The Foundation Stone

The banyan tree noticed him from afar as he walked towards the temple in the measured pace and calm of a man in his seventies, surprisingly slim and little else but the grey of his hair would even give away his age. The old banyan in the centre of the Bhavan’s campus, standing in the corner acknowledged his familiar presence with a sway of her crown, home to several egrets, herons and water birds that fished in the Bhavan’s pond in that campus, that seemed less green with every passing year. She counted her years not by the locks of hair she let down to support her age but by the number of times women wrapped its girth with a circumambulating thread around on the day of Vata Savitri on Jyeshtha Poornima each year praying for their husband’s longevity. The young girls returning to Pallonji Sadan late evenings from college, imagined the tree to be a haunt of ghosts. The campus then was greener and the banyan hosted many more species of birds than its now manicured look and hodgepodge architecture; held many more secrets in the folds of her green shrubbery of love, learning and laughter. 

The Street Classroom

In 2002-3 I had spent time trying to help make a street school with a friend Aruna Burte. This write up chronicles those days which surfacing often in my thoughts. Those children have all grownup and many have even left. But their laughter and mischief fills my heart.

Twenty pairs of intense, sharp, clear eyes set in frail and small bodies, peering into your face trying to listen with concentration interrupted by restlessness and distraction can be unnerving for even a seasoned teacher not just an ill prepared one like me.  It was 2002 and I was a novice teacher unnerved with my little classroom impossibly filled with raucous children hell bent on doing anything but sit steady and listen.  But it was not that their restlessness was driven by ill intent, they seem animated by spirits stronger than their frail bodies could handle. But then those faces were in their own way remarkably diverse in colour and character and told me tales that I had never heard. Their little bodies were clothed with colours of playing in the dirt, some torn, few mended, few slipping to reveal tender limbs or shy bottoms, faces smeared with dust and tears or of the dried ice cream around chin and cheek, tousled hair, one pigtail with a missing ribbon, another with a broken clasp, one with sores on his feet, one who had waded in the gutter, many with a wide grin in an endless inventiveness of childhood pranks. Their satchels were as diverse as themselves and the state of their books and notes made me feel faint. The satchels’ real treasures were broken bits of coloured glass, some forgotten half eaten fruit, a feather, a drawing crumpled between books, chocolate wrappers, matchboxes, empty cigarette boxes, felt pens with missing caps, pencils with chewed ends, a magnet etc. They would give a sweet smile that would make one swoon at its innocence and resume their pranks of pulling a girl’s pigtail, or passing another’s pencil box across the room, or eating up someone’s tiffin box. I was helpless and crestfallen not knowing how to handle my little class.

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.

Ganapati Bappa Morya!

We sat listening with rapt attention, mouth wide open, imagining in our minds at the story of Ganapati my father used to narrate at the end of the Ganesh Chaturthi puja. He would describe how Lord Shiva did not recognise the little boy who barred his entrance at the behest of Parvati who had given life to the sandal paste that she removed from her body. To assuage Parvati's grief Shiva sent his ganas to seek the head of the first creature that they come across. We were amused that Ganesha had overeaten so much on his birthday that he fell off his mouse and his tummy burst spilling all the sweets he had eaten causing the moon to laugh so much that Parvati cursed him that anyone who saw his face on Ganesh Chaturthi would invite accusations for which one is not responsible. As little children we were frightened to see the moon that day that we would shade our eyes and look through the corner of our eyes to check out if the moon was following us, bawling loudly if we saw the moon. We would then pray that the pot bellied Ganesha save us. 

#IamSPJIMR

Dear Dr Shrikant,

Salutations to you for all that I have learnt from you! An alumnus once pointed out much to my embarrassment that i was your worst critic and biggest fan. Most people notice the first, few the latter. But then it often glossed over the fact that it stemmed from a great expectation that you would be the instrument for a great transformation that might have been personal and also institutional and anything that belied that unrealistic expectation were grounds for criticism. I must admit that despite everything many of your critics like myself were deeply influenced by you and contributed much to their own sense of self worth, and understanding and few were perspicacious to see the grounds of what you were doing. The alumni were asked to write something about how SPJIMR influenced them on teachers day. I think it would be pertinent to observe that if it were not for you the college itself would not have been. To the multitudes who throng through its portals in the past, present and hereafter however intelligent or unwise, faculty, staff and students, deans and directors it is a place that has had its destiny shaped by your hands. To the many whose livelihoods, lives and inspirations have received a more secure standing you will be remembered for having touched their lives in ample measure. I thank you on behalf of them all.  

Prof Patel once narrated over lunch one of your earliest decision that you took in 1986 almost as soon as you joined, to permit some 10-15 students of a Rizvi college MMS degree which had shut down. The faculty were against it and one of them even provoked the student batch that it would threaten their placements. You did not posture sanctimoniously but pointed out that if the institute were bleeding and the variable costs of administering the new students were low it would bring the institute closer to break even. You promised that no placements would be affected and so it came to pass. In 1988 you sold us the residential programme which while it had its merits was really aimed at shoring up fees that the University had capped thereby alleviating the institute's losses. As faculty you made us do diverse things like conducting the DG Shipping exams, undertaking client researches for ASSOCHAM and many more things that bailed us over the red into a surplus that to date is unsurpassed among the Bhavans institutions and made us secure. But yet our best tales always narrate you as a teacher in the classroom as we listened with bated breath and even our heartbeats sounded loud.That we still cherish these tales and narrate them is that we hope that institutional memories which are evanescent will not forget to study its own history as it traces a current trajectory. The values that you had embedded in the place were aplenty, and began with a a spirit of enterprise in charting its course, a responsible competence in leadership, an unending dissatisfaction with the status quo, a sense of frugality and responsibility in expenditure, a discreetness and modesty in promotion and communications of the institute, cherishing the underprivileged, sensitive meritocracy in student admissions, an enormous administrative autonomy, a cherishing of a liberal strain with a respect for cultural ethos. I am sure the list is incomplete. We all fervently hope that these values will not be compromised as few will articulate these without reflecting upon history. 

