The subject expert - part I

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 !!!

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..!!!

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 !!!

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 !!!

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 !!!

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 !!!

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 !!!

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!!!

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 !!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sat with a question mark blooming on my face …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus… I called out inadvertently...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GIM is back ...

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

The birthday boy - Part II

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>>>>!!!

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

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

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 !!!

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…