arrogance.... your…

Excuse me… I stopped her… enough!!!…

Hello.. she laughed.. I’m not saying this… I’m just saying what I heard…

But how you know it was Prof Mathew Cherian… it could be any one… after all it’s the world of academics… every one hates everyone else… I argued

Oh no… Jesus hung the phone and asked me… How is Prof Mathew Cherian? Isn’t that proof enough…? ... she said as her eyes sparkled...

I had a larger than usual opening in place where till the other moment I had my mouth….

Exactly..she laughed… I had the same feeling....I also kept my mouth open… I didn’t know what to say…..

PLOTS… I garbled…. Bloody conspirators ….

Now the promise part… Will you? ..........She asked me nonchalantly and why not.. It was least of her problems that all this was happening to me….

Just play it cool… be normal… if you react this guys can smoke you out…. She advised. of course she didnt care whether I liked the advise....

I flashed a smile… It was competition and I taught Marketing …..

Strategic withdrawal is definitely and option!!!

I had to “give up weaker territories and reassign my resources to stronger territories” as per Kotler…

For me ,the next stop was Jesus… in crisis and in war who else but the good shepherd himself?

Commercial Break !!!

2009-05-01T16:23:00.000+05:30

Vacation for my kids, leave and travel, and my brother getting married !!! this time I have enough and more excuses for not blogging !!! be happy for sometime until I am back !!!!

Trial and Tribulation... Part II

2009-04-07T16:59:00.003+05:30

Dr Joy had bought another new car, which stood proud like the owner himself in the huge portico of GIM, where only the family was supposed to drive into, get down and get in from their cars and even park there. This new one was a BMW 3 series, which was worth 35 Lakhs as per the hush hush that went around. I was walking in to start the day when I saw this black beauty that was parked and the admiring faces that loitered around…

Sir .. why don’t you buy one sir? ….one mischievous student asked a bit loud,may be for fun, but which hurt the ego of some one for whom the basic model of a Maruthi itself was a burden….

I smiled and walked off as if such material comforts didn’t matter to a teacher. A teacher is above all such silly things in life….

A hard expression to show in face, particularly for an amateur actor!

As I passed the reception, walking into the stair, Dr Joy smiled from his huge pic- contempt was written all over his face, from the folds of which a scorn slowly unraveled.

I hated the man and the total dispensation, for the kind of luxury that they indulged in, throwing the lesser mortals into a burning hot pot of resentment and jealousy.

The Class representative came to my pigeon hole cabin when I was refreshing the power points of the day, arranging the ads to be shown, after asking Jhansi Williams to take print out of the case let that was to be discussed that day.. Time was running out and here was this guy who stood behind me with a stupid smile…

Yes man….??.... I looked at him

He didn’t talk, instead scratched his head as if the answer was there…

I have a class now…. I said …

He still didn’t reply, nor did he plan to go…

Are you planning a quiz today sir..? ..he asked after enough testing my patience…

I was not, but when he asked I inadvertently shook my head in conformance…

How did you know?? …

He flashed a victorious smile… He knew everything at GIM… at least better than me… he knew that I was going to conduct a surprise test, which EVEN I didn’t know.. Wasn’t it great?

If yes what? .....I asked him…

Some guys are absent sir…. In fact 5 of them… so if you….

I had never seen such a request at GIM.. they were never supposed to be absent and if they were it was at their risk- entirely…

So if I?

Sir it will affect their internal marks… he said with a hell lot of shilly-shallying, half of which was adulterated

I stood up, and he went two steps back…

How dare you come and ask me this? … I shouted…. How dare you….

The faculty room reverberated… heads came up the half cabins… and this guy started shuddering…

I knew I could have handled it better but I was frustrated, my ego was hurt, My Maruthi sized self esteem baloon had got pricked by a BMW sized pin…..

Get out… I said and he simply vanished….

I sat there looking at the computer screen which had all the ads and power points lined up, my teaching folder for the day which was waiting to be copied into my pendrive….

This is a fucking profession… I wrote in my note pad…. With angry lines underlining the concept…Anand had said it right….

The last day when I met him at his home,he had told me… Those who can do will do, others will teach!!!

I walked out of the large faculty room to the corridor and the corner from where the sea was visible… how I wish I could be a sea, a wave, or at least a drop in it, which was seamless, at times thoughtless and when desired be real as well….

I called Anand to discuss the issue. After the last evening visit, when a recuperating Anand Mohan looked healthier than a healthy me…. He smiled more lavishly than ever, saw life in all its hues and colours and more vividly than ever, he was again a solace… I just wished for his come back and he assured of it soon….

Laughter was his answer… he went on and on with his laugh for the BMW story, which but surprisingly didn’t hurt my ego….

You should be happy Suk… he told me finally…. The moral of the story is that “happy bosses, peaceful sleep guaranteed”!!!

I wasn’t quite convinced but could handle the class with less temperament and even with a smile at the CR who sat there possibly expecting a fully loaded gun and blood bath….

After the class he even said a thank you (for not conducting the test, because he requested)
I didn’t tell him that no tests that were intended… I just walked out with a smile, thinking of the approbation that he is going to win from the daredevils who bunked the day’s classes.

I was at Prof Ram’s cabin showing him an article which I managed to write (one word for all the google search, cut, copy, paste, re word, re phrase and all the stuff behind a faculty researched article). Ram had a sneering look which I fully deserved for the 4 pages of hard work which lay frozen at his table and yet I didn’t like his stare….

I didn’t talk and when he was about to his intercom rang…

Yeah…he said.. Now? ...he asked…. Done !.... he committed and kept the receiver back to its cradle…

Your HOD wants to meet you in his cabin… NOW … said Ram and gave me back the paper bunch…

Let it be here sir..… please help me in making it better….. I said and walked to the HOD’s cabin.. I wanted to turn back and look into Rams face, but I could see it even without…

The final report is ready… Said Prof Mathew Cherian…. Now both of us have to sign it and I can send it to the management.

He extended a neatly printed and bounded book to me, which looked like a final project report….

Enquiry report on the indisciplinary activities undertaken by a section of students on… bla bla bla.. It read….

You need to sign only on the last page… he said with impatience….

I need to… I looked at him distrustfully and he read it….

You don’t have a pen…? He asked me.

I need to read it sir… I said without looking into his face….

A drop of oil fell on the table??

May be his table was oily as his face was which I didnt adventure to look at that pont of time but I knew he was slipping……

I stood up and said before walking out… With your permission, I am taking it...

Here again I wanted to look back, but didn’t for I knew the kind of ugly face my HOD had!!!

Share of the Booty !!!

2009-03-28T14:14:00.010+05:30

It was a cool morning…

Unusually cold for a summer day but it was.. it had rained all night soothing the hot earth which for days burned like a furnace…. the merciless sun that ruled till the last evening disappeared… clouds loomed as if the night wasn’t enough and it still drizzled, drops fell from no where into the cool gloomy terrain of GIM and made it wet….

GIM stood like an old man caught in the rain, drenched and quivering....

When the call from the top came, I was in the class teaching humour in advertising, the theory of it interspaced with video ads for which the kids waited than for the theory behind it. I left the class with an ad on air, half way through promising to return ……

Dr Joy and Jesus …. said the office boy who came to call me… and many others.. they are all waiting….

Waiting for me? Eh ?… now what was so pressing that I was called leaving behind a class that was in semi ecstasy…?

The enquiry report?

EMEP?

What was it…?

At the Kings Chamber it looked like the ‘who is who’ of GIM… the top brass and all the teachers… top to bottom…. The gossipers, the peeping toms, the complaint boxes, the oil wells, the drooling jacks, the FM radio’s, the fashion queens, the dare devils, the sexists ….

It looked like a village circus….

It was new… this assembly of the GIM intellectual capital at the Kings Chamber, big enough it was but that day it looked too small a place for all that ego to congregate…

Welcome friends…. announced Dr Joy sitting in his throne, flanked by his coterie left and right…..

Today is a special day for GIM…… he said spiritedly…

A hush of murmur went through the crowd….

Any guesses?..... He launched the question like a quiz master would do and the crowd sat there looking for clues to answer….

I didn’t need any clue and same was with Prof Ram who sat next to me in the back row….

The front rows threw answers, some of which bounced, some almost hit the target but not fully….

GIM is accredited by the national board for a period of 5 years and we have also become the largest B School in this part of the country…. declared the king, while the people around him flashed smiles and exchanged congratulations…

I couldn’t see the front rows, I mean the faces of the people seated at the front rows but could imagine how they would all look like…

Largest means more money…. said Ram… more money for the god damn spendthrift family… what is in it for others…?

I did smile but a faded one….

I was searching for Sri Laxmi…. Now that the great secret was out, and it didn’t happen to be my area of interest, my eyes wandered…

This has happened because of all of us .. all of you … said the VC with clean face lines that said that he didn't mean it, standing up , and adjusting his trousers which was oozing down….

In appreciation…. added Dr Joy… we have decided to institute a best faculty award and also give a stupendous salary rise to the ten best faculty members at GIM…

Now that was of interest to me… I’m here ……I’m here… my undisciplined mind cried…

Share of the booty… alibaba style.. said Ram…

Some people found fault in every thing… I thought even while I smiled, as if I agreed and I didn’t want the share….

The details of which will be communicated to you shortly…. said Dr Joy with delight dancing in his huge face….

They are confused between obesity and growth.... I pity them.. said Ram as we walked out... No one else seemed to pity at that point of time.

Smiles and hopes flew out of the room and spread like wild fire all across the faculty rooms and the common area, where under the camera, discussion began all out…

Sri Laxmi walked to me in the corner of the library where I found a refuge and sat with a renewed interest to be among the top ten.. You never know how the management at GIM arrived at the magical ranking…. What if the usage of library was one factor??

Missed you yesterday… she said as she sat opposite to me...

My stomach was empty; still I couldn’t digest what she just said….. I didn’t show it but, instead said…. I am sorry had that stupid enquiry….

You teach communication and advertising…. right sir?.. she asked me with sarcasm…

I didn’t reply…. I got the voice of the question and from my silence she got the answer…

How is Anand…? I asked…

He is fine… it’s the primary stage… curable… and you know him… he is quite brave,,,,, she laughed with energy that seemed fake to me…

Did she say YOU KNOW HIM>>>???

By now I knew everything about them, their love, and their families’ opposition and upon her insistence how he came and met Jesus to charm him and get an offer right away…..

Still..... did I know him?

I could see her pain, and her vain attempts to look courageous.. she was in love with a brave man for sure, but he possibly had to teach her more….

I will meet him today… I said after a long pause… I had hoped to ease the situation…

Her large eyes bloomed….

You could have given him a call …. She said

It is hard for me.. Sri Laxmi… I said with my voice drooping……. I cannot imagine Anand in his present state …

Clouds loomed in her face as the morning sky….drops fell but it burned me like a furnace….….

She tried to hide it from me…. After a moment of imprudence she gave up … may be she realised that hands don’t cover hearts…

I didn’t try to stop her…..

Trial and Tribulation... Part I

2009-03-19T11:48:00.002+05:30

I taught advertising that semester. It was my most comfortable domain which I could teach even if I were woken up at the middle of the night and asked to. Not that GIM did it, but did things pretty close to it. Classes ran from 7 30 to 7 30 and often had clashes due to lack of planning quite often, absence of Jesus (remember at GIM even a small swapping had to go through the laborious process of getting the Director’s consent) ,a faculty suddenly going on leave was among a host of reasons that upset the complicated matrix of class allotment. I was just back after one such class that was dumped on me and was planning to relax at my pigeon hole after that third class of the day, which was a case discussion that was left half way through for want of time, when ED called me.

After the advent of the new HOD, the ED rarely did call the Marketing faculty, including me and that was a relief. When the phone rang and his voice came through I was a bit surprised, a bit shocked and a bit curious as to the intentions of that out of the blue bell ringing.

If you remember…. he told me in his cabin without even looking into my face… there was an enquiry that was constituted after the student unrest….

I suddenly went back to the rainy day when students ran mayhem in GIM… I also remembered the day when Anand and I walked into the enquiry trap, him blissfully ignorant and me frighteningly suspicious ….

But Anand has gone….. I thought….

Just because Anand Mohan has left…. The ED said, this time fixing his dirty stare on my eyes, and reading my mind from my eyes….. you cannot run away from the job you were committed with…

Run away was a bad way to put it I thought, but then I was in no position to correct it…. When he called, Sri Laxmi had just left my cabin, leaving me heavy hearted, sharing a lot of joy and pain, shedding a lot of tears and glee, clearing me of my assumptions that I was so very loutishly nourishing in mind…

I chose to stand silent…

It was clear that he had made his war plan and just wanted some one at the other side… He had dug out an issue and chose me, the nearest sitting dumbo for the honours…. I was, but in no mood to fall victim to his post lunch past time hunt and stood there as if at that point of time, I would obey anything he ordered.

Visibly disillusioned he said …..

Along with Prof Mathew Cherian, you will start the enquiry process today…. and added with his matchless laugh that evicted more gases than any volcano and produced more sounds than a thunderstorm…. The VC expects a report by Monday next….

But sir… I said with hesitation even as he kept laughing… I have never conducted and enquiry before….and Prof Mathew joined just now… he wouldn’t know the actual….

Don’t tell me what to do Sukesh Menon…. shouted the old man with a sudden fury… if you have a doubt about the qualifications of your HOD and what to do , you can go and meet the VC now, or if you are clear allow me to brief him about this….

He didn’t ask me to go but turned his chair to his phone and started calling some one in what I took as a message to go….I showed faces at his ass and walked out of his cabin and out of the faculty room in absolute annoyance.

I kept wondering…. from where, where on earth did GIM hunt and bring such rare specimen?

Prof Ram was there in the corridor when I walked down; he joined me even without asking me where I was going. It was assumed that Sukesh Menon when left the faculty room visibly stressed would go but to the canteen,,, where else?

How do you conduct an enquiry? ......I asked Prof Ram while we passed the reception area from where Dr Joy with a smile hung from the biggest photograph in the world.

Ram looked at me with a funny glance, asking me to elaborate on my question… I told him the whole episode which happened and my worry about the new team mate….

It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than the enquiry of the obscure …said Ram with a smile, quoting from some one he read….

Yeah … I mean….. how true… I said even as we got seated in the canteen, which looked deserted with only a few footfalls that were unusual at that time of the day.

I am planning to leave it to Prof Mathew and play second fiddle…. I said… that way I guess I can be safe…

How long ?..... demanded Ram… and safe is a relative concept… what have you achieved so far by being safe?

Very pertinent question…. I thought, even as I kept staring at Ram’s face as he drank his tea and mine still waiting….

Did he sound like Anand? Or was it just a feeling? …..….

I missed him….

My mobile vibrated and then went silent….

1 message…

Sri Laxmi…..

You said you would like to meet Anand.. Today I am planning to. Would you be interested? If yes come to the main gate some 15 minutes before 5….I will wait for 5 minutes….Thank you in advance…

I sat there reading that direct communication over and over again as if I didn’t understand … My heart started pounding with no logic…. I could see Ram looking at me spiritedly and to my mobile phone.. I am such an idiot who showed it all on his face …

I couldn’t wait …as time simply refused to snail, as the clock bizarrely crept , and as the post lunch silence let loose a siesta in almost all the cabins , I sat impatiently tapping the mouse and playing with my sand clock…. How I hope I had the time machine…

Just when the clock ticked 4, my phone rang…..

Mathew here… came the grumpy voice and I could feel oil flowing out of my receiver….

Yeah sir,,,, I pretended reverence

We need to sit for the enquiry…. He broke into my affectation and said …. I am meeting the management now and will need you when I am back…

But sir… even before I could launch my rejoinder he had gone…..

It was pitching dark when I finally got out of GIM that evening… Prof Mathew had left after the first sitting of the enquiry commission, the trial and tribulation, which but turned out to be the best of all the farces that I had seen at GIM…

I stood there alone, as mist came down covering the huge building and the garden impairing my vision, as darkness sang some sad song into my ears , and as some numbness gripped my legs, refusing to take me to my car at the parking bay………

My mobile had gone dead, out of charge, when I finally decided, sitting in the car that I should talk to Anand...

Ghost of the past !!!

2009-03-13T17:26:00.004+05:30

I was sitting unoccupied at the faculty common area when Jesus called me via Jansi William, the faculty assistant. It would have been the last thing I would have liked to do at that point of time, meeting up with the bosses and listen to their pointless brouhaha… But choice was always a question and at GIM, was never available in abundance.

Enroute to the HQ ,I passed Sri Laxmi’s cabin where she sat, looking into some book but not reading from it…. she was probably posing to work for the benefit of the cameras hung from all the nook and corners…..but then how did I know it ?

… I didn’t know.. I just assumed… I was trying to draw pictures as to what would be going through her mind ….as I walked I saw Prof Mathew Cherian coming opposite to me with a smile which I saw but didn’t acknowledge as Anand and Sri Laxmi ruled my mind….…that was the case ever since I got back from the canteen to the main building of GIM and the comforts, to the centralized AC, the music and the soothing peace that it offered, as compared to the dust and din of a ruthless outside world. I didn’t know how I walked back but I remember the blurred vision with which I did, I know for sure that water drops clogged my eyes refusing to fall down but refusing to be taken back either… I knew that I became weak and the large frame that I had wasn’t balancing with the small and feeble mind that I seemed to possess… Anand was a pleasure and then a pain, and when I was trying to forget him as the past, at that hot summer afternoon he suddenly woke me up and never left me to sleep thereafter…..

Professor Sukesh… Professor Mathew called me and I crash landed….He was standing hazardously close to me…

HQ? .. he asked me ….

Yeah Sir… Dr Jesus has called me… I said dryly…

For what ?.. he asked me with inquisitiveness oozing out of his oily face….

Well… I stood there searching for words… I couldn’t tell him that for Jesus that was a preoccupation that when he gets bored of all the women of his harem, he will invite men… for small talks, tea and biscuits, forced humor and a lot of talk about Jesus(the real one!) and his miracles… Father, Son and the Holy Spirit….

Don’t know sir….I said instead…

I have heard that you are a pet of the bosses.. especially the director…but that is past…he said with a scorn even as my eyes bulged out…hope hereafter at least you will learn to respect hierarchies….

He just walked after vomiting that filth, which God knows originated where… I was least interested in the source and even the content…. I knew one thing…another enemy is here at GIM for me and that too just above me in the hierarchy…. As if the ghosts of the past weren’t enough, this new one from the present just walked past me….

