The Sound of Silence !

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

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 !

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?