IIMB vs IIMC: Personal reflection

This was only the second time I was visiting IIMC.  My first visit many years ago was when I had gone to recruit PGPs from IIMC.  I was a young "hot shot" venture capitalist then.  In keeping with the lifestyle and cockiness of young hot shots, I flew in and flew out the same day with just a few hours to do the interviews.  I  allowed myself no time for even a meal, let alone smell the flowers.  

In comparison my second visit to IIMC was a much humbler event.  And it was after only twenty six years.  I was on my second last LTC vacation before I retire.  Life had knocked me around quite a bit in this quarter of a century.  Eventually, I had come to accept my station in life as a struggling academic, often wondering if I had not made a mistake in joining academe.

On this visit to IIMC I secured a place at the MDC for my family and myself thanks to the generosity of an administrative functionary at IIMB and his counterpart at IIMC.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I do not get called to these various institutions to speak.  I do not publish.  Nor am I connected enough among faculty counterparts in other institutions that I get invited by them for some reason or the other.  The two administrative positions that I had held for seven years never really required me to travel much.  Thus the huge gap between the two visits in terms of the time and the status in which I travelled.  And hence the need for the generosity of an administrator.

There are many impressions about my travel to the city of Kolkata that I hope to record separately.  In this post I just wish to capture some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as my family and I strolled through the campus.

First, the IIMC campus appears a lot more spacious.  Lot more sparsely populated.  That and its distance from the din of the city - and what a din that is, boy! - make it a very quiet place while IIMB constantly feels like a mela ground, what with countless vehicles literally screeching in and screeching out.

Second, quite a bit of IIMC's open space is accounted for by water bodies.  That in itself provides a different natural ambience to the campus.  On a more cynical note, the administration of the campus cannot build up on those vast open spaces - unless of course they choose to "reclaim" it by filling it up.  And so they cannot go on this rapacious building spree that seems to rapidly have eaten quite most of the open spaces at IIMB.

Third, there is less of the manicured look that seems to have taken over whatever remains of the wild and open spaces at IIMB that were home to shrubs and deserted anthills that must once have been home to dreaded reptiles that must have been an ophiologist's delight.

Fourth, the buildings at IIMC all have a boring uniform, yellowish cream colour.  Their large and imposing scale, their sharp lines and rectangular form impart an uncaring, impersonal Soviet character to the buildings, except that the sky over Joka is not a grim grey that blends gloomily into the grey haze of the Kolkata winter that has a very Gorky-esque air to it.

But then they all look like the buildings that one might expect to see in a government owned public institution that falls back on grants in aid for its capital expenditure, if not its operating expenses.  It does not  have the glitzy polished buildings that would be more typical of  a private institution that wants to make a statement about its affluence through its opulent infrastructure.  In some strange way I felt that is where the middle class me belonged!

And finally, I hardly saw any security personnel on the streets.  I enjoy a great rapport with nearly all the guards at the various places at IIMB and I would feel bad if any of them had to be sent away from work because of my loose remark.   But I do feel very self conscious when all those uniformed men - and now women too - salute me as if I was a highly decorated military general who had fought and won many a sanguinary war.

I have often wondered what is it that is so critical about what we do or have at IIMB or the people who work here that makes it so essential to have a guard at nearly every three hundred feet?  But I could be wrong here.  There is possibly a lot of intellectual activity going on at IIMB that might make a strategic difference to the society or nation at large.  Or is it the general lack of security in civilian society in Bangalore that makes it necessary for us to be so carefully protected?

All of that is not to take away anything from the many good things about the IIMB campus.  For starters we are far better maintained.  A little too much so, possibly.  Secondly, the infrastructure at IIMB is way better - multiple general purpose shops inside, far many more eateries that feed not just the campus residents but its huge floating population, the pharmacy, the health centre, the post office, the bank and so on.  The houses we live in are a whole lot prettier. And then some of us luckier people live in independent houses, of which I saw none in IIMC.  Above all, we are way, way we more green that makes one feel like one lives in a massive garden.