I stood there for a while, wondering whether to proceed to meet Jesus or get back and work as per the HOD’s command…… at GIM the question seemingly had no alternative answers… After so many years of teaching management, if I do not know the difference between the boss and an ass, what the heck was me good for…?

Jesus was surrounded by women, who were laughing in mirth as if he was Mr Bean and a show was going on…

I stood there outside his cabin, seeing the fun gun sprouting across the room through the large glass door…. Jesus gestured me to get in, and I went in to be standing there as all the seats were full with women…… Madam Secretary was still laughing quite animatedly, but when she saw my ugly face popping into the cabin she suddenly stopped, as if she was some heroine and I was the rapist villain…

Jesus understood my predicament when I said…. Should I come back later sir…if you are busy,,,,,

Did I add a bit of sarcasm in that…? Did that sound genuine enough,,,??

No no….. he said… please you sit…. And that was indication enough for the women’s society to push off….

Have you read the monk…. He asked me when finally the cabin was left to us… me and Jesus…

The what…? I exclaimed…

The Monk who sold his Ferrari…or Think and grow rich… said Jesus… by Napoleon hill….

I was wondering at his motive… is this going to be an afternoon session on books that he read and I didn’t, and hence I should… or just a free display of gyan, or another evangelist session…? Or was there something else which for my mortal eyes wasn’t visible…….?

Yeah have read…. I said, looking into his eyes with suspicion that wasn’t easy to hide especially when one faced Jesus the evangelist….but why now?

Before you make assumptions you should think… you tend to hyper react… which is not good… Said the man with a smile… I know you wouldn’t agree now, but if you sit and think you will know…

I was cornered… I couldn’t connect… Jesus was often like women,,,, he saw things which others never did, he heard things which others never did, and he talked things which others never did and never did understood….

Can I know the context sir…. I pleaded as I was genuinely worried…

The oily face of my new HOD from where hatred mixed with jealousy and oil poured out in an interesting mixure,who threatened me unabashedly, suddenly ran amok in my mind ….

It is simple Sukesh.. you are like my brother…. Said Jesus, for a millionth time, which meant nothing to me and to him… I knew that, probably he knew that as well…

I sat straight and alert to hear him… when was the last when I assumed things..? I wanted to know…

This is not fair…. Came a voice first and then shouting and grumbling Prof Ram suddenly and with no warning… He could have knocked at least, I thought…

Jesus didn’t panic as I did… I was taken aback but he had a smile as if he knew the advent of the old war horse…

What sir.. asked Jesus even as he gestured Ram to sit, in a chair next to me…

He threw a piece of paper into the table and said… please read this….

Jesus took it and read for a second and then gave it to me…

Read it Sukesh,please.... I forgot my glasses…. He said…

I took it and glanced through the paper for a minute.. it was a printout from GIM’s official webpage… it read….

We don’t follow the crowd, instead follow a different methodology. Theory, we do teach but not like what others do. GIM believes in practical learning and we….

Jesus gestured me to stop and so did I.…

Now what about that…? Asked Jesus impatiently…

Will you tell your executive director also to read this stuff…? ... demanded Ram with matching impatience…

I sensed danger and wanted to escape… Jesus read my wriggling in uneasiness and allowed me to go…..

Ram and his problems least bothered me…. When I reached back to my cabin, Sri Laxmi was sitting there waiting….

Now what was that..?

Another ghost from the past?

Silence of vacuum!!!

2009-02-18T16:09:00.016+05:30

GIM was a familiar place for me… the years of working there had made me known to GIM and GIM known to me so much so like my own home.. Not only the geography but also the populace, the smiles, the stares, the classified idiots, the politics, the economics and what not….

That is until I walked into the Kings cabin that day… Remember I had knighted myself NEW AND IMPROVED and with an impudent disdain had walked into the Kings cabin that evening,,,,

Welcome Sukesh Menon… announced Dr Joy when I walked in….

I wanted you to meet Professor Mathew Cherian , who will be joining us today… he said even as I was about to sit on a chair opposite to the King in his larger- than- the- oval -office cabin…

I hadn’t seen the guy until then, the sort of a semi old man with a notable face, a well combed extra oiled head and a dressing style that gave an impression at the very first glance.

Hello… he extended his arm to me and I did mine …..

He is professor Sukesh Menon.. said the King to the visitor…. teaching Marketing and also taking care of various other activities that are key to this B school….

I had a smile.. a real one this time that I was being praised by the king himself…

I was being acknowledged as the one who takes care of activities that were KEY to the B school..

By the way.. Sukesh… he would be the new head of the department of Marketing… Said the king as if a revelation…. You would be happy at this new arrangement….

Was I happy?

I didn’t know… I wasn’t unhappy for sure and even thought of the devil that was the ED and to whom the hapless faculty of GIM reported to….At least now there is this cushion called the HOD…..It was new to GIM… till that day the ED was the academic head and he was the bridge or the barrier (case to case it varied) between the faculty room and the HQ…

I still had a wonder pasted in my eyes as to why I was called to the king’s chamber… It surely would not be to introduce me to my new HOD ..Prof Mathew cherian…

How is the EMEP activity going? .. asked the King…

I wasn’t prepared for the question but had a ready made answer, now that the delegation was done and it was finally taking shape…

Since Anand mohan would not be available for some time, hope you would have made alternate arrangements … said the King ….

I didn’t like the statement…

Did he entrust me with the EMEP because Anand Mohan was with me and hence I could and would do it?

Was it for the abilities of Sukesh menon that he got the job or for his proximity to the man who had come, conquered and disappeared?

Yeah sir,,,, I said… but …

I know….. added the king in haste… I know it’s not easy to fill in the vacuum created by some one like Anand… but its fate,,, what can we do…?

He turned back and looked into the serene face of Lord Jesus Christ in a picture that hung from the wall. He sat there as if in meditation and even the guest, Prof Mathew joined him and I, with the silence deafening and threatening me sat there exchanging a not so serene glance at the lord…….

I have a lot of plans for you.. said the King as he came back to his bossy self… Lord Jesus still had the smile and tranquility in his face and I couldn’t help but keep seeing it…

We will discuss it in detail later… now can you take Prof Mathew to the faculty room?…

That again was new… it was the ED’s job to carry around any new entrants and introduce them to the rest of them… no one did any honours when people resigned and left GIM… either they left silent, or they did with lot of acrimony but honours were missing almost every time…

ME? … I asked in an unbelievably loud voice…

The king laughed, adjusting his large body in the larger than anyone's imagination chair which protested and grumbled and said…yeah .....you… I told you I have some plans for you….

Prof Mathew handed over a piece of paper to me on the way, which was his profile, his credentials, his travels, and degrees, his writings and articles and all the stuff which a typical arm chair academic will flaunt around with brazenness … I smiled with a spoof that was obvious to me but not to him which I could see from his grin …

I didn’t like the Royal messenger’s job but had to do it… the victorious look with which I carried myself into the chamber had lost in transit by the time I reached back the faculty room with the new HOD and his self advertising document which he expected me to read it to the unsuspecting crowd there…..

After leaving Prof Mathew with the mad crowd in the faculty room, who gathered around him like sniffer dogs would do at a crime spot, I left to oblivion… my own place where I took refuge whenever I felt a need to be alone…

The canteen,,,,

It was not empty… the kids were there everywhere…sitting, standing, running ,,…. At GIM that was the only place where they traveled back to their age and had fun, the tie and the formal attire still on…

Teachers in the canteen was not a comfortable sight for many, while some pretended that they hadn’t seen me, others did acknowledge the professor who walked in to spoil there 5 minutes of life between out of life and away from life classes where professors chalked and talked on business, management, ethics and what not….

I just wanted to be alone… and sooner than I expected the kids started running back. Ostensibly some inconsiderate and insensitive professor would be walking out of the faculty room full of fury and info that was waiting to be unloaded…

The tea and banana fry had lost its charm.. ever since I started hitting the GYM I was careful about what I ate…. Thanks to Anand…

Huh… why the hell should I thank him?… deep in my mind is there a fan still alive.. a fan who adored the star ,,,? Who got the smell of denim every time you think of him???

How is Anand sir? … asked some one who stood there right in front blocking my way and my vision….

The canteen manager flashed his pan coated teeth waiting for a reply…

Well… I dragged my foot as if I was searching for words.. I hadn’t got the question right.. and even if I had I wouldn’t know the answer….

Poor Anand sir… what a man he was…. The guy said as he walked back to his corner place where he strategically sat to collect money from the kids who came in groups and left in groups often strategically cheating the guy and putting his numerical and arithmetic abilities into severe testing…

God is so cruel..... he kept lamenting from his chair… Good people get the entire ordeal while the bad ones just grow and keep growing….

I couldn’t take the tea or the banana fry,,, it started tasting bitter… I couldn’t sit there either…

I AM NOT THAT BAD .. I wanted to shout…. But instead decided to walk out…

Cancer at this age… and for him… the guy looked into my face and said, when I paid and tried to move….

Did a sudden torrent of denim overwhelm me…?

Did I cry?

New and Improved !!!

2009-02-03T13:23:00.004+05:30

The post exam holidays came to an end so very soon that the kids who came back had the hangover so visibly written over their worried faces. They started coming in one by one and group after group, slowly trickling in to various hostels, some a day in advance and many in the last minute. Notices and instructions appeared at all the notice boards about the does and don’ts that GIM followed as rules and classes got spruced up and all the maintenance work was done. The building just needed its life blood, the kids of GIM to flow in and begin life.

The first day first class fell upon me.. in theory one would get them fresh but after a weeks holiday they were all clearly in no mood for a class- a week was too much for them to get tired and to little to get refreshed…

I had made the lesson plan, the list of readings, the list of assignments and evaluation plan, three days in advance and gave it to the ED( it was mandatory to submit the plan for his approval before the faculty proceeded with it to the first class) who sat over it and analysed it as pig would scan shit…. The ones whom he hated got the bulk of such scrutiny and needless to say Advertising management and sales promotion – my paper took a hell lot of time to get cleared….

Why is this syllabus different from that of this text book? ......He asked me like a police officer, pointing to a relic of a text book on his table…

What is this text book? ......I asked while taking it carefully, and slowly turning its pages afraid of the fact that it was as old as my grand dad and can collapse if I were harsh with it…

It is a classic book, the ideal syllabus and I was surprised that you haven’t included this in your course plan… he said, still the COP like echo added to his questions…

I guess you did study from this at your MBA days… I said with a tint of disdain, which he didn’t get. Instead he beamed and became even more eloquent on why THAT was a reason why I should be teaching from it…

Come on sir… its all gone.. I said with a smile that clearly spilled a can of red paint over his ugly face… your times were different, now it is all changed…

What you mean?..... He asked….

I mean that I have designed the course with my 7 years experience in the industry and with constant up gradation that is done with my corporate connections….....I said and remained silent

Dr Joseph didn’t speak.. Neither did he make any gestures.. I knew I had ill-treated his ego, but he called for it…he was one languorous jackass who never taught a course in the recent past but sat over everyone’s course plan as if he knew every thing of every subject.. Some one some where had to tell him to fuck off and in any case I was not in his good books…

As I left his room, I knew what he will do next … I sat in my cabin expecting a call from the lord of the rings, Dr Jesus, but which never happened…instead called me the King himself in what was literally a jolt…..

The King…? Calling a lesser mortal….?

When I passed through the HQ where the bosses sat in adjacent chambers deciding on the future of management education,Jesus was not there in his cabin… Manohar was there in his but watching some thing in his large LCD TV.. may be some third rate Tamil film which was his passion and probably from where he got inspiration for his funny hair style and his colorful attire, the VC’s chamber was dark- it seemed he didn’t turn up to office that day…and Madam secretary was there, as usual, proud and displaying vanity as if she was the kings wife and not his secretary.

Dr Joy called me… I said with a kind of arrogance and pride which I purposefully and momentarily crafted and oozed out to poke her ego balloon.

She fell for it and stared at me as if it was impossible...... I had a smirk which irritated her even more…

What is it regarding? She asked me….

How would I know,??,, you should ask your boss.. I said with a scorn even as I saw disbelief on her face which bloomed and then erupted… she would never have seen me like that.. why she?… No one had seen this me.. This new me…

In my heart of hearts I thanked just one guy…….who had injected this new found impunity into my blood.. no matter he wasn’t around, I still thought he is seeing me.. and when he is seeing me could I be looking the same old crouching and miserable academic potato?

New and improved Sukesh Menon, walked into the grand doors of the kings chamber mercilessly over a burst balloon which didn’t protest , not even for namesake….

The male gynecologist!!!

2009-01-29T14:23:00.004+05:30

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 !!!

2009-01-03T15:54:00.005+05:30

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 !!

Commercial break !!!

2008-12-27T15:32:00.002+05:30

Chicken curry is getting cooked.. and will return with more spice and twists... pls keep waiting as I return from the holiday mood....

Say’s law…

2008-12-16T12:33:00.005+05:30

Anand and me had very few things in common and yet we complimented each other so very perfectly. Things but had changed after the discourse by Ram in the canteen. The friend that I found in Anand had suddenly died and the trust that I had slowly developed in him evaporated. Not that Srilaxmi was the issue (!) but the way he handled it was. I some how had got into an impression that as a friend he will and should share everything with me as did I , a fool whose heart lay open and anyone could access it like a free software. I but this time was sure about my insistence and determination… I need to repackage and reposition myself….

When Dr Joseph the ED called for a weekly meeting, this time with subject allocation for the upcoming semester as the agenda I decided not to take my notepad and not to be seated near Anand for sure. It was easy for me as the meeting room was just next to my cabin, the pigeon hole where I sat, under a camera. Anand was in his usual best walking from cabin to cabin, with jokes and camaraderie which came naturally to him. For once I despised it, as I sat there seeing it, the loudness of it, the emptiness of it. He didn’t go to one cabin and that was Sri Laxmi… thanks to Ram ,or else I would never had had noted it…

Bastard… I muttered even as I waited for him to come to me with his charm and wit…I wanted to tear him into pieces ….

The meeting began and this time I sat in the front row, even as Dr Joseph rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Ram sat next to me, but that was suitable in the changed circumstances.

It is decided based on our last meeting... said the ED… to introduce a couple of new subjects in the current semester and the respective faculty members are already working on them…

A murmur ,albeit a small one erupted from the 25 or so faculty members of GIM who sat with mixed set of reactions in their faces. The more experienced ones were more composed and apathetic but the relatively newer ones showed fear, hope and joy when names and subjects were announced.....

This made GIM a funny place -the demand supply game and GIM believed in Say’s law which famously said that the supply will take care of its demand…In simple terms the economics guy will get to teach Consumer Behavior and the operations guy will be asked to handle Marketing I …. I kept switched off from all the courses and people until he said my name… Mr Sukesh Menon this time will handle International Marketing and Mr Anand Mohan will handle Advertising and Promotion Management.

My paper.. given to Anand….? Said my mind as my heart beat went up…fuck the ED….

He hadn’t said that fully before I raised my hand, and shouted .Ram was aghast by my voice so much so that he almost fell off as I spoke.

With due respects sir… I said to the ED…. Can I know the reason for such a change… I mean the logic?

The ED scouted for a reason and for the right words to sell the reason to me… I got confident seeing his plight.. he ostensibly wasn’t prepared for this and I could read it from the old man’s face …and I had a kind of courage that sprang up as a surprise even to me, a shiver that spread to every cell... all the habiliments of a moderate psuedo loyal that I wore was torn off suddenly.

What reason do you want? He finally countered me with a question…

I smiled… a question for a question cannot be the answer!!!

The logic for this sudden shift… the course which I have handled for three years and perfected it, I need to know why it is taken off from me.. I asked

I knew that the crowd was getting restless at this abrupt defiance from an otherwise obedient me… and I knew that the ED knew that IF he had to give me logic, he would end up doing that to everyone who got a new and even worse, unrelated subjects to handle.

Who said you have perfected it? .....asked the ED in what I thought was a poor attempt to skirt away from the question…

I saw a smile in Anand and a couple of others, but by and large I saw support and sympathy in other faces which emboldened me.

What more you want than the student feed back? ….I asked even as I stood up… and I want you to discuss that in this meeting… and in any case that was not an answer to my question which you are trying to drift away from.

The ED looked insipid and anemic … I even thought that he will faint, if I could trust his looks at that point of time.

There is a point in what he is saying… said Prof Ram, and it was a support that I needed much in that battle.

Why not we allow people to pursue with their favorite areas, particularly when they have proven it? ....said some one else..

Mixing up will not help.. let us keep going with the status quo.. said another voice…

A big smile bloomed in me,a very confident one, a one which only a winner can afford, a rare one armed with which I looked back and fixed a glance at Anand.. he but, still had that same smile in his face as if he was unperturbed and all this was trivial for his larger than life persona…

I hated him….

The ED had to heed under pressure but not before putting in place a stare on my eyes before he did and allocate the new papers to the newer people..

I got my subject back and my victory which I snatched from the jaws of defeat . But one thing kept unsettling me…

That smile… The more I tried to decode it the more confusing it became…

Anand and his smile….

How can people smile even in the face of defeat?

The burden of reason!!!

2008-12-11T22:51:00.010+05:30

The ordeal of exams was over in a week, but for us the real exam began just then. No…. not the truck loads of answer sheets that was bundled and unloaded with impunity at our pigeon holes, but the dirty job that the King had put on our heads- me and Anand….

I had walked out of the room seeming in anger and rage over the choice… (Why me?) but more than the various factors that the top analysed and finally zeroed in me and my best friend (Did some one say when you have friends like this you don’t need enemies?) what annoyed me was Anand’s irritating glee at the admiration that we won at the Kings chamber… the practical wisdom that he was full of, suddenly became history and it kept fading every time he repeated “ it is a privilege” ...... I felt he was taking it to heart, as kids will learn multiplication tables, without meaning it, or knowing what was the implication.

For me it meant disaster… the more I tried to avoid being on the stage, the more I was dragged into it….

