Through the Bazaar With Mother

Many of my peers seem to not shop any longer in the traditional bazaars and prefer destination malls or dispatch their domestic help to do the shopping, or even order online or over the phone . I believe that they miss out interacting with common people and see their lives from close quarters, the warts, the smiles, the squalor and the immense human spirit. My mother introduced me several years ago to a bazaar of fresh vegetables and fish located at a good walk from home and oddly called the 11’O clock market located on either side of a road with vegetable, fruit and fish vendors by their large baskets calling their prices loudly with little space to navigate among shoppers. It was located next to a school where children with their sweet voices lustily sang the national anthem and a shloka on Sarawsati above the din of the bazaar. It was noisy, dirty, bright and beautiful with the air heavy with the aroma of greens and fresh bloom of all colours. It is an open bustling market that gets busy by 11 am and is deserted by 2.00pm. Of course it is often painful to see how they eke their living with their little basketful of wares. I have deferred to this idea because my mother insists that we must buy from the small vendors and support such livelihoods than the organised biggies.  Sometimes she picks up the smallest vendor and buys just to remind me of the same. 

Mamma Mia!

She never trusts me to buy fresh produce. She says it needs care and experience to pick the tender vegetable; that the tail of the ladyfinger ought to break under pressure, that the ridge gourd ridges should be wide spaced and shallow, that the drumstick should be sufficiently plump and the leafy bunch must look fresh and stiff, the stalk of the brinjal must not shrivel, and I switch off and refuse to heed further advise on fish or shrimp which i detest buying. I feel that rather than carry all these instructions it is easier to carry my mother to the market and stand silently in the corner watching the surging humanity transact. Slow in gait but steady like a tortoise my mother decked in her zari saree pressed crisp and in an ancient gold chain and bindi holding my hand is a familiar sight on a daily basis and some of the vendors seem to await her arrival. She knew exactly what a good bargain was and capitalised on it. Her head was full information on the day of the lunar calendar which made her calculate how fish might be cheaper on the 11th day of the moon (ekadashi) or in the month of Shravan, or Magha or based on the season which often bewildered me at such futility.

The Lord of the Rings

A few days back I received a call from an old student well over two decades ago. I remember him being the eldest of the batch and of my age. he said he called to let me know that he was leaving his present job at a multinational company which was itself going through the throes of downsizing and axing departments worldwide. He said he was not looking for another job but would pursue his lifelong interest in stocks and valuation of companies despite his career in supply chain. When i suggested that he could always get back to his interest at a later date and that in the interim he could take up some offers he already had and alleviate any anxiety his family might go through. He said he was firm about pursuing his interest and had given it considerable thought and had the consent if not blessings of his family. He also said he wished to take up a spare office and work not from home and maintain a continuity in his professional career. I exhausted some ready nostrums and finally told him that it seemed like a fine idea if he was sure of the risks were manageable given the relative age of his two children and their stages of education. He was certain that they were taken into account. I wondered what to say to him. He obviously did not call just to keep me abreast, though it was the ostensible reason. I winced being in that position and brought back to me my memories my own decision several years ago.

Pallandu Pallandu!

On Late Dr ML Shrikant's 80th Birthday on 23rd Jauary 2016

A Vedantin never celebrates his birthday and neither did Dr Shrikant; for reasons I am not sure were entirely Vedantic. We were at times churlish enough to suggest that he shared his birthday with “Bal Thakeray” though we knew that ‘Netaji’ was the better comparison.  We were youthful and loved rebellion even converting the “shabad” of the holy Granth Sahib to say “Jo lade ‘dean’ (deen)  ke het shoora sohi”. That today would have been his 80th birthday is poignant. In the Tamil tradition they might have performed a ritual bathing ‘shatabhishekam” and probably in the spirit of the Alwars sang “Pallandu Pallandu” ...”May you live long” pronouncing the ironic blessing by a younger upon the elder! We cannot greet his corporeal self any longer but offer our prayers to that which we hold in esteem within ourselves that reflects his light.