As I walked through the campus and as these thoughts raced through my mind I began to wonder if my attraction to the IIMC campus was also because of what I had heard about the life of the faculty there.  Was it because I wondered if I might better socially into that community?  That the teacher there is not so much under pressure from teaching ratings?  That while being active in research would make one respectable at IIMC, not being an active researcher and being just a committed teacher and citizen might still not be viewed there as falling short of the mark of desirability as an academic? Or was it because all that I heard about academic life at IIMC added up to the romantic notions that I held before I joined IIMB:  Academic life is all about reading, reflecting and writing out of one’s inner urge and not in response to investment bank style performance bean counting that was laid down by some productivity Nazi in a different context?

These are hard questions to answer.  The human mind is too truant in its ways for one to know exactly what its subterranean motives are.

Whatever the fancies, whatever the motives, I know one thing for sure.  This place, IIMB, would always be my home, no matter what anyone else thinks how much I belong here.  This institution and I seem to be somehow tied at the waist through a bond of karma.  How else does one explain the fact that I came to study here in the most unexpected circumstances and that I came to work here in even less expected circumstances, eighteen long years later?  And why, the school and I share a date of birth.  I do not know of anyone else here that does.  That is one really cute karmic connection, isn't it?

Nanni...Namaskaaram...

Liberated? At last?

On November 14, 2017, in a moment of sheer exasperation I did something unbecoming of a man of my age and the station that I occupy in life:  I promised my favourite Deity, the Sai Baba of Shirdi that for a full month from then I would not write an email that was not related to my work.

During the few weeks prior to that I had been on an uncontrollable emailing binge, forwarding various articles, my blog posts and so on.  I made that promise on the hope that I would not break it for fear of incurring that Lord's wrath.  And so I would finally stop emailing.

It was unbecoming on many counts.  That I would be victim to such an uncontrollable urge, even if it meant losing my dignity, self-respect and whatever else in the eyes of those I was spamming with my messages.  That I would need a crutch such as the promise.  And finally that my relationship with my favourite Deity should be based on a fear of retribution! Whereas favourite Deities are like an ever-indulgent parent, more particularly like one's mother.

Unbecoming or not, I have now crossed that month successfully.  I kept my promise.  I feel a relieved man now.  What is more, now well past that month I seem to have lost the urge to email or even write my posts.

Like an alcoholic who gave up drinking and then found that the final proof of his complete de-addiction was that he could not any more savour the taste of liqour even in his mind, I seem to have developed a disinclination towards writing these posts.

Thus I have been putting off writing this post for some days.  And I chose to write it now, just to distract myself after a few hours of work, to ward off my sleep before I could get back to my work.

These past few weeks have been extremely busy for me.  With my mind off emails and blogging I delivered a very satisfactory edition of the core course.  For the first time perhaps, except for one instance, the class never stumped me.  I was in complete control of the discourse.

More importantly I have managed to exterminate the bug in my brain that was behind my writing all these recent posts and then emailing all of them.

I feel like I may finally have been emancipated fully.  Last week I saw the announcement of Unmaad, which was a social milestone I had been anticipating.  I was utterly bored when I saw the email announcement.  And very angry with myself that I had drifted all these months and had been looking forward to Unmaad.  And pawned off my dignity in the process. 

I asked myself if the Pandavas had not done the same, on a larger and more disastrous scale.  Did that absolve me of my sins.  And then I recalled that Yudhishthira had played that game to fulfill Kshatriya dharma.  But the drift that I had allowed to happen in my life was not justifiable in terms of any Dharma!

Anyway, I hope and pray to God that it is a period that is bygone.  By the way Unmaad 2018 is not interesting to me even from the point of view the pro nite artist:  Farhan Akhtar.  Apart from his role in ZNMD, which he had played well, I cannot stand that man.  Definitely not his music. 

All is well that ends well I suppose, to use a cliche that is more than four centuries old!

Nanni....Namaskaaram....

Poignant Days

I am not unaccustomed to feeling sad or low.  The one theme about which I have written the largest number of posts is my unhappiness about relationships that I attempted to build that did not work out.

In the past few weeks I have been saddened by a development in the campus community that has consumed a considerable amount of energy of a section of the people.

I will not reveal many details about the incident out of respect for the people involved.  Instead I write this to record how and why the episode left me feeling unhappy.

The incident revealed a dark side to many of us, where I saw a strong streak that argued vociferously that justice would be seen to be done only if the most drastic punitive measures were extended to those who we all were convinced were guilty.