The huge portrait of Dr Joy at the reception was being removed when I walked out, this time alone to the canteen. I didn’t dispute Anand and his delight, didn’t venture to tutor him on how precarious would it be to preside over an enquiry commission at GIM where some students will have to be indicted at the end of the show… it would invite wrath if they were indicted, it would provoke fire if they were not… catch 22 as they call it…

Prof Ram was there in the canteen, with a big book (on strategy) and half a cup of tea which was vying for attention. He didn’t see me as I walked in and it was quiet like an ICU of a hospital. It was post exam break and the kids had gone home- away and free from the world of business studies and books,,, I went far from Ram and sat in a corner and regretted for not having a habit of carrying some book whenever I walked around. It was an easy curtain to hide…... It gave a shield of intellect while saving from glares and stares of a lesser than kind world.

Sri Laxmi walked in as well unsettling my plans of a lone afternoon where I could be myself and seen less and not on stage…

I saw you coming this side.. she said with an infectious smile which she carried as a weapon whenever she needed help…

Ohhh so you came in search of me… I asked sheepishly…

Yeah… she said with a grin and a sparkle in her eyes… I need to … who else but Prof Sukesh Menon , my first friend at GIM can be my saviour…

This time whose toilet ? … I asked her with lavish smile ,the reply for which erupted as a rage in her face. She was about to sit , but hearing me she didn’t and stood there staring at me…

How could you say that…. She yelled after a long gap even as tears rolled out from her cheeks as if they were just there, waiting for a nod…I hated this… God did a mistake by making women, and topped the mistake by bestowing them with the most lethal weapon .. tears which they used like an ATM card ..any where , anytime…

Ram turned around hearing the scream and saw her standing and in tears… I sat there stunned, like a criminal (I was an offender but …) I couldn’t react … in fact I couldn’t even move in spite of seeing Ram getting up and walking towards us…

Sri Laxmi… please… I some how managed to say…. I am sorry…. Please….

She was not that pleased but some how she left before Ram could start his enquiry….

He came and sat just opposite to me with his face full of question marks… Strategy and tea could wait as they were left alone where he sat … It was just a question of whether I would want him to ask me and then would reply or I will start the confession right away…

It’s about the seminar… I said and he didn’t believe it for sure….

Oh yeah… Ram smiled suggestively…. Is she sad that her speakers are not yet confirmed…?

I got the sarcasm but preferred to play the fool…

She is missing you in action…. Said Ram and as he leaned over the table hushing his voice to continue…there is a strong rumour in the faculty room…

I got a fright of my life… this bomb was not new to me and had heard it a couple of times ever since the toilet thing happened… ever since ED- the old bastard praised our chemistry… But I some how hoped that it had all died down…

I stared at his face even as I prepared my possible answers…I could defend it but I wanted to look genuine, convincing and not panicky for sure… I could say that we were just colleagues and nothing more that is if he was willing to listen….

He again leaned, this time too perilously close to me and with three legs of his plastic chair on air and one leg ready to take off…

Have you ever seen Sri Laxmi and Anand Mohan together..? he asked me even as he looked both sides to ensure absolute secrecy…He looked like a spy who was in a clandestine meeting selling nuclear secrets to the enemy…

WHAT? ......I asked… I was shocked at this O Henry twist… I rubbed off all the answers and arguments I had prepared in mind and sat fresh… sat straight and erect…

I didn’t hear you …

I said have you ever seen Anand and Sri Laxmi together?.... He repeated… or ever knew that they have some connection?

No was my answer, a firm big blatant NO….but I paused… I did rewind my mind button… it ran fast… backwards… and got stuck at a point… pause…..

Didn’t Anand call me/ SMS me once.. twice from nowhere… many times when ever she came to my cabin from her's to meet me…

Didn’t he echo the things that I had blurted out to her…

And hey Sukesh…. My mind suddenly raised an alarm… Remember she had a smell of denim when she came in to your car once asking for lift…

Anand and Srilaxmi…? Together…?

Yet I was not sure… I mean I was not sure whether Ram meant the same… I but knew that my eyes had popped out and I looked pale and bloodless…

They are lovers… said Ram…. from long time and I am told that he came here on her reference…they don’t talk to each other just to keep stories at bay.. Evenings they are but always together,,, many have seen them….

I was guffawed and Ram could read it easily from my jaws that dropped, and my eyes that suddenly and for no reason got wet..

You did not know this? Ram put his final nail as he took back his chair to a safe landing but making me afloat and more insecure….

Ram left me alone possibly with a contention of having ignited me or even probably wanting to share more but knew that I couldn’t take any more that day….

But I haven’t ever seen them together… I will not believe it until I see it… the rational self told the emotional self in me…the burden of reason, but was painful…

My mobile rang…

Anand calling………it said

Change the world !!

2008-12-03T09:34:00.003+05:30

It was like Mumbai after terror… GIM after the rains looked shattered like and it had to bounce back to life….Anand was more than devastated and kept a low profile. To confess it, at first I felt good, my foul ego was finally satisfied, the one which always felt small when he was around, the one which always felt inferior when he walked, the one which always felt worthless when he talked, the one which always felt no where when he reached his targets in gun shot precision…

Later but, as a couple of days passed and when he stayed back in his cabin and I did in mine, as mobiles never rang and SMS never vibrated out, as intercoms stayed silent and as chat boxes maintained a strange silence, I got disturbed…it was for sure heeding to the fact that he has the spell, a sort of magic in him that changed the world around him.

To hell with my ego…. I mumbled as I walked to his cabin where he sat reading Change the world….and the moment I saw his book I started laughing…

Anand smiled in sadness as if he was sitting on a bed of thorns…

What is happening dear fellow… I asked him as I dragged a chair and sat opposite to him…

He didn’t reply…

Anand… what is your problem? ....I put it directly, as I saw no point in being polite and wandering around…

You really think that I created the havoc…?.... He asked me… I mean by catching the ones who copied???

I had a big chuckle…..

They would have done it the way they did it in any case my dear friend… I said taking his hands in mine and reassuring him….

But here, they have done nothing like that before…. Have they?

But here there was never such a situation before… I said with a smile… did you think about it that way?

He looked as if I was a puzzle and he was a kid trying to unravel it…

I mean… the rains, the power off, it all came together…. and hey in any case you are not the first faculty to catch kids copying… I said with confidence…

But I guess I am the first one to get them to the HQ and preside over their debarring… Anand said and there .... there I got stuck…

He was.. he was the first one to do so… he was right as well… students who copy in exams had to be send out… but to where…?

At GIM that was a big riddle….

I don’t know Suk…. He said with sheer condescension…. I don’t know what next…

I know … I said, half convinced as I had to tell something to cheer up the guy… the savior… the chosen one… the commander in chief of Operation Apple cart…

Right then Jhansi Williams came in with hesitating steps…

Dr Joy wants to meet you… she said with agony dripping from her face as if it was a bad news.. Well it was, but how would she or we know that then unless we had Nostradamus like abilities to predict…

Hmmm Anand… I told him as I got up and prepared to leave… you meet the king and come back… I shall wait …

I was wondering what it could be and why Dr Joy was the caller directly and that was when Jhansi said to me with more anguish in her face and voice…. You too sir.. Both of you in fact…

Did Anand have a flash of smile …? I don’t remember but yes, he felt comfortable at that news… he apparently felt that he was in company ..good or bad better left to time ,to decide….a calm look appeared in his face..

Manohar sat first in the King’s cabin, then the VC who was followed by Dr Joseph the ED .Dr Joy sat in the central chair and they all looked grim and gloomy. I got tense seeing them all together and the actuality that it was for us that the TOP of GIM was waiting for… Dr Jesus was notably absent and that made me uptight even more… Anand sat next to the VC and now the only two chairs that were left were one near Manohar and another one near Dr Joy. I didn’t had much of a choice as Dr Joy signaled me to the one near Manohar….

When is the EMEP programme starting? Dr Joy asked me even before I was settled in my chair…

Well … I formed an answer quickly and tried to present it but words simply refused to move out like a line of cars wedged in a traffic jam….

Whenever you are…. Said the VC…. Please present to us a plan… a detailed item to item proposal… we have planned it meticulously now the execution has to match it….

Sure sir… I said with a smile, reading between the lines of the chanakya… I knew this old man and could conjecture the countless meanings that he would imply for each word he uttered and a smile was my response….

Professor Anand and Professor Sukesh… said Dr Joy when I was about to assume that they had called us for a discussion on EMEP and its implementation…. You are two brilliant teachers at GIM and we need your help at this juncture…

I smiled at the eulogy even as I doubted its authenticity that it came from a man who did it quite often to get his work done… Anand sat with a stoic silence, and no smiles as if he didn’t want the brilliance that was just bestowed upon him….

You know the incidences that happened the other day… said the VC… it is highly condemnable that in a B school like ours, such unruly mob behaviour did happen….

He sounded plain and insincere…. He should have been India’s home minister.. I wrote in my mind as the note pad wasn’t a good idea in such a meeting…

The management but do not want to look hasty.. said Manohar…. We want to go to the roots…. and find out what is the problem….

Now this was getting interesting… this pattern that unfolded… this sequence that looked well rehearsed… this carefully worded mumbo jumbo….

What is the ED going to say? .....that was my worry ..... in any case his is the turn next….

The management has decided to form a faculty panel which will investigate into the happenings and recommend corrective action .. said the ED putting an almost end to the suspense that I had…

Now Anand and me looked left and right as the baton was passed from player one to player two. We looked like viewers in a tennis match….

So my dear friends….said the King with some drama added… We have decided based on various factors that it will be you two under the able guidance of Dr Joseph who will do the job… I wanted you to know this before we announce it.

I didn’t smile, but this time Anand, to my horror was doing it.. he looked as if he had been conferred with the Bharat Ratna and was waiting at the Ashoka hall to get it pinned to his coat…

Stupid fellow… I muttered…..

Wouldn’t you be glad to help GIM in this endeavor?… asked the VC with his eyebrows up, arched in suspicion….

Oh yeah… shouted Anand… it is a privilege…

I didn’t shout but felt the quagmire that we were walking into… Anand with a smile dancing on his blushing face and me with fear flowing out, no matter how hard I tried to control it…

When it Rained....

2008-11-25T16:24:00.004+05:30

Some times grave and serious, rarely hilarious, timid for most of the time when I am not certain, a little jealous when I am not philosophical, cheerless when a little worried, and in high spirits when inspired… that was me according to me ……. In the class room I became a different person and did theatrics and histrionics which elevated me to a different level… It was fun… the markets, the market cake, the market share pie of the cake, competition…. But when it came to exams it was always sad to see the guys sitting blank counting stars and drawing pictures on air …
All the teaching wouldn’t be of much help and it was miserable when they wrote the paper you taught and you are in the exam hall as the supervisor…The exam season at GIM was generally not turbulent but this year it was…The rains, the copying, the suspension, the debarring, and above all the enquiry constituted by Dr Jesus for the mess that the kids made of GIM when the power went off…the enquiry is a different story but this is what happened which lead to the enquiry…

Anand Mohan was at Jesus’ cabin when the power went off and the kids rained mayhem and reigned the GIM building like the cave men of some bye gone era….papers ,plastic, coke bottles, glass and whatever they could get hold of came flying from here and there.. I had ran out choosing the more dependable rain than the chaos inside but some who were running in from the heavy rain outside got hurt from the UFO’s that came from the floors above and hit their unintended targets without clemency…

The ruckus that the guys and gals formed and the confusion that some small group in some class began for fun when the power went off, flew to the neighbouring classes with ferocity, and when power refused to come back added with rain and thunder which formed the back ground score, the chorus and fun spelt over to the corridors, the staircases and it ran shock through the system… Fun had vanished.. it was revenge, plain frustration which splurged like hot lava from a fresh volcano… the darkness gave them the excuse….

Power supply was reestablished by the GIM technicians after a war like struggle for about 20 minutes but then that was a hell lot of time needed for 250 odd men and women trapped in 5 floors of the GIM building to redefine havoc… they had no strategy, it was not planned, organized, staffed, controlled and coordinated, no one marketed the darkness and din and yet it was so perfectly choreographed bedlam……

When again the lights were on and the pandemonium died down, I went inside the building to see litter and trash everywhere, faces with blood from the flying objects and with expressions that at best could be termed as disbelief … People slowly started coming out from their rooms and shelters…

Thank God I ran out… I said to myself as I sat near the lift at the reception unable to decide what to do. I knew that the top will emerge, enquire and execute orders…

But this would be appalling even for them and may be they will axe some scapegoats but the real ones…?
Were there any real ones for that matter?

Anand came out with Jesus and a host of others who emerged from the lift which opened. The reception area which was the centre point of the attack as it opened to all the 5 floors above looked like a garbage yard and the soil and stink appeared in the lines that appeared in the top management’s face. Jesus didn’t utter a word and so did Dr Joseph the ED…The VC picked up one or two coke bottles and inspected them as if he was a finger print expert… Anand stood with them silently and with his eyes pasted at mine, clearly questioning my presence there .there was logic, some one like me, at the reception there at that point of time….?

The team walked around, inspected the receptionist whose head was bleeding, ordering for a doctor, and inspecting the damage… Physical damage that is… emotional damage was in tones and gallons and it showed in all the faces… discipline in the most rigid for was practiced in GIM and it was one of the pillars which the HQ touted as the secret of GIM’s popularity among the corporate and the parents and here it lay badly raped and bruised….

When the team went up stairs to inspect floor after floor, Anand came to me and caught my hands….

He looked dazed but still had a very peculiar smile…

Now what was that Suk??? He asked me …

Rain … I said

What are you doing here? He inquired again….

What were you doing in Jesus’ room ?… I posed a counter question…

I had gone to hand over a couple of guys whom I caught copying… he said…

Great work man… I said with sarcasm…. You would be delighted that they are debarred… for a year.. that means they will have a 3 year MBA…

Anand had a so what look in his face but didn’t respond…He was possibly surprised that I knew the news, already …

This guys were writing from a piece of paper when I was there.. I mean I can pretend to be ignorant of small tricks but …. He defended…

He had a point there but still…..

You are new but you know the system right… you could have settled it inside the class room… you should have… I said with anger…

He didn’t speak…

Can we sit some where? He asked after a long minute…

Canteen…? I gestured…

The rain had subsided but the dusk continued. It was but refreshing to walk out of the building only until we reached the garden… the garden was strewn with dirt and filth… the roses had all fallen, trees uprooted, the lawns had more clay than green and climbers lay astray and helpless like wounded soldiers….

You have created this havoc… I said while Anand still looked embittered … I was sure he regretted the decision….

He believed that piece even though that was just my postulation…the guys would in any case have done what they did even if Anand hadn’t caught some of them for copying… all the charm of the hunk had disappeared…the change agent that he was, looked a changed man himself.. the chosen one choose to remain silent, and sit there looking to the horizon like a pathetic looking hero of an art film….

I smiled …..Operation apple cart has begun…..I said to myself….

Experiential learning ...Part II

2008-11-19T16:03:00.006+05:30

It was an angry morning.

Dark and dim sky stared down at lesser mortals who panicked at the sudden change on what would have been a sunny and sultry summer morning. It wasn’t pouring when I drove down from home to office but it was about to begin. It was only a matter of time. The heavens kept grumbling and shouting and it was pitch dark at 8 45 in the morning when vehicles queued up and scrambled at the huge gates of GIM.

It was exam day… the seniors writing their first exam of the third semester and the juniors writing their first exam of the first semester. GIM wore a look of gloom, to a degree due to the fuming sky but mainly due to exams which was always a tough affair.

Jansi Williams and her team of faculty assistants were busy in pasting role numbers room after room after which the peons will lock them and keep the students at bay till the first bell goes on air at 9 30 am. The kids sat, stood and walked with books, some teamed up discussing possible questions, some sat alone, some stared at the dark heaven hoping for divine intervention. Some assumed the role of teachers where they taught (more because in the process their concepts got clearer and less because the listener’s welfare was a concern) a few who cared to listen …Still others kept searching their laptops for power points and reading stuff the faculty would have provided long back when he or she taught but which got lost among other important things like hottest songs and spicy videos… No one sat idle or without reading or writing, as in GIM all said and done exams was not an easy phenomenon…

The list of invigilators was published a day in advance and I knew that I had to do the boring job of going around in the exam hall, around and around peeping into papers, gawk and gape at violators, be suspicious and above all pretend to be alert and stern as the cameras watched unkindly. I have always felt that exam time at GIM was testing time for the students of course but more so for the teacher who invigilated.

Faculty members please listen… came out Dr Joseph the ED, from his cabin to the common area of the faculty room…..

All heads turned and all eyes posted at the old man who stood in a stylish posture which he would have thought as similar to the James bond 007 but de facto looking like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura….

It is assumed that the seniors know all the rules, but it cannot be the same with the juniors… he declared.. the faculty members are asked to announce it before the commencement of the exam….

He listed out the rules,( which if all of them were to be broadcasted, would be taking half the time of the exam) and then said…… All the best to all of you…

Satirical he tried to be occasionally and most of the times it sounded like a gibe……To survive an exam season at GIM was tough for the taught and the teacher …..

Anand called me in intercom…

Hey Suk…. He said …. We are in adjacent halls… hall 5 and 6 in second floor…today we should finalise our plan for operation apple cart….

Well I needed to … after all GIM had chosen me as the anchor for its EMEP programme which will turn around the future of the MBA guys…and may be turn around GIM as well…

Exams when it began were as usual a mixture of hilarity and horror …. hilarity for the observer and horror for the partaker … I was in class 6 which was the last hall in the second floor and from where, the two rows of windows if opened we one could see the endless limits of the sea… The A/C was in full swing and windows couldn’t be left open as per the rules… GIM hated knowledge and noble thoughts that came from outside, understandably so, but fresh air too?

Walking up and down in a large class room for an entire stretch of 3 hours was not an easy task, particularly for the lazy academics that did no work physically as most of our work was intellectual, and using the brain (again that is a supposition, assuming that....
1. every teacher had brains or intellect as they call it,
2. it worked always and ....
3. the outcome was fruitful for the students at large…)

I did a lot of thinking during such sessions, walking up and down noting down stuff, ideas ,philosophy, verdicts, names, instances ,judgments and any such crap in my note pad.

My mobile vibrated …

1 message… it said

Anand Mohan ….

Breaking news …..Prof Latha is sent out from the exam hall by Jesus, for sitting and reading India Today … …. the SMS said…

I don’t remember who this Prof was… well I mean knew her who joined recently but wasn’t close to her, for want of time and interest … It was pointless in GIM… people came and went as in a railway platform… relations became a burden when they left…

Jesus walking in seeing the lady in her chair, relaxed with India Today, the kids in sharing info verbally via gestures and physically… some in a shock with his answer papers in the neighbors table, some with two question papers in his possession while the hapless neighbor has none…….