I remember the number of times you made me write up reports till I was exasperated at the narcissism to minor detail. You would not compromise on the quality of the report until we imbibed it as a value. You had the knack of zooming in on a weak link in a report like a hawk undoing it entirely leaving us to reconstruct it all over again till we were proud of the final result. I remember very early in my career when you examined my course outline and told me that it was as close to Harvard as we could get and i slept on the compliment for years. You never again saw my course outlines (except once when you complained that my Business Policy outline seemed ponderous enough for a PhD level course). As i look back I drank deeply at being able to think critically and communicate the same  (I never learned however you sense of brevity). Of course i still have many complaints and some of them bitter but I guess to be entirely whole is to be divine and in the detail we all have shortcomings and you yours, which also shaped the institute in its own way. When i think of my teachers I shall always count you foremost among them and few are the days that go by without remembering you with gratitude (at times a curse)! 

When i called you early this morning I was happy to hear you as I imagine in a rocking chair poring over the book "I am That" by a great Master wondering about him at Khandala. 

May you see many many more Teacher's Days in good health and cheer!

With deep respect and affection

Srinivas

Mediocrity in Our Midst: A Lament

Mediocrity in Our Midst: A Lament

Mediocrity is our besetting national sin apart from being a deep personal character flaw. It is called by varied names myopia, apathy, complacence etc. We settled for the passable because the others also seem to do just the same. If we are accidentally called a genius it is because we are just a shade better. We know not what genius means for we have long buried it out of fear.  We design shoddy products and services, even displaying plans as performance and end up singing paeans to our intent, cleverly disguising mediocrity as accomplishment. We don’t even expect good quality and forget what it means. We prepare our children not for competition; forget globalisation, but just to keep the nose just an inch above the water mark; which is how to be a tiny stone in the ocean of mediocrity till it is engulfed and smothered just the same. Excellence is such a facile word for the mediocre; they would not wince to even a wee pang of doubt whether they are honest about their claim; a conscience long dead. Their justification is that we love local standards that set the benchmark values by the appalling ubiquity of the mediocre. What is more is that they like the emperor know that they bear no clothes and hope no one notices the complicity. The story of one person and institution is the story of every institution and person; I fail to see why it does not make us indignant to the destruction of immense possibilities as criminal waste. I say this with no malice and with the full acceptance that i belong to that same breed of the great unwashed mediocrity that fails to inspire and only talks about excellence.

Upon Entering a Gym for the First Time at 50!

Upon Entering a Gym for the First Time at 50!

I find that i write to seek solace when my mind seeks to salve its wounded self when it has nothing better to think. This week's piece is on my going to a gym which despite its quotidian reality has been a significant change in my lifestyle and work. I now look forward to its continuance and I am now enthusiastically evangelical about its benefits like a new convert preaching to the already converted!

I was told that 40 was the new twenties, and i wondered whether at 50 i was really 30 as i held myself in disbelief that i was old (enough) and much beyond the average life expectancy in the first half of the last century in India. People including those close to my age have been for a while calling me uncle or chacha (it is soon going to be nana and dada) and i dismiss it off as a displeasurable greeting.  Not that i have any illusions about my youthfulness or senescence whatever people attribute to my greying and much bald head and whiskers. At 50 i know my destiny but not the Truth and can still not follow my heart without wrongdoing. Having been single i have not had the pleasure of counting the years by ones children’s growth and their declarations of having ‘grown up’ regardless of what their parents thought. Their desire to grow up coupled with their ignorance of not knowing what it means to be grown up is heartbreaking. Being cerebral was merely an excuse to justify that i had paid little heed to my emaciated body and it conveniently reinforced stupid stereotypes of being a nerdy professor quite like Prof Calculus. I wore loose and oversized kurtas that made me look quite like a scarecrow outfitted on a hanger billowing in the wind and weighing about 48 kilos (mostly in my head ;-)) even into my late thirties. I was as a child barely allowed to play and would have fitted the Hollywood stereotype of a geeky Jewish boy who could recite the Torah whole and little else. I was good at no sport and wondered why people made such a fuss about it. To the way I was brought up, for a long while i believed that i am my head and that my body a mere appendage to keep that head afloat and in locomotion. I remember the nightmares that plagued me as a child when i would cry terrified like Calvin (and Hobbes) at seeing a spiky head of a demon which was only a ball covered with needles and limbs growing out of it, living beneath my bed. That probably was my own self image.  So with that self image i breezed into my fiftieth birthday and wondered at my impending mortality as a single man fated to sickness and in isolation to be noticed in my absence only when noses crinkle in disgust at the stench.