I must acknowledge with gratitude that I am happy that Dr Bannerjee the new dean has been generous enough to announce on the eve of his birthday some things to honour his memory. I have been tickled by the idea of naming a state of the art auditorium after him. I remember once in exasperation telling him that the initials S and P in SP Jain really stood for Shrikant and Parab protesting their overwhelming oversight. Now I think he would be more at peace if his name graced a place that would lift the evening strains of Raag Marwa as elegantly as he carried himself. A chair position on spirituality and management is also quite in the right spirit as also memorial lectures. To these initiatives I am thankful.

Yet I would also wish that his spirit is vivified in the things that were implicit, unspoken, and wove into the fabric of the institute’s working.  Now that SPJIMR has charted a new research paradigm for the school (which is truly commendable) I would believe that those unarticulated ideas that made his contribution unique form a good subject too (among others) to study. I would hope the senior faculty there, especially who had their longest innings with him to take this study for the future of the institute itself (I worry about the ghost of George Santayana).  As an example I would believe that unlike many schools and its leaders Dr Shrikant held administrative ability as the very heart of management and very rightly so he would assert that it gets relegated into some insipid dusty place within the curriculum. He would make us wade through the tedium of Drucker to glean in the rich pickings of administrative thought and emerge with jewels that only pearl divers understood.  I remember being awestruck when i read “the objective of all control is not to build compliance but commitment”. He elaborated at length on the difference between control and controls and not all of us appreciated what he said. He cared not for the curriculum and its credits but would insert them wherever he thought was feasible. This priority for administration combined with the rather questionable “Competent Manager” research by Boyatzis (later discarded by Case Western) gave birth to that ill formed kid called ADMAP that was often exasperating despite its novelty.  It was this obsession with ‘getting things done’ that marked his leadership and he broke to rebuild even things considered good. There was the joke that would go around that early morning one of us found Dr Shrikant staring at a wall and in panic the jungle message spread that the life of that wall was marked for just a few more hours! He was a lifelong learner and found learning even in the most unexpected places. I remember him driving me down to a slum a Sunday morning to bundle out an old priestly looking elder gentleman into his car and insisting on a lesson on Vedanta (of course what also tickled me that day was the elder teacher admonishing him for placing books on the floor, during the course of his impressive exposition).

To say that we miss him would be an overwhelming understatement. I do know that the institute is trying very hard to keep up the good name of the institute and appreciate them for doing so. Yet i know it is not going to be easy. I believe he must be smiling kindly upon us all (and probably giving nightmares to those who conspired his ungracious exit). Just kidding.....;-)! 

"Pallandu Pallandu....!

pallANdu pallANdu pallAyiraththANdu

May you live countless years of the Brahma himself. May your divine beauty be protected forever!

A Lingering Absence

I haven't been able to bring myself to pen any further since Dr Shrikant's funeral. Probably it matters not any more as I can no longer wrestle with him nor seek his commendation. Yet I thought i must point out something to the people at the institute.

Dr Shrikant I remember would dislike any activity or process that is hinged upon an individual and shares his or her idiosyncrasy. Yet the quest for a process to be institutionalised shorn of all personality was often a guise for wanting to refuse to be hostage to the whims of the individual. But creativity cannot be institutionalised and those activities that can be institutionalised don’t hold the centre for too long- quite like Mullah Nasruddin’s lost key. When i think of the institution he has built I think it betrays this schizophrenia.  There is this assumption that the institution is being independently animated by its processes that have been institutionalised, with its flaws, But yet it is unmistakably in thrall of his ghostly presence.  It is not just that Dr Shrikant died, something deep within the heart of the institution also dies with him and we grieve not just his loss but that which is not nameable. There are those who would point out that he was anyway (un)graciously eased out more than a year ago and that the continuity of the institute it its imitated voices is testimony to its enduring character.  Besides it is not that some of us are unaware of his extremely complicated personality warts and all and in good measure have even been victims of his disquiet. Many (almost all) of his initiatives will continue in their variegated vigour or enervation and few can tell the difference, and some will say that such emulation is his best honour, which time will reveal.