Annoyance, angst, alarm …. I tried to visualize the exam hall from where the faculty invigilator would have had to go out with head down, reluctant and disgraced ….

I walked even more briskly after the SMS… kept my note pad in table and feigned to be more vigilant, as the cameras beamed their eyes on the hall and also as I knew that Jesus will come out from nowhere with salvation and surprise to the suffering…

Anand never came from hall number 5 to 6 to discuss operation apple cart as he called it. I was relieved that he didn’t, as apple cart was not a darling project of mine (I know I was the chosen one though) and as I didn’t want to walk like an accused…

Hi sir… said Suhail khan who emerged from a hall after the exam, as I walked down with the answer sheets to be deposited at the exam coordinators office.

Hey how did you do your paper …. I asked him just for courtesy

Fine sir… he said but a smile was missing…

Any problems in your class sir..?

No why? …I felt it anomalous… oh yes…. may be he was referring to the prof who was caught updating her information on India today……Jesus was an idiot to reprimand a faculty in public…

Prof Anand caught three guys copying….. and they are debarred from writing further exams….. said Suhail Khan….

Anand will not do that …..was my first response but I kept it to myself…I wanted to see him….

He didn’t come to the faculty room for some time. Most of the prof’s had returned with their answer sheets… students were seen here and there; especially the studious ones who dared to do some post mortem of the QP with their teachers but Anand didn’t and his mobile phone was not reachable….

I went and stood at the main door of the faculty room to get hold of Anand the moment he comes in……

The dark skies still loomed … and all of a sudden power went off…GIM was engulfed in darkness… for a long minute it lingered and no one made any sound……then came down a thunder with ground breaking ferocity… the doors clang and I ran outside fearing an earthquake……then came a huge uproar from all the floors, in unbelievable unison, the students shouted /cried/sang and it reverberated across the corridors and walls…

Rains lashed down after hours of waiting and so did the guys in all the 6 floors of GIM… scattered they were and yet it all came together…..

The darkness was welcome, and even a deluge would be greeted with cheers…

GIM stood trembling in the thunder… it stood shivering in the rain, and as if ashamed, it kept its head low, slowly bowing unable to swallow the infamy….

Even in the thick of dimness I could feel the smell of denim and yet, I missed him….

The Outsider !

2008-11-12T12:05:00.003+05:30

The hot tea and banana fries went in to make some change in me.. The hunk who never indulged in oily stuff ordered a vegetable sandwich (cheese free) and waited….I kept gulping the hot banana fry as he sat there watching me.. Advice was to follow… hit the gym… eat healthy.... bla bla bla…

But nothing happened…

He was unusually silent….

I guess Sukesh.. he said ,possibly unable to endure the dirty sounds that I was blatantly producing… the time has come…

I looked at him questioningly… time to hit the gym and compete with him in looks? Aura? Majesty?... huh!! no way…

Time to change things here…. Time to upset the apple cart…. Said Anand looking somewhere far through the window, and talking to the world…

I laughed… Banana fry could wait but these communist style utterances from a US educated, branded, neo colonialist, capitalist symbol of a man was quite bizarre and once in a life time chance to encounter with….

You mean in the GIM? change things here?… I laughed again as if he was kidding….

Yes in GIM… we can do it… this EMEP programme is a God send opportunity to do it….he uttered with an unyielding expression…

I didn’t smile… I didn’t even react… I couldn’t unravel this puzzle named Anand mohan…

I know .. he said quickly…. You are a statusquoist ….. and you remain so… but imagine what is the fun in passing off like a ship in the night…? Sukesh Menon….. just another academic? You want to be the role model of the hundreds of kids here… the aspiring young managers…

My banana fry got over and his sandwiches had arrived…. He kept talking while I tried to make both ends meet… connect the apparently unmatchable threads… this story had a hero for sure, but who is it..? Anand or me? This story had villains for sure? And is this guy one?

Suhail khan for instance… he was helpless and you stood there even more helpless… you should have helped him… you should have gone to Jesus and told him … Said Anand,,,,

I woke up… he was referring to the episode outside the HQ some days back… Suhail khan had shared with me his plight and predicament in this same canteen and later outside the HQ…

You pretended to be apathetic… and then he came to me… said Anand… and you know what he said… ?

I didn’t know… I just knew that Anand went to Jesus and saved Suhail from his troubles… and also knew that Suhail would be eternally obliged and would be worshiping Prof Anand Mohan as his hero…

Even Sukesh sir is not able to help me… Said Anand… I repeat.. Even Sukesh sir…

You know why that EVEN came there… asked Anand?

I didn’t know… and I kept quiet… today it was my day to listen and I decided to do it….

He admires you a lot… simple… The sandwiches were getting over and a fresh glass of carrot juice came….

Huh… I said in desperation… I don’t believe it… why should he? And ok… I accept it for argument sake… he does… even if he does, what do you expect me to do?

Help them… said Anand… in management teaching dude, the teacher is a model not only inside the class, even otherwise, particularly young ones like us.. most of them see them in us.. see a possible them in us…

Was it new to me?

I myself had been a student in a B school some years back and have admired some teachers, revered some like a fanatic fan, and have detested some with vengeance… But in a place like GIM was it all possible?

It is dude… EMEP will start after the exams scheduled for day after tomorrow… we will make a plan and that plan will change the GIM system… trust me man it will… he said with a smile, even as I paid the bill and walked out…

He quickly followed me… you didn’t say anything…

You know everything… I said with a smile… you even know what is in my mind… and what more you expect me to say… ?

Anand plucked a flower from the garden… Dr Joy was an avid admirer of flowers and plants and that made the GIM gardens a wonderful place…… remember Gray??… he asked me…..Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,….And waste its sweetness on the desert air….. remember?

I nodded…

I knew what he was hinting at but couldn’t commit…May be I would have if it was not for Prof Ram who came across the garden and stopped to talk to me…

Anand kept walking as I expected… walked some distance and turned back throwing the flower to me and to say…. I will wait… operation apple cart cannot launch without you….

I couldn’t reply, since Prof Ram was already there just opposite to me….

I am sorry…. Prof Ram said… for the EMEP thing… I didn’t know that it was thrust on you….

I smiled… here was the most senior of GIM professors, in the midst of this garden apologizing to a much junior professor, young enough to be his son….

No issues sir… I said touching his hands which he locked with mine ….

This is a good opportunity Sukesh… Said Prof Ram to me as my face opened wide and my eyes fluttered… it’s the first time that such a big responsibility has passed on to an outsider…

That was again a GIM parlance… Outsiders are those in GIM who didn’t subscribe entirely to the management philosophy there as compared to insiders who were hardcore loyals to the HQ. Prof Ram was an outcaste... far away even from outsiders...

I just smiled… Prof Ram walked to the canteen as I did into the GIM building…

The huge mansion stood there, staring at me, the outsider, the first one who made it……

Anand had almost convinced me… now Ram too…

Sukesh Menon was still frightened to seize the chance!

Experiential learning... part I

2008-11-07T10:36:00.007+05:30

I went back, to the happy news that Anand Mohan was supposed to break to me the other day. I was appointed as the coordinator of the Experiential Management Education Process (EMEP) which was conceived and envisaged by the top with inputs from wizards like the ED and thrust upon me and the students of MBA. It was just the latest one in a series of programmes that was launched and withdrawn but the ones like me who was caught unawares were usually the victims. It was acceptable that when it was conceived the executor was never told but it was not tolerable that even when it was to be executed, the executor was kept in darkness, totally.

EMEP programme is designed for the wholesome management learning experience to be transferred to the pupil through various means that are non classroom type and to supplement the class room learning that will make perfect managers…

said the document which announced my coronation and when I stood there at the notice board reading it, I saw eyes, many pairs of them staring at me and my name in midst of the semantic jugglery which seemed to have been made to make the whole announcement look mystifying.

Happy eh…? Asked Prof Ram while I sat in the common area of the faculty room…

EMEP Menon… some one said… has arrived….

I didn’t respond.. I didn’t know what the whole thing was about… In fact I didn’t even remember what EMEP was… Jesus would have known it and so was ED but no one else… I for sure no…

The management recognizes talent… said some one smiling in sarcasm …. The right person for the right job…

Many others laughed in mirth… John Holland would be proud… the personality job fit theory is being proven right….

I hated the academic community for its propensity with which it prejudged people and the penchant with which it found delight in it … but I was one among them and may be in more than one occasion I have done the same as well.

I sat there with a smile just because I knew that boys don’t cry …

How I hoped that the cameras had recorded it all and Jesus had just walked in with a stick punishing the bad.

How I hoped that the notice just disappeared or gave some other name instead of mine as the coordinator of the EMEP show…

How I hoped that no one could read it till I make it clear from Dr Joseph the ED or even Jesus as to what this new thing was…

How I hoped that I could ask some one…..WHY ME?

The ED didn’t help much and talked without clear answers.. he specialized in vague and formless talk when he desired so and it was clear that my answer will not come from the old war horse…

EMEP will help them achieve what class rooms cannot… he told me… its is a pioneering method which so far no B school has adopted and we are going to create history of sorts…

It was not my answer… I mean… not for the worry I had and which I had put across to him as a question…. and in any case I didn’t want to create history…

The question mark in my face became more prominent and yet he said again…

It is about innovating new pedagogical tools which will complement the management learning and enhance the wide thinking and the open behaviour that management students should be having…

From his verbal diarrhea I could guess who would have written that notice which I read in the notice board and who would have suggested my name to Jesus… He hated me for no reason or for some reason which I couldn’t make out….the toilet episode with Sri Laxmi was a long forgotten one for me, even for Sri laxmi but I guess he still lived there.. inside his stinking toilet….

I had understood what he meant even though the long sentences didn’t make any sense.. I was there and was to take care of a show which will keep the students engaged in an extra curricular stuff during after noons.. I hadn’t had time for the curriculum and now this one…

I didn’t venture to see Jesus as I knew it wouldn’t make any difference… he will not present long winding sentences for sure, nor will he jargonize but he will keep you affianced in his mesmerizing speak which will make you stop thinking about what you are there for and leave the room with him hand in hand feeling so proud that the director of GIM saw you as so dear a friend…

This time I am not going to take it lying down… I swear… I told myself as I wrote it down in my note pad….

Then you will have to try doggy position… said a husky voice from behind…

What …? I turned around to see Anand in a blue shirt and cream trousers, with that classic smile flowing, and the smell of denim announcing his arrival. Any day he was the best dressed person inside the campus and if a voting was done he would for sure win, hands on…

I didn’t get you.. I said apathetically ….

Every time if you are taking it lying down, you cannot enjoy it… said Anand …try alternative positions…

I didn’t reply… I think I didn’t smile even… he didn’t expect any reply either… he went on…

What is your problem? He asked me… quickly adding… other than me???

I smiled this time.. all said and done, his being there gave a respite…

I told you ‘happy news’ is coming… fuck the world… now you are the chosen one… said Anand… Imagine what all we can do … every afternoon, the whole crowd is at our disposal…

I looked into his eyes… he had large striking eyes resolutely set in his handsome face- every inch of which was made to perfection, he stood in a pose which resembled Michelangelo’s David with with one leg holding his full weight and the other leg relaxed. A slight s-curve to the entire torso was his way of standing which made him different…

Stop admiring me… he said accompanied by a loud laugh… and reply…

Admiring my foot… I said in embarrassment … I did admire the guy and his vitality… but was troubled of the possible repercussions of his behaviour…

Can we take a stroll? ....He asked…

I wanted it, wanted badly to escape the gloomy comforts of the faculty room..
Escape its stillness that could kill…Its sound that was torturous …the cameras that make one smirk even in suffering…the populace who could peep over cabins fulsome in jealousy... abundant distrust that flew freely along with the conditioned air from the centralized AC plants…

I just wanted to go where there were no notice boards with words and words in print that meant nothing and no bosses who hurled shocks like stones that rained down along with dying comets!!!

Taste of indifference!

2008-11-04T11:26:00.004+05:30

Sri Laxmi came and sat opposite to me the next afternoon disturbing my nap…
I was in deep slumber, first with head oscillating left and right and then later half of my huge body on the table and my head on the extended left arm..

I woke up hearing the big laugh… the gal sat there with more chuckles than I could afford at that point of time…

But I am what I am and she was what she was…. elegant as ever or even more, more pompous, more beautiful and more smiling…. like a dream which came descending down with all the heavenly charm..

Yes Madam … I said half awake… how can I help you?

If you remember … she said with her eyes firmly pasted on mine…we are co coordinators of the upcoming seminar… and you seem to be keeping away..

She had become bold… she was no longer the shy damsel who once was lost in the huge interiors of GIM.. she was no longer the same old scared little lass who cried and ran away from the class room unable to bear the kids of GIM…

Her curls of long hairs on both sides of her smooth face moved in tune with the soft breeze and with eyes of such an unsure bluish brown that seemed to have mixed with their whites by mistake, she sat there expecting an answer…

I had nothing much to say… It was a problem of getting the right words and the right content.. being politically right was important… I wanted to keep away from the seminar..My ego didn’t want to play second fiddle to an inexperienced junior girl but my chivalry wouldn’t allow me to be blunt to her with that fact….

May be I should have been an evangelist..…!!!

The phone rang…

Sukesh Menon here… I said

Hey dude… what’s that babe saying… asked Anand on the other side with a dirty laugh…

Huh… I just gasped…

Lucky guy dude…. Got the best babe in town…. he said suggestively...

I didn’t dare to tell him to behave like a professor… Mind your own business.. I whispered instead and kept the phone…

I am into so many other things Sri Laxmi… I murmered without allowing her eyes to lock in mine …. They seemed to be hiding more than what they revealed… or was it just because I saw it that way?

I took it up because they said you will be with me… she said … now I am lost… I don’t know what to do and what next......

Her paradigm shift seminar was none of my worry for sure but she was, her presence was… I wanted to send her off diplomatically…

THEY? Who is that THEY? ......I shot a query to take the discussion to my channel

The management… who else? And you thought I played a game with you to be a coordinator of a stupid seminar…her face blushed with rage….

It is not yet a stupid seminar my dear… I said to myself… if you are going to do it you will for sure make it one…

A smile did bloom in my face which (may be) for her stare appeared like a scorn…

I never knew that you can be so indifferent… she said as she stood up to go but added… Big people have big ego’s I know but I always felt that you are different…

Oh yeah… different and indifferent…. I mumbled as she walked away…

Indifferent? ….

Did she say that?

INDIFFERENT?

That is what Jesus too had told me in the lift the other day…

That was the management’s view point but how did she knew that??

I saw Suhail Khan outside the HQ that evening.. he had a sad look, and agony was looming over it…he looked stressed out and almost about to crumble… If I ask something I was sure he will succumb… wanting to avoid that I tried to walk away without recognising his presence…

He wasn’t ready for that but….

Sir…… Prof Anand is talking to Dr Jesus …. He announced… I guess I will be relieved ....

I tried to smile…

Anand?

The omnipresent James Bond was there every where... he was like snowy dog in tintin series... in every frame... HUH !!!!!…

Why is it that he had no sense of what to do where and what not to do where…? Next time when I get him free I should teach him the serenity prayer.. I kept planning ans that was when Anand Mohan came out of the HQ, cheery and beaming, tapped the guys shoulder and said…. Now you can go and meet him…and let it be the last time ok…

Suhail Khan admiringly looked into the Hunk’s big eyes… He caught the prof’s hands and started crying…

Come on man… Anand said holding him in a tight embrace… be bold… just go in….

I stood there as a silent spectator… This was one rare scene in GIM…. As Suhail went inside, Anand walked away not even acknowledging my being there…

Wasn’t that indifference?

He left a trace of the denim smell and it disturbed me a lot, but the unanswered questions that he left behind was more worrying......

No words in literature can express it fully… you should meet this guy once to know what I mean..

Oxymoronica !

2008-11-01T12:29:00.001+05:30

Jesus had a double life.. one as the Director of GIM where he ruled over as the crown prince with occasional intercession from Manohar- his brother in law who was also a pretender to the throne, and the other one as an evangelist which was a passion and part time business …

The first role kept him dipped in opulence as he drove around flashy and costly cars, got connected through the latest devices and gizmos, flew in and out of town for no particular reason, spend evenings at hi society clubs to network, was seen in all the big parties with a flashy smile in his face and sizzling wine in his hand…

The second one was just opposite..... where he saw and dealt with poverty- face to face and preached God and his ways to the deprived…drew pictures of God’s mercy and miracle to the destitute and how easy was it to cross the suffering by adopting God by way of the cross…

From day one I was amazed by this balancing act… was he a lavish contradiction in himself or one great marvel that God had created?

An oxymoron that was incomparable, at least to my eyes…

At GIM no one well-liked Jesus as an administrator because he wasn’t one… in fact in his absence things went hassle free but no one did dare tell him the actuality and he got to hear only praise and his court was full of eulogists who composed songs on a daily basis and got rewarded for the same.

I was going through your personal files and CR… Jesus told me that evening when we met accidentally in the elevator …. It is cool … in fact amazing… but I guess you need to start taking writing seriously…

I kept mum… I knew that he likes listeners than talkers ….

Write articles like Professor Ram… or many others… He went on… as an academic if you want long standing it is a must….

I knew that it was true, in spite of the fact that the fact came from the wrong mouth… He knew everything or at least that is what one get to feel when he talks, but if he knew so much then how come he was such a poor administrator ?.. I doubted…

Sukesh …are you listening…?

Yes ….yes sir… In fact even I was thinking the same… this year with classes taking most of my time.. I couldn’t write much…

Oh classes… will be there always… that cannot be a reason for not writing… he cut me mercilessly as he walked out of the lift which had reached the ground floor and quickly turned back to add… I also hear that you have become a bit indifferent these days… I for sure will not believe that…. but be careful… I am not the only one on management…

Jesus had the knack choosing the right words …. He had done his bit…now the worrying job was mine…and damn me the worry box opened even as the lift doors closed with a tense me still trapped inside….

Prof Ram was no longer my consultant during worrying times.. not that I stopped trusting him but that I started receding into my cocoon… it seemed safe but you never know.. Any time a container of boiling water can welcome you… still it was safe as long as no one spotted the cocoon …

I took refuge in the canteen which wore an empty look with the kids away with study holidays and the staff all busy doing nothing in their respective offices….the intelligentsia or the Intellectual Capital which made one of the pillars of a B school would be all busy gossiping , sleeping or doing cut copy and paste research…. After all targets had to be met….

