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…

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”

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?