A Srinivas Rao
23rd August 2014
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| Dr Manesh L Shrikant |
With a cockiness that only an unthinking youth could state, i said that the verse of the chariot analogy was from the Kathopanishad and not the Gita and that the Gita had borrowed it from there, as he had asserted. I wondered if that answer would have disqualified me at the admissions interview at an ungenial interest in obscure subjects to gain attention at my dimunitive frame. But then neither could i shake off a fascination with the questioner, a middle aged gentleman elegantly dressed and urbane despite the unmistakable Gujarati accent, rumored to be an industry tycoon with a strange interest in academics with a string of venerable degrees like trophies that crowned his thinning pate. I had heard some horror tales of his qualifications and his decimation of candidates in the anteroom as i waited for my turn at the admissions interview. Ever since then and for a very long time i shadowed his work and was charmed by this fascinating man consciously or unconsciously. I think I obsessively sought his approval which impelled me towards a standard of work and thought that he would regard as good. As his student i imagined that his classes were the most inspiring ones, that were remarkably insightful, creative, pointed, and unusual and indeed changed the course of my life. It left us breathless long after his lecture ruminating on the scattered lessons we gleaned from the rich learning. He instilled in us a confidence to question the thought of a remarkable array of thinkers, Gunnar Myrdal, Naisbitt, Porter, Mao Tse Tung, Roosevelt, Chester Barnard, Herbert Simon, Drucker (his favourite though our most dry thinker) apart from engaging case discussions on administrative issues which he thought as at the heart of management. His assignments were to me the most precious as they were unusual and i sought his attention in strange ways. He wore his genius lightly though he never was quite recognised for his abilities in public. Few peers if any had the same combination of alacrity of intellect and managerial experience that he had that balanced the many softer aspects of administrative judgement. It is a pity that he was overlooked so often by so many. Having seen many such leaders of business schools some of who have been honoured by the Padma awards by the President and other such public recognition, he remains a towering giant amongst a gaggle of dwarves, known to a few and cherished by them all.