Remember me sir,,,? Came asking a familiar face…..

Oh yeah…. I said… half in delight to have seen a student’s face in a dry lonely canteen and half in embarrassment over my inability to remember student names…

Suhail Khan … he said with a smile… I am specializing in Operations and HR… I had told you once…

Well he had… I remembered.. in the lift again.. some time back….

Yeah yeah… I said with a stupid grin… I promise I will remember you next time…

You bet sir… he retorted …

Can I sit here sir? He asked….

Oh yes please… I invited him…. Have some tea …

I will have your favorite banana fry… he said still happy…

Hey … I asked with open eyes… how do you know that???

Who doesn’t know that sir…? What you are, is not what you think you are… sir… he said as if he was enacting the main role in some philosophical play on stage…. It is what others think you are…

Well I know you are doing HR but that doesn’t mean that you can make a simple banana fry look that complicated… I laughed at my humour …

Suhail khan but refused to laugh…. He sat there with a gaze fixed in my face….

Tell me Suhail… how I can help you?….I asked, in an attempt to take the conversation further…

You cannot help me sir… I don’t know who can but I need some one to help me… I badly need …..he said….

Now I have to admit that I really got tense… students and their affairs at GIM was entirely the HQ’s prerogative and no one meddled in it… no one even listened to it….and even if they did it didn’t make any difference… here I was in the middle of the canteen that hot evening, with a cup of tea and banana fry sitting with this young man who was nothing more than a stranger not knowing what to do next…

I am caught by Dr Jesus every time …. He said with his eyes getting wet….

Caught for what? I asked perplexed…

For all the wrong things… he bewailed

Like for eg…?

Some one was drinking in the hostel.. in some room upstairs…. Last night…. And by about 1. 30 in the night Dr Jesus came for a raid…. Caught many … I didn’t even know the happenings but this morning the story is like I am the leader…. He said in one breath…

1.30 in the night? I wondered….and why such an anti climax… if you were not there…

He started crying like a small kid, at GIM even though that was common....

How I hoped that I didn’t come to the canteen that evening….I knew what he wanted .. I also knew that I couldn’t help it….

My mobile rang… Anand Mohan calling ..it said…..

Hey dude…where are you? came the husky voice as loud as he could yell ,as if I am deaf…

Why? ......I asked in a fit of fury…

Come over ..there is a happy news for you…. He said in mirth and went off air…

Behave like a Professor!

2008-10-29T11:19:00.003+05:30

Life is a game… the better player you are the better is your chances of survival….

For me that was not a motto dictum….. I had inadvertently blurted out that to Sri Laxmi in a fit of anger but when it boomeranged on me from Anand Mohan it really caught me wild.. It did upset me and my thoughts…It slowly and surely swayed me like a coconut tree caught in the wind

Win or loose but play… ? should I or just stay away?

The semester was coming to an end and Dr Joseph- the ED called for a subject review meeting. Exams were just a week ahead and the kids had all gone for their study holidays. Teachers were free with the shutters down the teaching shops and to keep them busy was a big challenge for the top…

Why keep them busy?

Because the HQ thought that the academic community was the worst when it came to poli-tricking and left alone and idle the devils will all meander in rage … Even I thought the same, not because of my status as a pseudo loyal but I lived in that community and experienced the pains of a victim and the triumphs of the winner often.

We need to introduce new subjects.. said the ED… industry friendly things like Strategic HRM .. That seems to be kicking these days…

I will rename my subject as Strategic Brand Management .. said one Prof…

What do you call it now? Asked Anand Mohan who sat next to me in the meeting

Brand Management…..replied the prof….

Huh ….said Anand… and you call it industry friendly… ?

And probably keep the contents the same.. the same power points and teaching notes and even the same age old cases… said Prof Ram with sarcasm..

Strategic Sales Management… ? I wrote in my note pad… Huh… how funny ,,,, I said to myself as I scratched over it..….

This strategy term is misused… Said Prof Ram as if in pain that his patented chemical formula is misused by an unscrupulous horde of amateur scientists… any one and everyone seems to be dragging it ....

Strategy is no Draupadi.. said Anand Mohan with a laugh… Hey Dushasan….

In any case that is not the option that we have been looking for .. said the ED prevailing over the confusion..We need something new… concrete…some thing which when put across the industry will make heads turn…

Anand leaned over to my shoulders and said… they must say… hey that’s sexy…. How about a date?

I couldn’t help but laugh…

The contemporary issues in management has to be bought in…….said Prof Ram

Oh yes ….Oh yes,,,, cried the ED with a blush…you said it… we will have that ..we will freeze on that…

Freeze on what? .. asked many….

Contemporary issues… like say Contemporary issues in Banking…Contemporary issues in HR… wonderful !! … with the reddened face in full bloom the ED kept saying...

Holy shit .. said Anand… the other one was far better… the Strategic prefix….

I didn’t mean it… mumbled Ram… I just said it for example…

I kept laughing … and writing in my note pad… I didn’t want Dr Joseph to see my giggle but there was no escape…

He saw it and kept staring at it as if that was the issue there and not the contemporary issues in whatever bullshit…

I am serious ..said Dr Joseph..

And who is not?… questioned Anand…

Some people seem not to be.. said Dr Joseph with his gawk still fixed into my face… I knew that and kept drawing and writing in my note pad as if the target was not me.. it could be anyone else but me…

But if we are thinking of a revision we should think of something fruitful… really industry friendly…said Prof Ram….

I agree..said Anand even as he shared a wicked smile with me…and for that we need to talk to the industry.. it would be foolish to assume that we do some cosmetic changes and they will accept it graciously….

Precisely… joined Prof Ram

Now this was getting interesting for me… not the content.. I knew that this was a wasteful discussion leading to nothing.. things will remain the same.. but what amused me was the synergy… Ram and Anand was taking it forward like a preplanned strategy.. ooof… not the ‘S’ word again.. like a foot ball match ..pass the ball… ya got it.. I run… and again pass it to you.. got it.. you run… again pass it to me…

Ahem ahem.. I scribbled in my note pad again… the game is getting interesting!!!

Anand winked at me even as he peeped into my note pad and possibly read its contents…

You can write a book on this entire scrawl … he suggested.. and name it frustration !!

Get lost …I said… but I knew it made some sense, I also knew that his tantrums were becoming less irritating for me…

Behave like a professor..I said with a put on contempt …

He took his note pad and started writing…then drew lines over it and then again jotted over and over again…

Will you at least listen to the discussion Sukesh Menon? Asked Dr Joseph in a loud and acerbic tone which gave me a shock… the whole crowd turned to me as if they were seeing me for the first time…

Anand sat there serious, and looked like a professor with the rapt attention that he displayed and the contribution that he so very graciously bestowed during the discussion…

Will you at least listen? Did the old creep say that…?

I was set on fire even as the throng returned to the discussion mode.

Behave like a professor Dude… Anand wrote in his note pad and gave it to me…

Mission Impossible !

2008-10-23T17:10:00.002+05:30

Prof Ram taught strategy or I can safely say he even lived in it.

Day in and day out he talked only strategy and more of strategy as if life was fully about that one term. He knew Jack Welch than perhaps the man himself and wrote about issues, alliances, mergers & acquisitions and the like which made him think of himself as an expert par excellence in his domain.

Lunch time was when he kept us updated about the latest book he was reading and the most recent piece of writing of his which was accepted by some academic journal or magazine and which would be arousing a spirit in us and inspiring us to write as well. Well by US I mean the rest of the teaching community at GIM, but Ram had disenchantment most of the time and it became worse after the advent of Anand mohan into the scene.

It was jokes, hilarity and more laughter for anything and everything at the faculty lounge where the whole group assembled for lunch. Anand was a humorist sans frontiers and made flutter and flap with his mere presence. Ram’s lessons on strategy and his directives and dreams for GIM almost got sunk in the noise.. for the first time in my existence in GIM , I heard and saw people laughing to glory with gibe and jeer top in the agenda…

Kudos Anand .. I said to myself even while refusing to be part of the laughter club. I was invidious at times at the man who like a magician, made us awe, who like a comedian spilled beans of laughter and merry and who like an acrobat did the rare games of audacity and yet walked free…

I kept wondering and almost hoping that he will be summoned by the top after his daredevilry that he displayed during the Delhi teams visit.

Nothing happened!

Dude ! you are a moron… he told me suddenly even as I was busy eating. I loved to laugh but this sudden camaraderie was somehow indigestible for me.

I flashed a smile but kept quiet and went on with my chapattis and my favorite potato fry.

If you eat potatoes like this one day you will burst…. Said Anand even as he sat opposite to me with his lighter sandwich stuffed with leafs and vegetables and a glass of fresh orange juice.

Eat healthy….. he said.. hit the gym…laugh a lot and that keeps you robust ….

Oh yeah …I said annoyed by his aggression … that shows

You hate me... don’t you? He asked me direct.. instantly to my eyes…

He had large and well defined eyes on which floated piercing brown pupil which locked with mine making me feel discomfited ….

NO ....I said loud even as I meant YES and he knew it… Eyes couldn’t lie in any case…

You know Sukesh… he said in a soft tone…

Yeah I know…. I said ,gobbling the potato pieces with delight… you are a born winner and the game is just begun… I know…

Ha ha ha ha .....he laughed …

I don’t have the habit of repeating the same stuff… he said… but haven’t you thought what am I up to?

Yeah I have… I said..but whatever you are up to Anand….At GIM you cannot change things.. you have to accept that…

Says whom? Anand asked me

Says my God damn experience..I almost thundered… you are new and take it from me … you are on one bloody mission impossible….

What if I am the chosen one? He asked me imperturbably

This guy was impossible..

Prof Ram was better that after some insistence he left his hapless victim alone and travelled unaccompanied to utopia.. this guy but stood on your head and had a sadistic bliss in irritating others …

HUH… I screeched in exasperation…

Impossible is nothing dude… he announced even as I stood up and walked outside….

Back in my cabin and after the days war with the
MBA kids and the power points, the cases and the teaching notes, I sat tired… teaching is what I enjoyed but too much of it was making me just a teaching machine… just an LCD projector…

Switch on and you are on… bang!!!

LCD projectors never complained but!!!

Anand Mohan came online in the internal mailing system…

Anand says hello…...a pop up window appeared on my screen…

I care my foot and no hello vello…… just fuck off….

Life is a game… the better player you are the better is your chances of survival….

Again said the pop up….

This time I sat and watched.. read it again and again…

I have heard this before..

some where…. some one …

Shit............ God ....this is the same thing I told Sri Laxmi after the game she played with me….

A splash of denim flooded me….

It grabbed my senses … my brain stopped thinking but my hands reached the intercom….

143.. I dialed and the ring went on…

Impossible is nothing dude… said another pop up which had a smiley :) laughing at me….

Fuck you … I shouted.. and banged the receiver on to the cradle…

Daggers and sheaths...part II

2008-10-17T12:59:00.002+05:30

GIM was near to the sea, not the red one but the one which some one somewhere named as Arabian sea and the sight from the GIM building was simply stupendous. The central courtyard gave a panoramic view and as one went up in the lift, one side of which was open to the outdoors with a fibre wall, would get mesmerized by the sheer beauty..

It looked boundless, the vast expanse of green earth with ease merging with the blue sea….

Endless and eternal… as time…

Good Morning sir… some one said and I came back to life, I was in the lift going to the 5 th floor where an MDP meeting was scheduled and I was one of the invitees….

Hi… Good morning…. I said with a hangdog expression of having seen by a student in my dream world.

Suhail Khan … he said with an arm extended…second year MBA

Ohhh yes… I said with a smile… I knew only the guys who took Marketing .. this one was not one among them…

I am into Operations and HR sir… he said as if he too was a mind reader…

Too many of this tribe in GIM.... I thought…

I guess I miss some good lectures in Marketing… he said with a smile… that is what I hear from my folks…

I flashed my uneven row of teeth at the free appreciation that was coming on my way and that too from some one who never had attended my classes.

It was debatable whether he would have had the same opinion if had attended !!

Ha! ….I said…. you made my day Khan… I said with a beam and I meant it… Praise was something I liked, and that too about my teaching skills which I was not that convinced about.

Anand Mohan sat next to me at the MDP room where some corporate clients had come and where presenting their case, some sales issue which the think tank of GIM was trying to make look as a strategy issue with an intention of selling more of their expertise than to solve the client’s issue.

I now had to keep away from this new dare devil as well… Ram was a head ache always but it was easy to avoid him and take distant seats and in meetings like this one he would always prefer the front row and will be there discussing and debating quoting from the GE story and the like…Anand seemed adamant and stuck on to me, wanting to look like thick friends who had met some 15 years after graduation. I liked his presence but not his gallantry which he seemed to be putting on display even at the most inapt spaces….

The Delhi team has recommended for a seat raise …he told me in a hush tone

I stared at him for the outdated news that he was sharing… I mean it was an inevitable finale which all knew particularly after the meeting which ended up as a sham.

The Delhi team (who had come and gone) had been in a fix after the infringement from Anand and the high hopes that he raised in the process. I assumed that Prof ram would jump in the fray, outperform Anand and explain why the FACES were not telling it all…and why as a professional committee who had taken the PAINS to come all the way from Delhi ,how unprofessional it was to depend face reading as a tool to assess employee satisfaction of an institution.

Anand Mohan sat after the intrusion, pleased as his job was done, and possibly expecting veteran mouths to carry on .Ram was the alternative( at least as I saw it) but strangely he did not and bingo the VC stood up. Subramanian Iyer the shrewd tactician was on his legs when I wrote in my note pad…

THE GAME IS OVER!!!!

Let the faculty also speak… he said in a careful tone with an American accent that came naturally to him …. But since everyone cannot speak,due to the time factor, let us have one to represent us….

The chosen one was one of the loyals, who feigned surprise but it showed like the pre practiced expressions of wonder and marvel that the Miss world’s display when the crown is announced….

After the astute move, the master stroke by the VC it all went haywire… I found Ram dumb, Anand still smiling, some others fuming and most of the others falling back to reality after the brief and short lived hope… I always knew why Dr Joy and his team like mad depended on this old man…

I did not know the game here…Anand told me as if in a confession box and I came back to the MDP room.. Some one was still in argument with some one over something that was petty……. I did not know that the one who was asked to speak would sing praises and make it easy for the Delhi team

I smiled, with a ridicule at his ingenuousness.. I saw that the charisma and aura which was the other name of this man was failing but was the dirty mind in me sunny and gleeful at it ?

But you know what Sukesh…. Anand Mohan is a winner….. he said, in what if others would have said would have sounded like an empty audacity but for him suited well…. And the game has just begun…

He didn’t scratch thighs but left deeper lines in my mind…

Ram was better, he never carried himself into my thought and most of the time with him, I heard him, but rarely listened to him. Anand was different… he looked fearless, sounded bravo and up to the point…

That evening when I was about to leave and had just kept my bag and a fat copy of some business book( to give the serious intellectual look most prof’s carry one or two books home and back everyday) in the back seat of my car, a voice interrupted …

Can I get a lift sir…? Said Sri Laxmi as she stood just back to me, with her long flock of hair waving in the soft sea breeze and her large dreamy eyes in full flicker … she looked like she was carved out fresh from the setting sun…

A splash of denim fragrance out of the blue spread in the air… I hadn’t put any denim for a long time and it was for sure not from her either…

The game has just begun… some one whispered into my ears…

Daggers and sheaths...part I

2008-10-13T11:35:00.006+05:30

It was the D day for GIM…

Never before, had I seen so much of activity and bustle in the campus in my 4 years subsistence there. The team from Delhi would arrive and all was set to receive the guests who for GIM, for that day at least, was important than GOD. People were called back at war footing… It was like Pakistan had suddenly attacked and the border had to be refilled … The jawans were all geared up with guns and barrels,,, the Nags and Arjuns were deployed.. the formations were finalized.. the battle fronts were drawn and the weak links were identified…

When we walk, when we talk and when we smile… we had to be careful that day… It could be wrongly interpreted… It was not the life and death game for GIM but yes more seats for its MBA programme and more money… Even thoughts were monitored, I felt…. The cameras were always a cause of worry but that day it made everyone nervous and an uneasy calm prevailed….

The team had three people…

A fat middle aged man who looked like Eddie Murphy in the nutty professor, emerged from the Merc which was send for them specifically but the GIM management. He laughed with a roar seeing Dr Joy at the portico with his team… Jesus, the ED, the VC, Manohar and all their pen pullers and palanquin bearers. This man was not new to GIM; he was a regular and formed part of every team that came to GIM for Delhi, for INSPECTION…

The king knew how to play his card… I told myself as we all stood behind to greet the Gods who had just arrived in a Mercedes, with salvation in their bags…

Two other men also jumped out, but Eddie Murphy made them insignificant by his sheer size, the laugh and his familiarity with the place and its owners…Greets , smiles, bouquets, it looked like communist China and the Olympics they hosted… plastic smiles galore and all the down trodden were swept away to oblivion….

I would say it was a long wait for me and Prof Ram...

For me because I wanted the ritual to be over ..the customary meeting where we were counted for numbers like cattle’s are before they are taken to the butcher, asked questions- half of which they themselves answered and the other half no one could and did… it was all assumed..

For Prof Ram because he wanted to speak out (as usual)…

I don’t expect any support..he told me during the tea session, when the team was with the top brass of GIM locked in the comfort zones of the HQ…

I didn’t give and exact reply, I knew he didn’t expect one either.....I guess they have made up for the numbers… with this new guy Anand Mohan its now a perfect score board…. I said instead…

He is a close friend of Jesus… Ram whispered, leaning precariously close to me…one more spy …

I got a sudden smell of denim, from no where… Inspired from the new fellow and his charm, I had bought a bottle of denim the last evening, and had splashed it all over, but this one was different..

Oh …come on.... sir… I disagreed.. I mean, I couldn’t accept that version fully… a charming spy.. ? a secret agent… ? why not..? he had all the ingredients to be a James bond .. the allure, the physique , the style and…but sir… he is like .. he did his
MBA from UK… and a lot of international exposure…how can??

