The Missed Bus

Missing the bus is an expression commonly used to indicate a failure to capitalise on an opportunity that was available in clear sight. However I believe it more pejoratively seems to blame the person for either being slow or even stupid; it blames the person for not seeing an obvious wave that sweeps everyone who is in its vicinity regardless of their station or competence.

Being a fresh engineer at a business school the world looks humane and years of wrangling with the mechanical at workshops, labs, books filled with equations than English, it is an overpowering humanising experience. Unless of course you gallivanted through college barely attending or studying; and it does seem so to be true for quite a few of my peers (and several students) that i have known. Suddenly your books are written in lucid prose and you don’t knit your brows page after page chasing the tail of some derivation almost entirely written in Greek that even Greeks would fail to fathom (remember heat transfer equations for a thick cylinder or Nyquist diagrams and Fourier transformations). Here the teachers seem to speak the Queen’s tongue with a lyrical lilt, making us feel like urchins at a dinner banquet at Balmoral Hall. We had in our first term an earnest professor S R Ganesh who spoke softly with a string of venerable degrees from MIT and other august portals; who made me awe struck; who taught us an indecipherable subject (which i still wonder what it was meant to convey) called Perspective Management (never mind the obvious oxymoron there). He was a gentleman and was very imaginative and wanted us to read a book a week (which to us engineering students was a quota for a year or even four) and submit an executive summary. Many of my peers just read the introduction and the blurbs and imaginatively reconstructed the summaries and he scarcely noticed the difference, even sagely nodding to some bogus analogies.  He then gave us one day an assignment to write our life story. Yes he meant a short story of our yet chrysalis like life.  The engineers were convinced that it was an exercise in futility and scratched their heads in bewilderment, lamenting that this was what was precisely wrong with business education. The closet liberal minded ones like me were deeply impressed at what seemed like a profound experiment to build an imaginary narrative that would capture our deepest yearning.  I reconstruct from memory those stories from what transpired more than 25 years ago. I am surprised at what seemed prescient and also remember being deeply hurt by that episode.

Narayani

She was always found pottering about the old garden and seemed ancient and changeless. It seemed to me that she was there even before the building was built. So when she decided to sell her house and leave the house for good in 2010 the jack-fruit tree in her garden was so overwhelmed that she yielded 23 jack-fruits in a single season and astonished all the onlookers at the bounty. She distributed all the fruits to people who had been kind to her and left as soon as she gave away her last jack-fruit. The tree itself died from its tip down the middle and few knew what ailed her. It was a strange sight as the lower branches were green though it stopped yielding any fruit. A few years later when we tried to pull down the top half it had to be sawed off as it was tougher than we imagined and the woodcutter threatened to climb down if we did not double his wage as he panted. This year many years later a single fruit was borne all knobbed and strange.  

The Lost Compound

The buildings around which i grew up are being redeveloped (except my own) eclipsing a precious small compound which bore me like my own mother. The developer vacates the buildings and encloses the compound in a wall, the building walls are now punctured gaping holes with balcony windows stripped of glass and grill and bring to my mind personal memories of laughter and joy, little sorrows and the patter of so many children's naked feet on flagstones around the compound, invoking deeply hidden memories stashed away like jewels in a granny's wooden box. This write up is just a recollection of some of those times. Read it if you wish and have the time to revisit the past. A lament if you may.

Coup D' Etat

This article follows up on my previous post “Yuganta” End of an Epoch” for which I received bouquets and brickbats in equal measure with wildly ranging opinions (surprisingly entirely in private) if not considered estimates of the reign of Dr ML Shrikant the former Dean of SP Jain. However I had with my own distance from events and probably prejudice a view of the happenings. Yet not entirely was I aware of the picture from the other side, one of whom I spoke to yesterday, confirming my fears that there seemed something much more than meets the eye. I also write this apologetically and with trepidation at what is an internal matter to the institution. Nor do i delight in being a harbinger of bad news, so shoot not the messenger. However I take shelter in defining the institution not merely as its brick and mortar or function but, like the Church the entire body of the faith wherever they maybe located and thus such privacy is misplaced. 

The Ship of Theseus: The Illusion of the Self

 A Srinivas Rao                                                                                                             June 2013

This article was written as a dedication to Sri Ramana Maharshi and was published by Sri Ramanasramam in their quarterly Mountain Path April Jun 2014.           

                                                                                   

“Since every other thought can occur only after the rise of the ‘I’-thought and since the mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, it is only through the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ that the mind subsides.”- Sri Ramana Maharshi  “Who Am I”[i]

Contemporary studies on the nature of the self, find significant convergence about the illusory nature of the self, yet surprisingly they are a divided house on the nature of consciousness. Despite the materialist underpinnings of these studies often clubbed under the rubric of ‘consciousness studies’ that are cross disciplinary and span the neurosciences, psychology and  philosophy, they offer fresh insights into the ancient question ‘Who am I?’.  Please note that the term ‘self’ as used in the article refers solely to the individual ego and not the transcendent ‘ground of being’. It would be appropriate if the term ego is used as synonymous for self in this article.

 ‘No man ever steps into the same river twice’ declared the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c 535- c 475 BCE), indicating, like the Buddha, the constant nature of change.  Plutarch (c 46-c 120 CE), another Greek, in response to this formulated a paradox called ‘The Ship of Theseus’. 

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place...”.Plutarch Theseus[ii]

Plutarch’s question, which divides philosophers up to this day is whether a ship that is totally reconstructed is still the same ship.  Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the British philosopher, added his own twist to the paradox of Theseus. What would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced and a second ship constructed?