And that feeling that there was guilt appeared to be sufficient, no matter whether there was evidence that would not leave a shade of doubt.  Usually such prejudging of guilt is associated with mobs that are fuelled by passion rather than reason.

The clamour for punishment was based on many specious arguments.  The most noteworthy among them for their lack of reasonableness was this:  If the individuals concerned were not extended the most severe possible punishment it would be seen as a license for all the others to indulge in similar inappropriate behaviour.

The consequences of this line of reasoning are troubling.  Stated differently it meant that our own standards of behaviour are decided by the likelihood of being censured for misconduct rather than based on our sense of right and wrong.  That again is not the sign of educated people.

The second noteworthy reason is that not extending the severest punishment would tarnish the institution's image.  I am not convinced of that.

Possibly the world might note that the institution possibly soft pedalled the issue.  On the other hand, the world may not even notice that.  What with a government at the Centre that is in a rush to prove itself, a government at the state that seems to be hell-bent on and leaving no stone un-turned in discrediting itself and the country being filled with men whose testosterone levels seem to rid them of even the fear of capital punishment, the media has enough else to catch their readers' attention with, than this relatively inconsequential episode.

Why am I sad?  Well, for one, I think it has exposed to me the proclivity among some members of the campus community to use matters that do not even to seem to affect them as sticks to beat others with.

I pray to God to give me the good sense that I may not let my judgement fail me.  But then as Shankaracharya noted the Indian mind is like a monkey that is not easy to control.  And who knows when that monkey might go crazy!

I am also sad for another reason.  It made me realise that the father-daughter relationship that I enjoyed with some special people in these past few years was not without its issues.  First and foremost, through these days I got the sense that the world may not quite see it that way.  And with that realisation I more or less decided to discontinue the quest for adopting a daughter.

What is more, on that note I came across many programmes where no matter how sincere the motive there is the risk that the world might see it differently.  That apprehension in turn has made me wary of cultivating any such relationship, even if there be no workplace connection around which the relationship is built.

In short, it has changed in a fundamental manner the way I see my relationship with the workplace community that I am a part of.  I feel a lot more restrained in my relationships with people I work with, except with a small handful of friends that I hope will stick up for me. On an extremely cynical note I am not sure if I am realistic in even expecting that!

On developing relationships that involve anything beyond professional or academic transaction, that is another matter altogether.  I do not see myself ever venturing beyond whatever remains as absolutely essential for the execution of work.

It is a sad world that I will inhabit to that extent.  But then that is what it entails I guess.

Nanni....Namaskaaram....

Taking Stock

Yesterday I turned 58.  Now on to 59.  By average Indian standards, it is time to retire.  And so it is time to take stock.

I take stock of what I have done with my life at the start of new year.  And on every birthday.  I have done that for many years now. 

The story has been no different on each of those occasions. 

The ideal way to take stock is to compare one's achievement with one's own potential.  Comparing one's achievement with others is at best useful for setting the minimum standards for one to pursue. 

Arjuna was arguably, the best performer and the best endowed among all of the Kauravas and Pandavas.  He was also easily the greatest warrior of his generation across all of Bharatavarsha, never having tasted defeat in battle all his life. 

Arjuna ran his own race.  He never contested against his siblings or cousins. Small wonder then that the Lord chose him as His disciple for the Song Divine. 

As I approach the end of my professional life, when I compare what I have done with my life with what I possibly could have, I am convinced that it has been pointless.  Purposeless. 

Loser, in short.

Nanni....Namaskaaram...

Professor Srinivasan retires

Well not yet, but will do so in less than a week from today.  To my mind that will mark the passing of a generation at the institute.  

Personally I will miss him.  And the reason for that is best captured in what I wrote in the souvenir that the department published on the occasion.  Since these posts are now more than just my hangout, and are the legacy I hope to leave for my sons, it is only appropriate that I record it here.
 

This is a personal note.  You played a big part in deciding how I would spend the longest spell in my working life.  And that also meant some of the more significant years of my personal life, where many important and pleasant things happened.  I am grateful to you for that.  Equally you helped me settle down in my role as a teacher – I hesitate to call myself an academician - that I came totally unprepared for.  Many years later, I continue to harvest the fruits of your initial help and guidance as a teacher here.  In short, you have been a big part of our lives as a family.  Thanking you would not suffice.  For now that is all I am able to say though!