Hey Sukesh.. Prof Ram had a disbelief in his face… You are not that idiotic I know.. today, I guess you are making special efforts…

I laughed at that, but still couldn’t get the full meaning of that expression in his face…

What is your doubt? A well learned sophisticated man cannot be a friend of Jesus? Or is it that such a person cannot be a spy? Ram posed it to my startled eyes…

I just nodded my head… both were possible… in fact in GIM everything was possible…

Thank you ladies and gentle men… Eddie Murphy announced after the introduction of his own greatness as well as his team mates … he almost drew a halo on the white board and stood in front of it.. I mean.... he didn’t do it literally but could have and that would have been better…

From your faces, it is clear that all of you are happy… he took it on… but this is a formality and has to be recorded… so let us…

Another face reader... HUH...

It is an amazing campus, excellent infra structure, canteen, labs libraries and a management who has clear vision and a road map to reach that vision.. Strategically aligned to the needs of the day and………I switched of there … the jargons was unbearable for sure but more than that the one sided tirade was more horrendous ..

No complaints… I wrote in my note pad with disdain … it is going as expected…Perfect Precision...

But that is an assumption… a voice broke the silence that reigned in the other side of the room where the audience sat…

Prof Ram?.... I woke up in search of the voice ..

The whole crowd looked back, Jesus and ED including, Yes…they were also there in their capacity as faculty members…a murmur broke the silence and it took the team by awe…

Eddie Murphy looked upset and disconcerted, for being cut into during his intended lecture and also for the game plan being thwarted..

Anand Mohan stood up with a glow in his face and a smile, a fresh one in semi bloom in his lips … he looked like Moses leading the hapless people of Israel and the other side suddenly looked like the Egyptians, chasing to death an ill-fated crowd that was cornered and badly bruised …

The room was charged up suddenly … I saw a lot of electrified faces… shock ran across…

Sacrilege … I scribbled hastily in my note pad, even as I looked into Prof Ram’s face..

The first thing after this meeting, I thought was to ask for an apology… Ram had to do it…

The Red sea was roaring… Moses but, stood there- valiant and strong…….

The paradigm shi (f) t !

2008-10-09T13:02:00.004+05:30

It is funny and even amusing that in life sometimes when we look back we find how outlandish we had behaved to certain situations which if had repeated, we would have done better. Alas! Life is not a DVD player, and there is no rewind or repeat buttons… it has to go on…

Looking back is the utmost one can do.. Or is it not?

In my case it was not.. The Sri Laxmi experience some how made me chary. Careful I always was, cautious I had been but there after I looked like a secret agent apprehensive about everyone, as if all were contriving and conspiring against me.. I looked nervous, all the time and spend my time at class and when I had no class, at some corner of the huge library delving deep into a better world, or in the scorching canteen gulping as many hot banana fries as I could .

Sri Laxmi of course remained as my teaching assistant but stopped coming to the class with me, as she got busy with the PARADIGM SHIFT seminar. Forming student teams, identifying prospective speakers and the like kept her running, most of the time from her pigeon hole to the HQ, where Jesus sat with resplendence. Jesus would have been a happy man… the Paradigm shift seminar had given him a reason, I mean an official reason to be with the most beautiful woman at GIM whenever he wished to.

Are you angry with me? Sri Laxmi had asked me after the drama in Jesus’ room.

I gawked at her with derision …

Life is a game… the better player you are the better is your chances of survival … I told her before admonishing her.

I cared the damn if she too was a spy!!!!

You would be seen as rebelling for the wrong reason ….said Prof Ram later during the lunch break where we usually had fun and frolic at the faculty lounge.

I mean..he added seeing my face which for him resembled a question mark … you will be looking like some one who is jealous that she is the convener of the seminar and you had been asked to help her with no official designation per se…

I protested… That was a new angle that this old man was adding into it…

Think about it … he told me before he left me alone but in an even worse condition…

I was in my cabin during one of those torturous days, when the news broke….

The inspection team from Delhi is coming tomorrow… the ED came out of his cabin to the larger faculty hall where we all sat in a row, in cabins that will even put an internet café to shame.

No grand mothers shall die, no one will fall sick…..he announced as if it was some joke, and he was the main joker of the show. Then as usual he started laughing at his own joke in his style with the giggle and gag going up and down with air escapes in between, making him blush and his thick bush of hair at both his earlobes in full erection out of excitement.

Another drama… Prof Ram told me over the cabin walls…

Ohh … lamented some women in chorus... the month end would have been bothering them.. What will the Delhi team feel when they see the GIM faculty in old and used sari and under make up?

Huh… I said to myself…. Life is about priorities…each one has their own !!!

The VC was out of town and that seemed to be the biggest worry for Dr Joseph the ED.

He expressed it overtly in a hastily convened faculty assembly at his chamber to discuss the do’s and don’ts during the one day performance that we all were expected to put up when the three member team from Delhi will walk around the GIM campus, talking to the
MBA guys and faculty, analyzing, eating and drinking, wearing a mask of absolute seriousness, with grave faces looking like dead men walking around , writing on small note pads, leaning on to the next guy and whispering whenever some on talks something in the meeting sending shivers down the spine of the speaker and ending it up, with a foregone conclusion…

GIM is next to heaven, if not the real one…

Farce!!!

I wrote in my note pad, as I sat in the third row corner very far from Prof Ram in what I thought was a conscious decision to avoid the scratch and scorn.

Sri Laxmi was in the front row, suggesting to me her new status.. a loyal she had become..

Incapability had to be compensated after all!.... my jealous mind found a logic and a dirty bliss in it…

It was that afternoon that this new fellow came in to the GIM faculty room.....

He was tall, unfairly handsome, impeccably well dressed, looking almost like a bollywood hunk who just decided to take a break from his shooting schedule and visit GIM....

I turned around at the smell of splashed denim and there he was, standing just behind me, with a beaming smile…

Hi Sukesh …he said with his left arm extended

I stood up with an ensemble of feelings, panicky I was but pleased I wanted to look as I extended my right arm to give the weakest handshake I had ever given.

I am Anand Mohan …he said in style and in a clear husky voice… your new colleague and friend…..joining the Marketing Department at the great GIM today.

Now that was new to me, I bet. The whole thing looked like another episode in the great GIM drama…

Ohhhh….the first reaction burped out quite suddenly from my open mouth even as bewilderment was in full bloom in my dull eyes

I know I know… he blissfully smiled ,as if in me he had met his long lost childhood friend… we are gonna be great company … I know…

I didn’t know the meaning then…
I didn’t know that he was the man who would change my life for ever, change the course of GIM and its inhabitants ….

We are gonna rock dude… he shook me fully with both his arms firmly on my shoulders and then left me after an affable tap on my cheeks…

The fragrance of denim lingered, the smile stayed behind, the charm simply refused to go even as he went to the ED’s cabin and started his formalities of joining.

Anand Mohan!!! I said to my self….Haven’t I seen this guy before?

Games people play !

2008-10-06T10:46:00.003+05:30

Prof Ram and his letter (If you remember, I had said it…) made no impact at all. At least there was no visible after effect. He was not called for a discussion, as he expected .Nor was he even given a courtesy call from the King’ side saying that he acknowledged the receipt of the 16 page document.

Ram predictably was upset and most of the fire and fury at the ‘nauseating apathy’ of the top fell on me from the neighboring cabin. I couldn’t help but keep praying that I was shifted from my cabin to some corner where no cameras could prey on me, no spies could track me and no neighbour could spur their wrath and rage on a helpless me…

Ram walked up and down the faculty room, wanted to talk to the ED who was but busy dealing with some students who did some grave crime like riding the bike in side the campus ,Schumacher style or making some noise in the hostel room last night, and hence deserving capital punishment and had no time for Ram and his petty issues.

Jansi William the secretary at the faculty office came in to my cabin with slow and cautious steps..

Sir…. Dr Jesus wants to meet you… NOW… she said whisperingly

I had an intercom and yet… I kept wondering…. Well you never know… Jesus and his games…

At the prince’s cabin, where AC was in full blast I felt like I was in the North Pole. Jesus tried to look intellectual with a cool library in his cabin with all the latest management books in display (rarely read though) and with journals from HBR (My kinda stuff) to the International Journal of Management carefully scattered on his central table. Soft music was on the air and Jesus sat in his chair, too large for his short frame but again it gave him a feel, a confidence, a halo that I could almost see as I sat across him, every time.

Guess what!! he seemed to say as he kept on smiling when I sat in a much smaller chair kept for guests.

I had a smile, a faint one which reflected my anxiety at the sudden call

Sri Laxmi is supposed to join us … said Jesus as I sat there in his chilled room where he lived like a polar bear.

Sweat came out, for me at the hint.. I knew what the discussion was going to be…

He is going to ask me about the chemistry thing…

Fuck man ..I said to myself…All said and done ..Reputation was something ( may be the only thing) I had so far in GIM….

We are planning an international Marketing conference…. Said Jesus in a strange baritone cutting across my wandering thoughts…..You and Sri Laxmi will be coordinating it….

He expected me to grin and be grateful at his munificence … if he had, then I am sure he would have got disappointed.. Not that I felt good, I felt delighted that he had chosen me but why me and Sri Laxmi?

Why the bloody hell?

Again had he also seen the chemistry?

Does he also LOVE to see us together?

When Sri Laxmi came in, Jesus beamed like a toddler who got his rare chocolate. That was one thing with Jesus; he loved the company of women.

It’s now official …he declared to her with a wicked smile… I have told Sukesh about OUR plan …

She displayed a sumptuous smirk in return even as I stared at her face for the apparent duplicity that she had shown to me.

Sukesh is experienced and the best organizer we have.. said Jesus as I felt distracted and dejected at a ploy that was unraveling before my eyes….and with your charm this should be a bench mark event…

What is your suggestion? He asked me and I heard it…

Yes sir… true.. very true… words just stooped out without my consent…

I thought I taught at a B school... It looked like I had to change my belief now..

Yes.. you said it … said Jesus even as I kept staring the female…

Who said beauty and brains do not go together?I kept wondering...

A circular later on announced it to the world ..

It said …

Prof Sri Laxmi will be the coordinator for the up coming International conference in “The paradigm shift in Marketing and the altering consumer mind space”.

All are requested to give suggestions to make the program a grand success.

Signed..

Dr Jesus Joy
Director

I was thankful that my name was missing in the piece of paper that floated around from cabin to cabin, causing flutter and I could see many heads fuming, some curious, some taking it in a stride and some too exited to sit back and relax…

I banged my head on to my table, and waited for Sri Laxmi to come.. I knew she will... She had to...

Intellectual Orgasm >> Part II

2008-10-02T11:08:00.005+05:30

The toilet episode as told by Sri Laxmi affected me badly. Not that I had any reverence for Dr Joseph the ED which got a stun or any fondness for her which left some sting...

But it some how disturbed me…

That hard feeling inflated when the ED called me to tell me his pronouncement that I will take over the Sales Management classes for MBA and Sri Laxmi will assist me.

Assist me? I expressed wonder

Yes.. the ED said… You can use her for assignments, paper correction etc…

But she is here to teach… I protested … how can I?

But she should learn the tricks of the trade and it is the management’s decision that she will be assisting one of the existing professors till she does…... a grin was shown in the ED’s face

Oh yeah… I said to myself.. it is the management's decision… how dare can I even think it as something which has to be opposed? Blasphemy!!!

WHY ME? Was my question again but it refused to come out.. ( as usual ) and it stayed there in my eyes, my lips and may be even in my nerve endings… As if he had read it, seen it and felt it Dr Joseph continued…

And between you…. I know… he smiled yet again… there is a chemistry.. it is good ..Together I assume that you can produce good synergy… the students will love your pairing up…

I started sweating…

Chemistry and Physics?

ASSUME?

or

ASS U ME?

Synergy…? What the fuck?

What was he? Executive director of a B school or a bloody pimp?

What was he trying to say??

What the hell? Why the students will love our pair? Was it a film discussion that was happening between Dr Joseph, the Director and Sukesh Menon the Hero..…?

Think about it.. Dr Joseph said in a tone that signaled an intended wrapping up of the meeting….

He knows that I have told you that… bloody womanizer … Srilaxmi told me in the canteen later when the decision was made known to her…

Its funny .. she laughed and said… its like…. She kept on laughing…

Stop it… I said… and what’s there to laugh… we are not bloody students here.. and listen I don’t want to be part of a gossip and rumour here…

She sat flabbergasted and staggering for words…

Let us take it up.. the challenge ..she said finally.. than trying to wriggle out… what u say? ….I will also feel comfortable that way….

But I cannot have a third person sitting in my class… I mean I never had that… it’s like… I will become conscious… I will loose myself… I argued…

At GIM but, things were all predictated …

It will happen if it was desired by the TOP… As did the toilet incident when the ED saw her in the faculty room alone by 8 in the morning, called her for a discussion to his cabin, left to the toilet in between where he slipped and fell and when she rushed in to see, hearing the clamor, he clasped hold of her hands with lust oozing out like he had an orgasm by the mere touch and when she ran out, he pleaded SORRY with a sheepish face and apology written large over his wrinkled face…

These old men…. she had lamented… he is like my father for me… huh…

Walking back to the faculty room, I made sure that I walked alone, now determined not to be seen together with the girl who from then was going to be my teaching assistant.

Why do you see me as a third person? she had asked me as I stood up, with a stare...

Chemistry !!!

The old horse had called it…
He has seen it… Many would have seen it…the colleagues, the students, the canteen staff, the garden keepers, the spies, the cameras, the walls...

OOF !!!

Why I did not see it…?

I kept asking, as the hot sun over the GIM sky burned my skin and I almost ran to reach the main building….

And who the bloody hell named it Chemistry?

Go to Hell !

2008-09-29T09:57:00.007+05:30

A professor resigned and wanted to be relieved the next day.

Why? You ask? Well.. at GIM no one did since long back….The intellectual capital that forms one of the pillars in a B school was for ever floating here .Ever since I joined GIM, I was amazed at the number of people who have left the place. After a point of time I stopped counting heads, of who came and who left…stopped crying at farewells and almost closed building relations with my co prof’s as it did not make any sense, not any more,,,…

This one, the new exit also taught Strategy and Business policy at MBA ,like Prof Ram. He was a learned prof, a silent and humble man, a researcher, a prolific writer and voted as a good teacher but unhappy at the way GIM was treating him….

He wasn’t an exception for the discontent factor… it was there in everyone except the loyals…

Some lived with it… some just left it….

What next? Who will take over?..... The question loomed over the faculty room as did it over Dr Joseph -the ED’s table where an emergency meeting of senior professors was going on...

I am fed up with this ..... lamented the ED....I am doing a magicians job here with no one to teach and....

I guess you have to do it and only you can….. I heard some one commenting as I sat in the common area with a news paper but most of the time listening to the gathering (dirty me !!)…

Classes are already in trouble... the new ones are making a royal mess and now this... Jesus my lord.... cried ED

You are right ...laughed one of the professors…only Jesus can save..not the real one... the one here... our lord and saviour......

Ha...... scorned the ED.....he will say the same thing... new ads are released.. new people are joining... we will be flooded with intellect...ha...

The evangelist that he is.. He is good in selling pain... drawing beautiful pictures out of blood even....came another remark.

Still I think what you suggest is true ......he is the only option...confessed ED ....and anyways I am meeting him this afternoon... I guess if you can join me we can jointly put it forward... he pleaded with the dean, another senior pseudo loyal in the GIM faculty room..

Oh I would love to but I am on leave this afternoon....said the Dean with a genuine regret appearing on his face but a smile hiding behind it......he knew that it was a trap and he also knew to keep himself safe, to keep away from it.... after all he has survived the darkness and deluge of GIM for ten long years now...

Dr Jesus didn’t appear that afternoon either and Dr Joseph wandered here and there, in search of the man whom the kids nick named as Samrat Natvardhan or Nuts…Nuts that he is ..
He abruptly vanished and suddenly came back.. Would never tell it to his sub ordinates for evident reasons, and superiors...well… no one of that category ever existed in GIM.... And when he left things accumulated, meetings, decisions, files, even petty and paltry things like timetable revisions and which class room for what specialisation type decisions (HUH!), were put on hold...he enjoyed it with a sadistic pleasure and seemed to have got instant nirvana .... it was his way of telling every one that he is the boss, but the more he did it, the more looked like an ass...

Prof Ram seemed to be the only option before Dr Joseph, to hand over the subject that was left unattended like an orphan...

No way.... Prof Ram as usual didn’t mince words... I am already fully loaded with the same course in two sessions … not any more of the same subject...

But there is no one else who can take it over at this critical juncture... almost cried ED... you have to Prof Ram..

That is not my headache ....thundered Prof Ram... when you recruit faculty you should recruit based on what we need, not on what is available cheap and in bulk...

Now that should not be told to me...stood up Dr Joseph , visibly angry at the sudden development, and the anxious faces that gathered around.....you should be telling the VC and the top management....

I would sir.... no doubt... I call a spade a spade and now I am telling you since you called me. I will tell him if he does.. Have no doubt...Prof Ram retorted

I don’t want to talk to you.... go to hell .... Dr Joseph couldn’t control his emotion as he fell back into his chair...

Prof Ram scorned and smiled in sarcasm as he walked out of the ED’s cabin to the common area of the faulty room....

hahahahahaha….He roared as he came precariously close to me in my cabin ,as I almost fell off in the shock and reverberation.... go to hell? Did you hear that Sukesh ?….He asked a flabbergasted me…. Is’nt that funny? As if we are already not in one...

Ya it is true... I said to my self... But sir why me???

The comment policy-

2008-09-26T20:23:00.002+05:30

While I respect and value the comments that I get in this blog, I need to make my comment policy clear here. I accept anonymous comments since I know bad systems and the fear in which people who are inside such systems live and hence the responses could be guarded . Having said that let it also be clear that your comments shall not be accepted if they are personal and taking names. This blog is not a forum for personal vendetta and settling scores and that is a policy I hold very strong and with conviction.

Keep reading the chicken curry, post comments but within this policy...

That is a request !!!

Intellectual orgasm>> part I

2008-09-26T08:57:00.004+05:30

I drove late to office that day. Home pressures and the traffic took a toll and the GIM fortress was the last hurdle. GIM had huge gates that will put even the Buckingham palace to shame manned by security guards, who scan the visitor with their eyes and then with strange tools and equipments .Even the regular staff was not spared from this daily sacrament and people like me who often drove in the last minute to flash the swipe cards at the machine installed at the main entrance were the usual victims of this security drama. I often felt that Dr Joy & co suffered from a bizarre insecurity and a sort of strange diffidence which makes them put up this farce, which made an educational institution look like the main office of the Reserve bank of India.