Yuganta: End of an Epoch

A Srinivas Rao 

23rd August 2014

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.

Swami Vivekananda and the Journey of the “Hero”

Swami Vivekananda and the Journey of the “Hero”

A Srinivas Rao                                                                January 2013

Swami Vivekanada’s 150 birth year celebrations conclude on 12^th January 2014. I wrote this article over a period and the article was published in the “Mountain Path” published by Sri Ramansramam in Tiruvannamalai Jan-March 2014. It is being published here with permission. An additional paragraph (second last) has been added in this version on hindsight for a more complete assessment.

This article draws its framework and argument from the work of Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in his path breaking book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. Published in 1949 this book became one of the most influential books of the 20^th century influencing psychiatry, mythology, anthropology, literature, filmography and other fields.

Education of youth the world over has increasingly been skewed towards building skills and competencies to fulfilling their economic needs and less towards a synoptic and inward awareness. In other words while one of the first aims of education is to prepare a person for a livelihood, there are wider aims to make him appreciate his role in society, that he should consider himself a legatee of the range of human experience, as a part of nature and history; that he learns to enjoy the arts and creative pursuits in connecting himself to human culture and refinement; finally that he ponders on the meaning and purpose of his own life. It is the latter aims that are more enduring and timeless and don't change with age or culture. It is such a synoptic education that develops for the youth their self worth, belonging, autonomy, security and self awareness. The heroes whose narratives populate youthful imagination often provide shorthand to the range of skills and capabilities, values and identities. The ideal of the Hero across cultures show a remarkable consistency across time and cultures. The Mahavira or great hero of the Indian imagination has since the shramanic traditions of the axial age has been more grounded in self conquest before he brings his light to the world. Do the lives of individuals born in the full noontide of human history display similar patterns to those in the pantheon of heroes mythical or otherwise who bring light and a promise of redemption unto their fellow men? This is the question that this note attempts to address through the life of one of India’s great modern sons, Swami Vivekananda.

Canine Concerns – A Dog’s Sad Tail

Srinivas Rao

23 June 2013

I write this piece with some distress and probably to alleviate my sense of despair. I have loved animals but at a distance. I have feared dogs since childhood having been bitten sometimes, have been chased, snapped at the feet and baked hostilely at and suffered the inevitable anti rabies vaccines.  So it was rather unlikely that I would have tried to nurse a very sick dog that landed at the entrance of our building emaciated, weak and unable to move. I was watching this dog, tied to a post lying near a drain from my window and wondered whether it might even die.  I was unable to take her off my mind and attend to my reading and decided to take a closer look at what the problem was.  A deep brown coat and biscuit brown limbs she had large ears and with large doleful imploring eyes the canine had no energy to move and tentatively shook her tail just a bit, unsure whether this human specimen peering at her was friendly enough.  Full of ticks and mites it seemed she was a corpse living to feed the innumerable beasties on her body.  Feeling pity and helpless in equal measure I offered her some food which she refused opting to drink large quantities of water.

The Bhishma Pitaamaha Syndrome: Gerontocracy’s oldest Metaphor in India

A Srinivas Rao

13^th June 2013

Few would have suppressed their smiles at the unseemly drama when LK Advani blogged about the slights that Bhishma Pitaamaha suffered apart from the entire bed of arrows he was lain on by Arjuna.  While Mr Advani enjoyed the embalmed self description and the episode does invite some deeper understanding of the Indian reluctance to part with power and the gerontocracy’s justification for perpetuation of its rule. (It is not that the Congress party exactly covers itself with glory, with its first family and their inheritance of the Party chair and the sycophancy it entails; but that’s a different story. Besides the BJP’s genuflection while not at 10 Janpath is certainly at the RSS Sarsanghchalak at Nagpur).  I shall examine in this article the Bhishma Ptitaamaha’s life critically, drawing entirely from the brilliant analysis of the noted sociologist Iravati Karve in her compelling portrait “Yugant”.  The reason I also wish to direct attention to this note is the enormous leadership blockages in Indian institutional infrastructure that is really headed by an inept gerontocracy filled with retired judges, bureaucrats, of all hues and to occupy positions of authority in exchange for political favors that mirrors the Jajamani patronage system.  Having been also personally witness to my own octogenarian dean at SP Jain Institute as his subordinate or minion and his steadfast refusal to step down and enable a smooth succession, I thought this article was ringing in my mind at many levels. 

Originary Concepts of Classical Indian Art Part II

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Rasadhwani –Emotive Resonance or Rapture

A. Srinivas Rao

31st May 2012

“Raso vai saha. Rasam hyevayam labdhva anandi bhavati” Yajur Veda, Taittiriya Upanishad 2.7 “For He indeed is Rasa, having obtained which, one attains bliss”.

Padmapani, Ajanta, 450-480CE

Art experience or encounter with an art object is not an intellectual engagement but an intuitive insight, of feeling and resonance with one’s life experience. It is “an experience in being and not in knowing”. In the last essay we examined the direct encounter with an art object through its form rupa which is sensory. The content of the art object artha is revealed not merely by its sensory features but revealed as structural, metaphoric and suggestive meaning through inference and intuition. What has not been discussed is its capacity for resonance with feeling or emotion that is central to art. What we need is an idea that integrates the sensory data and emotive content into an epistemic (knowledge) framework. This framework is provided by Rasa, the subject of this essay.