Sabari and family…

I am here at IIMB thanks to him in large measure.  He also helped me at crucial moments such as when I was nearly asked to leave the place in the most unexpected, and in my opinion the most unjustified, manner as a victim of what I think was petty and cheap institutional politics that eventually led to my leaving the institute for a while.

My family life has been tightly coupled to my being at IIMB, to use an engineering metaphor.  Stated differently, my family life would have been considerably different if I had worked anywhere else, including any other academic institution.  And that is why I signed off that message as a family.

The farewell that the department organised for Professor S was unprecedented in many ways.  The people who attended it spanned his entire academic life, right from his days as a doctoral student.  It was a fitting tribute to the different ways in which he had touched the lives of numerous people at various stages in his life.

In my own relatively unremarkable spell at the institute I have been witness to his several remarkable academic contributions.  The outline we teach today for the core finance course, a highly competitive and respectable outline by any standard, was developed by him.  The pedagogic material that we use was also largely put together by him.  The exams we set today are influenced by the exams he used to set.

Our philosophy as teachers, which puts the students' learning at the centre of the discourse, draws on the conversations that we used to have when he was the senior most amongst us as instructors. 

I can go on and on. And I should perhaps devote a separate post just to do that.  

But I wish to record here certain other thoughts that cross my mind on this somewhat emotionally charged occasion.  And that has to do with the legacy that we will or ought to leave behind when our professional life draws to a close.

Professor S towers above nearly everyone else that I have known in my academic life in that regard.  I have heard about the legacy left behind by various others, whom I shall not name, lest I should be accused of making odious comparisons.  His legacy stands taller than all of that.

And then I ask myself what I would leave behind eventually when I call it a day less than three years from now.  Would I have made a difference to my colleagues?  Certainly not - except to those that would experience relief at my departure.  

Do I leave anything behind for the world of teaching, research or writing?  Definitely not.  Would I at least have made a difference to the cohorts of students that I have taught?  Not even that.  A few of my students have noted how I destroyed their interest in finance.  One of them even write about his frustration in his fictional description of life on the IIMB campus!

That leads me to an even broader, larger philosophical question:  Does it really matter if we leave behind a legacy or not.  

I think of the effort people put into buying immortality through various means.  Wealthy individuals gift large sums of money to create research centres or halls or other infrastructure that will be named after them.  So much so that the American educational system has turned exploiting this desire into a veritable market for immortality.

When I was all of twelve years old I was struck by this strange desire when I was reading a biography of CV Raman, that quickly turned into a resolution:  The only life that was worth living was one that would make one as eternally famous as C V Raman.  

My limited scholarship at that age did not inform me that there were others even bigger than him perhaps like Newton, Einstein and many others.  Then on whenever I evaluated the worthwhileness of anything that I took up I would ask myself if it would make me as famous as CV Raman.  

Soon it turned out to be a great cop out route.  Whenever I failed in anything I would console myself that after all it may not have made me as famous and immortal as C V Raman.  

That quest was further buttressed by generous layers of toppings such as the half-baked smattering of an understanding that I acquired of Hindu philosophy which seemed to suggest that any worldly achievement was after all illusory.  It was Maya.  And the real deal was the pursuit of self- realisation.  

That was an even more powerful cop out because it did not merely set a high bar like the CV Raman bar.  It almost said that none of worldly these bars even mattered in this other-worldly paradigm.

Forty seven years later today, as I complete one more year of worldly existence, I know that I have led a purposeless, pointless life, hiding behind these excuses of irrelevance.  I now know that the C V Raman benchmark was nothing but an inglorious excuse for not having achieved anything in life.  I have realised that for some years now. 

Professor Srinivasan's legacy may not be as intellectually seminal as the Raman effect that explains the scattering of light or quantum theory.  And viewed in the backdrop of Maya, it may be all too evanescent.  But in the real world that we all live in, work and struggle he has touched many a life in a positive way.

And that is all that I can see that I see, perceive, understand and appreciate as an ordinary mortal creature.  And that is all that matters I guess.  That is all that is relevant.

Nanni....Namaskaram...