The incessant banging of horns told me that it was 9 and panic was at its pinnacle. Students rushed in from all corners, the ones with early morning classes from the canteen, others from their hostels, with semi worn ties, a shoe in hand and the lap top bags clinging precariously from their weak shoulders running to reach the main gate..

At 9 the main gate of GIM offers a unique spectacle.. no one recognizes the other fellow… it’s a mad rush… just get in before the time…

As I swiped the card I saw three guys, senior students whom I also taught, with tonsured heads and funny looks, like the three proverbial monkeys standing there with notice boards hung around their necks.

I AM A JOKER, LAUGH AT ME……

It announced piercingly….

I did laugh and so did all and sundry who was rushing in. Hurry didn’t forbid them from stopping for a second to chuckle and then rush to life. I saw Prof Ram talking to them as one of them was sobbing like a kid. I was curious for sure but it was GIM and with Prof Ram investigating I was sure that it was a recipe for trouble. I walked away to the lift to carry myself to my second floor office where the tasks of the day were in waiting for me, with annoyance.

The crowds swell to see the spectacle and the amusement grew with every passing minute as I walked into the lift with drag steps.

I was their teacher and the three guys were good students at MBA, at least in my class.....

WHY?
Why do they have to stand with tonsured head and the funny board?
And why am I so impassionate about them?

I saw Manohar at the second floor when the lift opened, waiting with his gadgets in both the hands, wired and otherwise, earphones and Bluetooth devices dangling from everywhere and he looking like a robot who had escaped from the sets of a techno-psycho thriller….

I knew that he was going down, and in spite of the fact that he was not in charge of students and their affairs, he also did the shouting show, once a while with the students and others( even faculty) just to convey a message that he was also a boss, if not THE boss. This seems to be such a day, I assumed as I ran to my cabin, left my bag there and was decided to scuttle down to see the culmination of the episode, when Sri laxmi walked in.

You know sir… she was coming in with some news…

Ya I know I saw the jamboree downstairs...... I said with a smile…

Oh what happened downstairs..? she blinked and fluttered her eyes.. Yes! the same set of beautiful eyes…

Ohh what are you then talking about… ? I exclaimed

ED … what is your opinion about the ED…? She posed a question…

This time I blinked …with my dull eyes… the question was tricky and my verbosity wasn’t helping me much….

Dr Joseph , the ED , was the point of discussion . For me he represented the loyal group, who saw the king as God and his son as God’s gift to man kind, and his son in law as a wizard and saviour, adored the family dispensation that ran the place, accredited the fact that here management and ownership was the same and blissfully confused between both…he was the living face of the management hegemony or whatever you call it.. a smart ass who knew to lick the right ones and grease the accurate points… . He was a stooge as per critics, but for me a survivor, and OK OK teacher but who cared for teaching skills at GIM, if you knew how to endure….!!!

You didn’t give me a reply… she persisted…

I don’t know ..I fumbled.. in what context are you asking?…

Do you think he has this special ..you know… this … attraction to women?

WHAT? I reacted quite loud and it didn’t matter.. we were the only people in the faculty room…

Do you think so? She insisted.. she wasn’t any longer the innocent girl who ran from the MBA class room unable to manage the subject and its subjects…

You want me to say yes or no? I asked with a smile, disguising my confusion as to why she was quizzing me on something about which I had no clue about…

Your choice.. she retorted…

If he has... you think you can woo him and survive here? I asked with a wicked smile that came easily in my miserable face

How dare you ..she almost shouted at my suggestiveness …

Then why the hell? You think I don’t have any work here than this…?

There is a reason sir… she said in a unruffled calm voice…he is not all that good,,,

Well I had no disputes… no disputes at all… no one said, I never said.. not even he would have claimed that he is good.. he was not an angel… no one was ..to survive everyone played games and for them they were right… ethics and morality was subject to the theory of relativity ..yet again and… always!!! but then women... I was'nt sure...

He tried to grab my hand today.. inside his toilet… she said as my eyes popped out, and mouth remained open for a long long minute…

Obviously first question was “what were you doing in his toilet?” but before opening that I needed to close my mouth….

Teach the teacher !!!

2008-09-23T09:11:00.002+05:30

Srilaxmi walked around in GIM dawdling & dragging, as if she was a new bride lost at the newness of her groom's house….

The large place threatened her.... a topper in her MBA
which she passed just a year back, she had no clue of what her career should be… May be teach at a business school, she had thought somewhere.. but neither for the admiration for the profession nor for the ardor to contribute to the development of it, but simply because her tradition bound parents would not allow her to work otherwise.
She send an application with a one page CV attached, when GIM had called last time for faculty recruitments (another regular drama that GIM undertook, foolish as per the critics but a smart way of Brand building as per Dr Joy), the VC called her for interview and because she looked good and could speak english, was appointed as a faculty in the Marketing area of GIM....

The characters in the faculty office tried their level best to make her uncomfortable, as they did with every new entrant.....telling her spiced tales of how the ever-over expecting crowd, whom they call 'students', in GIM would behave with you......how this piece of paper which the student gets to fill at the end of every course, which they call 'faculty feed back' would behead you....how thankless the deadly devils, whom everyone called 'the management' would suck your blood out and leave you empty and alone in the vast sea where everyone was a pirate or a sea wasp ...

I for one didn’t enjoy torturing her but to confess- was never very comfortable at the idea of a 20 something girl teaching Marketing to a set of over zealous 20 something’s…

Can you give me some tips..? She asked me one day while I was in the library trying to make sense of some heavy article in some international marketing journal…(those really help me when I was in deep problem.. I sit with one of them, try to read it and then get some peace of mind that my problems are far simple…. at least explicable and hence dealable) …

That was the first time she talked to me, that is after the formal introduction round where I was the chosen one… She rarely looked pleasant, when she moved around ,smiled once a while and that too faintly as if there was some thorn stuck to her permanently, somewhere …and I was surprised when she came and sat opposite to me and asked for TIPS…

Tips? …I cried… for what??

The Vice chairman told me that you are one popular teacher in Marketing… As you know I am new … I mean… I have no teaching experience… I mean I have no experience at all…so ..you know… I mean… She mumbled in inarticulate stream of utterances where words came out in an asymmetrical chain, the tone went up and down, the pitch was less than discernable but her eyes said it all….

she was petrified and needed help…

Well Madam… I said with humility that I wore as a decoration, when I felt elated…

Elated for what ?( later I kept wondering)…

The VC has told her that I AM popular as a teacher”……Hmmmm…. so he has noted it…
So…
So what ? nothing ….I knew the answer but the fact that the second top man in the GIM management knew it and has in fact recommended some one to take tips from me was worth to be jubilant…

I told her things which I was in no doubt that she didn’t understand… she was impervious not because she was arrogant but because she was ignorant… I felt pity at her plight, as I knew that her evident gullibility may turn expensive for her…

Never use the text book in the class, for instance… I said with her mouth open, suggesting to me that she was planning that, exactly that…

Cases, deep analysis of brands and issues, updated information about Markets and marketing…the sites, the blogs... the books that I read... I went on and she sat there showing me mixed expressions of fear, angst, loath, scorn and disbelief … her beautiful face was in radiance, her big eyes glittered like blue diamonds in spite of her dreary expressions ….

Come back you bloody flirt… my mind warned my wandering self…... Hey Sukesh you are a professor….

She smiled at me the next day and the comfort, for me looked like the handiwork of my TIPS….That was the day when she had to launch herself….the prospect of walking into a class which is a semi theatre with almost 100 young boys and girls sitting there with skepticism freely circulated along with the cold air from the Air Conditioners made her upset but her new friend was there to boost her morale… who else..? ME…only me....!!!......

The moment she introduced herself and Sales Management-the course which she was to 'teach them’, hands went up in the air.....

Mam do you have experience in sales..?
Mam you are just one year senior to us, how can you teach us the complexities of sales as a subject and practice..?
Mam.. Mam…Mam do you...
how?
what? Mam...

It was a semi dark room, and even other wise she wouldn’t be able to see anything.......She wanted to tell them that the VC of GIM has prejudiced her that as long as she is beautiful (which she is) and she has the command over the language, she could teach anything.....

She, but didn’t want to tell them that for her this was a stop gap arrangement, when someone comes asking for her hand in marriage, this job will make her more saleable....

Sales management was the issue, selling her in the marriage market to be precise and alas I had no TIPS to offer in that domain !!!

Shoot the messenger !!!

2008-09-20T16:00:00.003+05:30

It was a long wait for Prof Ram…

First the admission process which kept the management quite busy and the HQ section of the GIM main building a hot bed of activities, and then came the schedule for the AICTE visit that was long pending. A lot of work had to be done before the Delhi team arrived ,with their greed packed in suitcases, pretending to be a group conscious about quality of higher education in this country and Ram never got any gap to squeeze in with his letter and discuss it with the king…

I was the prime victim of the delay, ostensibly as I sat next to him…

He edited it, modified it, tailored it even more, add more quotes and instances, cut off flab but added more, thought about it, rambled incessantly and worse -suddenly walked into my cabin or even showed up his head through the half partition to ask for my opinion on adding something or taking off something from the letter, knowing fully well that my opinion by and large remains the same…

It was discussed by others for some days and later forgotten mercilessly in the admission jamboree and the AICTE visit preparation… Women started worrying about their attire and how disgusting and deplorable it is that the AICTE team is coming on a month end and how good it would have been had it been scheduled for the next month to facilitate better sarees and matching accessories ….In the melee it seemed that only two people were bothered about the letter and its reaching its designated target.. the Kings table !!!

Me and Prof Ram….

Prof Ram was in utopia, or that is what I believed at least … I for sure knew that Dr Joy knew most of the things that was so ornately described in the letter..
May be the quotes and examples from the industry would be new but the facts wouldn’t be and if things were in the shape as they were , it was either because he intended it that way , or because he was helpless…

For me, either ways we couldn’t help it but I stopped saying that to Prof Ram, for not wanting to bicker and squabble over something which was like the classical chicken or the egg issue…

At last the day came when Madam Secretary called Prof Ram in his intercom and announced that the King is now ready and he may come to the HQ in 5 minutes if he still wanted to see the man…

I saw the Prof running out of his cabin in sheer ecstasy as did Archimedes when he ran yelling eureka eureka… Ram of course wasn’t wet and naked and wasn’t yelling, but as he ran, I could see his bliss as if he was a teenager who got an appointment to date Mallika Sherawat….

When Prof Ram walked into the palatial comforts of Dr Joy’s seven star cabin, there was a guest sitting opposite to Dr Joy..... It was not expected, and worse he expected the king to be alone to facilitate a discussion. Wedged for a moment as to what to do, Prof Ram took the seat which was offered to him.

Meet Prof Ram... Dr Joy introduced him to the guest... he teaches strategy at MBA and is a renowned expert.... in fact the back bone of intellect in GIM....

Ram smiled at the praise, knowing very well that it was diplomacy- Joy style and in utter discomfort caused by the presence of a stranger …

And he is Sam Harris... an NRI... Dr Joy introduced the guest to Prof Ram.... we are planning of starting a joint business....fish culture and export...

Prof Ram was taken aback and sat as if a lightning struck him... even the vivacious him couldn’t speak ...

The strategy that he taught wouldn’t agree to this "diversification plans " of the boss.. from education to fish… Goodness gracious!

His brain stopped thinking and as he handed over the envelope with the letter told Dr Joy in a faint mutter....

Please give a reply.... I think I have written down something very important... he muttered in an incoherent tone as if the king will realize his discontentment…

When he was gone, Dr Joy opened the letter ,read that for a minute and with contempt threw it into the dust bin...

What is that ?... asked the curious NRI...

He wants to tell me that he is unhappy and I should do something to make him happy... laughed Dr Joy...

Like...?

Give him a raise and he will shut his mouth for while, then again a letter.....grumbled the king... Teaching me... huh...?

And this stupid teachers..This is the bloody problem with them.. they think they can teach every one… I have reached so far and I god damn know how to take it further….. he went on as the NRI sat there amused and annoyed at the same time.. he had come there for fish business and now was caught in something fishy..

Oh I am sure you can handle it Joy… he said reassuringly….

Hahahahaha… the King laughed in mirth…. You bet… It’s the least of my problems…. I have dealt with such trouble makers often… one thing they don’t understand is that for me I know the art of making money and for that I don’t need an MBA…

Thank God we don’t have an MBA ….laughed the guest as Dr Joy walked up to his refrigerator and poured vodka in two glasses… Now that Prof Ram had ignited it, his interns began to blaze…

Cheers!!! they said and clang the glasses…

They talked business but Dr Joy had an eye set in the dust bin… he wanted the NRI to go to clasp the cover that he had dumped into it with disdain and disgust…

He knew that it was important…
He knew that it WAS NOT the least of his problems…
He knew it could tell him things that he never knew…
He knew that GIM could be saved if he could read it without derision.. once ..
He also knew that it could tell him things that he knew but thought to himself that others didn’t know….

Bastard!!! he still muttered even as the NRI talked fish to an inattentive king….

Waiting list !!!

2008-09-16T14:01:00.001+05:30

It is an annual fanfare in GIM ,the long admission process...

Dr Jesus and his office takes care of the process from the advertising in all national newspapers about GIM ( with the large campus and the building projected, with Air conditioning and the gardens as the selling point, keeping in mind the publicity rule that " allways your postives should be touted about"....), to the applications that they receive (thousands of them, for all the negatives, GIM had a name of its own partly due to the huge campus that Dr Joy had the common sense to build and partly due to its teachers, again Dr Joy had a good sense in identifying them..) and to conducting the actual admission process....

This year the process began as usual and all the major news papers carried big ads (it need not be big to look best ,but Jesus never knew that ) and inspite of the "heavily loaded" other works that he was doing Jesus was in the helm of affairs........

Every one knew that the father was told by every other person that it was difficult to attract good students with Dr Jesus in charge of the admission process. His haphazard and abrupt decisions made the process go haywire every time and the list of selected would be disappointing at the end of the whole process.. Every year, inspite of the thousands of applications that poured in, a large section of the selected lot wouldn’t fit into a decent B School canvas, which GIM was claiming to be.. Still Jesus was there everywhere,running here and there ,with noises and cracking the whip, as if he was actually running the Jumbo circus !!!

Prof Ram..... called Dr Joseph, the ED coming out of his chamber to the large common area in the faculty room...

He is not here sir... I shouted back from my pigeon hole where I sat as Prof Ram's neighbour... I think he is in the library...
( Prof Ram went to the library many times a day, while most others didnt even know that GIM had one..)

Then you may have to go ... for the Group Discussion first round..the prospective students are waiting...... ED announced to me callously.

My goodness..... lamented a poor me as I cursed myself but managed to blurt out........ I have scheduled a case discussion in my next class, just two hours from now... thought of getting into it a bit more...

Oh that shoudnt be a problem Sukesh...said ED,....this will take only one hour...

But sir... I protested ,faintly though !!!

Well, then tell me what shall I do.. some has gone on leave...most are in class ..only you are sitting here idle...... shall I go and tell the HQ...?

That was the trick and it was done....... I went for the first round of the group discussion , which was the first round of the selection process to get into the coveted MBA from Gods Institute of Management....
Young and anxious faces waited, mulled, discussed and debated, as we, the two professors sat watching the show and as their parents languished outside the building, in the sprawling lawns and gardens with hopes and worries printed all over their faces.....
I didnt see most of them..or hadnt seen it all before, different faces though...
I was burning...
IDLE .... !!!
Did some one say that to my face some time back? IDLE??? and did I protest????
Me and protest !!! Never ......
The actual me protested to the pseudo loyal me,,,, but that was it....

Most of prospects as they debated showed that they have got trained by professional schools as was discernible in their mannerisms and lingua, often artificial and synthetic ,very prominently displayed to the extent of causing irritation to a neutral observer.....
To me yes... it was a fake show- where the result was declared even before the test was conducted....

I will say that number 5 and 6 are the only ones who can go in ..all others can go back home... said my co Prof who chaired the GD session with me,after the melee in which the kids debated over " whether democracy was good or bad for India" was over...

But out of 10 shouldnt we atleast recommend half of them....?..... asked a honest me unable to digest what I just heard....

why should we let all the scum in..? Is it not enough what we already have here?.. pat came the reply...
The RAM tribe was growing , I could see but I didnt respond to that..

Who is a friend ? who is a foe? who is a spy? .....at GIM you never knew it....

Those who made it into the second round went for an interview where VC presided normally and ED was called in and sometimes one of the Directors and the Dean. A typical interview was simple and straight forward and not a messy affair....

Have you bought the Demand Draft drawn in favour of GIM? .....the VC will ask..

No sir... but I didnt know that I will get selected.. so.. If I get I thought I will... will be a typical answer..

Who said you are getting selected... You will be selected only when you have the DD ready in your hand.... flashing a smile, the grand old man will scan the poor guy or gal like a vulture will pore over its distant prey.....

The candidate will sit sad and miserable at the apparent miss between the cup and the sip...

Dont worry....... VC will say in a soothing voice as the ED or who ever is there in the panel will shake his/her head in total agreement....

We will put you in waiting list, you will come with the DD before 4 Pm tomorrow and join or you shall never...but you shall not tell this to any one...
The candidate will smile and then later blush out of joy and relief as for a sick man with death comes peace!!!
The candidate rushes out still in blush and in glee, little knowing that this is what they told everyone and the waitlist in GIM was usually bigger than the actual selected list...

The next candidate will walk in like a thief will do in the middle of the night ....

The king is naked !!!

2008-09-09T16:12:00.001+05:30

Manohar and Dr Jesus had one thing in common !!!!

Their passion for the latest gizmos and costly apparels, flashy cars and pens to flaunt, and more importantly... air travel...... Dr Joy seemed to be enjoying the flamboyancy which his son and son in law picked up as the family got richer and richer, year after year with MBA aspirants and their hopeful parents flocking with bags of money...... The father had pride written all over his face when ever some one(rarely though) praised him about his egotic son and his erronous son in law....he knew that they were bad and had a fear in his mind as to what will happen when his days are over...Their quarrels and mutual apathy gave him sleepless nights and peace of mind simply eluded him ,no matter how much money he had in his coffers and how many cars he had in his garrage....It is there he heavily depended on the astuteness of the likes of Subramaniam Iyer the VC, not that he was any less in sneak and craft but he trusted VC's abilities more than his own...

It was such a day when Dr Jesus was away on a trip to Mumbai (Bombay) for rrrrr...well... why and for what, no one knew, for Dr Jesus or nattu as the kids called him was the crown prince and no one dared to ask him where he is flying to... Dr Jesus was away and Prof Ram had made a detailed letter as to how to change and make GIM a respectable place and discussed it with a couple of us in the faculty office... I for sure kept mum inspite of the painful and pricky facts that glared and stared at my consciousness from all across the 16 page document,and felt bad at my insouciance ..... I couldnt help it- the pseudo loyal that I was,,,,

The rebel was ready with his 16 page weapon and called madam secretary from his intercom to fix an appointment with the Director .......

But sir Dr Jesus is not in town.... said the proud lady..... he is not expected to be in for another three four days...

Oh ..where is he then .?...asked Prof Ram...

Ha... a supercilious gasp was the reply... I am sorry sir, I cannot tell that to you...

Prof Ram turned to me and mangled while he banged the receiver back to the cradle...This is a funny place..... the director is out and even that is a secret... I guess I would be metting Dr Joy and giving him the letter which I have written...

Sir there are things which we cant change...it is their place... I said unconvincingly .... either be with them or go away..there is not a third choice...

You are talking like George bush.. shouted Prof Ram... it is not THEIR place... it is OUR place... employees should feel that it is their place, then only organisations would excel... what you told me now is an indication..you feel that it is their place and you have no role in building GIM...

I sat there staring at the old mans face.. for me what the grand old man of GIM was saying was sense( absolute sense) but again from his angle Prof Ram could say it.... others could not...at least I could not..

Call it cowardice ..call it despondency.... I didnt care... well...

Did I? I guess I did but I couldnt help it...

Your job is not just teaching and taking home the salary check which Joy or Jesus signs at the end of every month.. you are in a process of making future managers... in a way making talents... moulding the nation...Prof Ram thundered and the common room and its occupants sat dazed....

And when they treat you like a whore...? joined some one else, presumabily unable to resist the temptation to join....

We teach management... but dont practice it and that is the content of this letter ...said Prof Ram as he threw a bunch of papers into the table...

The ones with grey hairs, stroke them .....some read it again and some smiled as they read the long letter,again and again while I was wriggling in discomfort at the whole episode....

YES...I told my self... I would want GIM to change.... realise that change is an inevitable reality.... and would be happy at such change, but would be happier if I could retain MY JOB....
Wonderful ....said another Prof ,with admiration after reading it....how I hope that they open their eyes....

Prof Ram smiled.... I will tell them... I will tell the king that he is nude and he really looks ugly.... some one will have to tell... when the young refuses to go for war the old have to...

Getting the dig that was a projectile aimed at me and my likes in GIM I stood up......

You can Sir....for me my life is only begining... I cannot simply stand in the street....

You call it life..? at your age you should be at a place where they respect your intellect..... not where they suck your blood and pretend to be ignorant of it...why at your age.. at any age... Prof Ram went on ....

I walked away to my cabin upset of the development and afraid of the news ,that the omnipresent spy racket is going to carry to the HQ, with addition and substraction, with spices added... I was afraid of the whole system..

It was a dubious system by design ..now by default it was getting even more dirtier ....

Questions and answers !!!

2008-09-06T14:25:00.004+05:30

For me, it was an aweful day.....
The hot summer was brooding and sultry, and as humidity reached its pinnacles, I was sweating profusely, even as I sat under the fan, strategically positioned to cool me off....
It was a heaven inside GIM, with central A/C and soft music spread everywhere but people when needed free thinking and some loud talking ,migrated into the canteen building across the large garden that was the centre point of GIM.
After introducing Srilaxmi to the class of MBA who for some time were awed by her beauty, but then slowly looked daunted by her obvious naïveté ,I too found solace in the canteen and sat there idle seeking respite and for some introspection as to what the HELL was my doing there...

I, for a minute hated the profession that I was in...

It was new to me... I had hated certain elements of the job there many a times but inspite of all the negatives I didnt hate the job, hadnt yet because of the students that I got to teach there..The best result that a teacher can hope for is the transformation that his students undergo under his tutelage,,.. probably that is the only take home or gratification that teaching as a profession world over gave its practitioners..I kept reassuring myself whenever I sulked....
The heat wave that swept me was refusing to get cured by that logic...

In a B school lots of star studded jobs came into campus and left with the bright students ... most of them bagging double and more of salaries than their wise and well learned teachers took home inspite of all their wisdom.... Still I didnt hate my job..... there was a unique satisfaction in seeing raw material turning into finished products that some one would come ,see, test, like it, and go buying... there was a unique bliss in seeing the teachers role in the pupils transformation...

I for a minute hated the profession only for the way it was practised in here at GIM...I just had lead a young lady into a class of demanding kids ,a damsel who clearly ventured into a profession having no idea about why she is there and what makes her qualified to be there....
I hadnt had in me the guts to say "I cannot be party to it" to the man who assigned me the dirty job.At GIM I was popular as a teacher, mostly because of the theory of relativity in place...AS compared to whom was a question no one ever asked...... I felt it good that way to be ranked top by the hundreds on young boys and girls with bright eyes and even brighter intellects, well informed mindsets and well oiled brains. Deep inside I knew that inexperienced damsels and good for nothing else idiots should walk in to teach at GIM, get the wrath of students and run away again and again, so that when the theory of relativity is applied next time when a student feedback is taken ,I remain visible and shining... We needed the bad ones, compared to whom the better ones looked the best,,,, HUH!!!

Sullied motives so glaring out of self declared altruism and no fan could beat the sweat ...

Prof Sukesh.... you are here.... walked in Valmiki Gupta ... into the canteen bouncing me back to GIM and its real world.....

Oh yes yes.. Guptaji ...I smiled sheepishly....Day dreamer eh...? he laughed loud as he came and sat opposite to me with a cup of tea and deep fried banana that GIM canteen was good for.

It seems to be rocking ..your soft skills classess... for the first time there is so much of noise in GIM .....I said and I meant it....

Ohh yes yes... and as expected they LOVEEEE it.... claimed gupta with his trumphet out....
I knew I did a mistake by encouraging this self important guy... He was ready with more of his tales but then I interfered as words got stuck in his mouth, in between hot pieces of fried banana..

Hope the management also feels the same... I garbled sarcastically.... The full time faculty hated the part timers who came,saw and conquered the student minds and I too felt the same with this man whose classes were LOVEEED by the kids.

hahahahhaa... Gupta laughed at my face with such blatant impunity that for a second put me to shame and made me regret again...

Why do you think so much noise is made? Asked Gupta biting off the last piece of banana fry, and quickly gulping the remaining tea...

I didnt know.. well ... I mean I could have come up with answers but unprepared to accept more of hoot and howl from the soft skills trainer, I kept shut....

It is not how you work my dear professor.....Gupta revealed as if in a sermon.... it is how you show you work....

I sat there ..... I atleast regretted my self centrism, it seemed to me that the rest of that world was celebrating it...

Will she? Wont she?

2008-09-04T16:06:00.001+05:30

Sri laxmi, a newly appointed lecturer in the area of Marketing was at GIM that day and after her joining, Dr Joseph called me in to his cabin and gave me the not so very admirable task of taking her to the class room and introduce the incumbent to the second year students in my capacity as the chairperson-Marketing area .(Such paraphernelia kept visiting the faculty of GIM in rotation , and we received it in no great exultation and when it left us we left it with no great sadness either)...
Valmiki gupta and his noisy softskills classes were in full swing... it was unusual at GIM to hear so much noise and for a change it sounded like a place where some 500 young men and women lived, literally....
I dont think she has that kind of confidence... I told myself after seeing the shy and timid lady sitting in the common area of the faculty room... I walked to her and extended my long hands to welcome her to the fraternity at GIM.
She looked horrified, and a scare was visible in her big eyes.. Beautiful she was and why not... GIM never recruited women who arent good in looks, brain is another thing which as per a logic put down by the HQ -could be done away with if they looked good... She too seemed to be of the same genre and definitely not the one who was destined to teach Marketing at a B school....

You are the nth one I am seeing my dear.. I said to myself as she said a namaskar with her hands folded, and a shaken me taking back my hands and taken aback byher primitive manners.

I sat in Dr Joseph's chamber waiting for the bell to go on air, after which I could take the new damsel to start her life with the knowledge hungry crowd of the second year of MBA at GIM.

I dont think she is that confident...... told Dr Joseph in a hushed tone to my worried eyes more than to my ears...
I was aghast by that remark... for a second I even thought that the ED knew mind reading and this old man has just grabbed what I was thinking .

It is clear to anyone who sees her but then it is VC's appointment and as usual even I had no say in the whole thing.... I was only told this morning ... he added as if he did it again... mind reading....

....ooh.... I sat with an open mouth, as if it was through there that the news was going in...

And you know what......Dr Joseph was more than happy to feed me with more information...... Another four more are joining to 'boost the intellectual capital' as per VC but in fact to compensate the numbers which we have lost in the last two months.......

Ohh..numbers is a problem is it...? I thought with everyone in the HQ from Dr Joy in the list of faculty send to AICTE, we were on the comfortable side.... I whispered in disbeleif which took Dr Jospeph by a storm.. I wasnt prepared for the reaction and got annoyed when he responded to that ....
...hahahahahaha....Dr Joseph laughed, in thunderous mirth, with air gaps in between giving you a feel that it will end,it sure will but to begin again and raise to a top volume hilarity...in a way his laughter was entirely his own and even the best student mimic of GIM could never copy it with full perfection....
Sirrrrr.... came and called Jansi william,the faculty office secretary...
Yes please......said Dr Joseph, visibly unhappy for the abrupt end that he had to put to the chat with me but much to my happiness that I was releived from the torture of being cornered by this commander of the kings loyal army...
The bell will not work..there seems to be some problem ....so if...... said Jansi in her usual curtailed style of speech......
Next thing which I did after returning from class was to run to the canteen.. have a face wash and over a cup of tea, ponder....
Will she?
Wont she?

Tug Of War !!!

2008-09-01T10:32:00.001+05:30

Dr Joseph was glued to the telephone when the guest walked in with firm steps, a lavish smile and an extended hand of friendship. I was sitting opposite to him with a couple of other colleagues and was about to begin a syllabus review process which was a regular exercise that we undertook at the B school to make sure that we taught what the industry wanted.. whether we actually did it is a different question altogether and can be seen later.....

Yes sir.. will do sir.. no sir.... ok sir.... he kept on saying mechanically and kept the phone....

You look pale and shocked... said Gupta who walked in and didnt bother even to acknowledge the presence of two three others in the room....... For him we were like invisible or some lesser mortals who didnt have the right to exist....

Did I walk in at the wrong time? he enquired...

well no... said Dr Joseph with a sheepish smile...... absolutely not.....but I am afraid you may have to go to the guest house now... and let us begin fresh tomorrow morning...

Cool with me ....said Gupta.... and in any case im here direct from the airport.. would like to have some rest...

As Gupta was packed off,Dr Joseph started sweating as if he has just seen a ghost and told us that the syllabus review can wait and then ran out of the faculty room to the VC's office.......

You will have to help me sir..... he lamented as he almost fell into a chair at the VC's room......There is a man who have come from Delhi on Mr Manohars invitation and we are putting him as a soft skills trainer....

mmmm....mumbled VC who was writing something on a notepad and didnt raise his head to look at the expressions that bloomed at the ED's face.

Sharma of AICTE has recommended him and you know Sharma....continued Dr Joseph......that is why Manohar wants...

And Jesus has told you that Gupta cannot and will not train the students here.. right?......asked VC this time, putting his notepad on to the table...

Dr Joseph smiled in astonishment, for a second, and then out a releif over the realisation that this man who knew the GIM family better than he knew his own, could solve this puzzle as well....

Valmiki gupta went on with his softskills training and the ED was caught in the tussle between the son and the son in law, both directors at GIM .Dr Joseph played his cards safe as per the VC's directives and made sure that he wasnt hurt in the bizarre tug of war between the two power centers at GIM . Jesus was angry and the VC brokered a deal between both the parties, in the Kings chamber and a temporary cease fire was declared... Truce it was but Dr Joseph the ED ,knew that it was just a matter of time before it flared up again.... But for the time being he was happy and thankful to one man...... The VC.. shrewd to the core and a master manipulator he was....

Half the time he spend unravelling such quagmires......Rest half he spend crafting new problems so that he could solve them...........

Juvenile delinquency..

2008-08-29T14:27:00.004+05:30

The man was tall, cool and handsome. He almost walked like a model into the long corridors of GIM, confidently into the HQ where the top brass lived.I was just coming out after a meeting with Jesus, where he cracked jokes, shared thoughts and entertained me and a couple of my co prof's who would be organising an industry interaction effort......Madam secretary was not on her seat when he arrived at the HQ reception..... He waited for a while and then took his mobile phone out and rang up some one....

Mr Manohar.... he smiled and smoothly whispered, as if to his girls ears.... I am Valmiki Gupta from Mumbai, hope Mr Sharma of AICTE has spoken to you about me.....

Silence....

Yes I am outside your office,but very well inside GIM, lost in the spectacle... continued Gupta...

A glass door opened and came out Mr Manohar, who was another Director of the B school,not in charge of academics, which Dr Jesus took care of , but in charge of quality assurance and overseas relations.
Manohar ,was the son in law of Dr Joy,whom his daughter had wed after an embattled love life which her father and brother was opposed to. Manohar was Hindu, who was a blot in the evangelist family who could convince others to adopt the way of the cross but their own son in law was an exception and a glaring one...... Manohar and his wife lived in the US for sometime where he ran his own software firm which became big and big and burst one day in the bubble burst. His love for his daughter made Dr Joy carve an office for his son in law, out of nothing and from nowhere....and make him seated in the same HQ where he sat with his son in a cabin adjacent and VC next to it...

Yes Mr Gupta..... welcome welcome... thundered Manohar as he walked out of his office with arms thrown open to receive the seemingly elite guest. After the exchange of pleasantaries they sat in Manohars plush office, every corner of which vied for attention.

I should tell you that you have a beautiful campus and a very charming office... said Gupta

Manohar flashed a smile, a rare one which when he does probably made hearts flutter and made the rise of the son in law to the nucleus of the GIM empire...

That is what everyone says....blushed Manohar.... and the credit goes to the visionary Dr Joy who happens to be my Father In Law.....

Oh ! I did not know that....Gupta looked apologetic even when he did smile and Manohar returned it with a you- better -know- it- you- ass smile....

The two proceeded onto a discussion which lasted some minutes, most of it for mutual admiration and to the fag end for actual business.

Now shall I proceed into my assignment? asked Gupta

I wish you a happy week ahead and hope that after your training our students and their soft skills will get polished up... said Manohar as he stood up to bid farewell...

Wouldnt you be checking my credentials?.... asked Gupta

Mr Sharma says and that is the best credential as far as GIM is concerned......smiled Manohar, this time business man like, adopting it fully from his father in law.......You can meet Dr Joseph our executive director in the second floor, who will let you know the plans for the week.

As Valmiki Gupta walked out, Manohar picked up the intercom and in haste dialled Dr Joseph and told him that the guest is coming , dialled another number,held for a while and then kept the receiver impatiently back to the cradle. He took a piece of paper and wrote....

"Daddy,

Valmiki gupta is here and I have decided to use him as the soft skills trainer for the next one week. Dr Joseph is being asked to take care of. I would be happy and thankful if you can ask Jesus to keep away from this....

Manohar
****************************************************

Blame me.. Blame you.... PART II

2008-08-27T12:36:00.009+05:30

Not that any one in GIM was unduly perturbed over the glitch about the student quality and the subsequent industry feed back, but that it was a reason why come December and before a new year dawns the fault finding mission started ,was of worry to at least some .....
Who is to blame for the issue which year after year looked impenetrable...?

Now again it is seen that the recruiters are of the opinion that students lack in general awareness, soft skills, and even grooming... announced Dr Joy from his raised pedestal in the meeting room inside his chamber....
VC and ED sitting left and right as would the proverbial three monkeys, shook their heads in complete agreement......

I should say...Prof Ram mumbled from memory (He too was a veteran) ...that the onus is on the faculty, who somehow somewhere is failing in their duties....

I should say...Said a grim looking Dr Joy as if he was repeating what Ram said.... that the faculty should take the responsibility for this failure that they are facing...

Oh he changed the sentence....said someone

But the idea remains the same... quipped another

As a matter of fact we are planning certain changes in the way the faculty evaluation would hereafter be taking place.....went on the King

Evaluation...My goodness.. I never knew that they are doing anything of that name... came a comment from my back...

Student’s selection is the root cause and we don’t need to do any research to know it...stood up Prof Ram, the outspoken... it is simple, we are trying to build palaces on pig waste...

It was an assault; an open call for war and Ram the revisionist had just made the bugle sound….There was a stunned silence in the room.... It was this man who always called the spade a spade, when others sat silently and even worse, nodding heads as the famous dolls of Tanjore would do.
I felt guilty… I too belonged to that tribe…....

I have seen many girls and boys whom the first round selection panel has rejected, later sitting in the class... is it not a mockery..? Before the faculty gets to teach them aren’t they given a message that if you have the cheque ready we have the seat vacant for you? …. Ram seemed to be decided to take on the battering….

But it is all happening everywhere ....stood up VC, the Chanakya..... how can we only be different and in any case the talent of faculty lies not in making the best the best again but the bad the best....do you agree?

That was one of his aces, Subramaniam Iyer, the shrewd VC, knew that he will get some ye ye from the crowd and the division would be done...
Ditto it happened and heated debate followed after which there was more disagreement than agreement and the only agreement was that this was the 'classical chicken or the egg' question...
Dr Joy continued his monologue and at the end established that what he said was right and others (those who disagree) could search for other options.....

He said making a funny face as if he was an accidentaly born offspring when Benito Mussolini slept with Imelda Marcos ....I’m a democratic leader...I believe in discussion....debates...disagreement...... But then this B school is my baby and I have a dream for it... either you are with me in this journey or you are not....

He sounded like George bush declaring war on Iraq for non existing reasons…

It clearly was a ploy and this meeting was just a farce like many other meetings....

My mind says that something more is yet to come.. this is just test marketing... I said to Prof Ram, once we left the room.

Let them Sukesh...no prostitute can go on giving chastity speech like this... Fumed Ram as he walked violently to the faculty room….. One day this man will stand exposed…. thread bare.....