Dreams and denouement - my sabbatical year

My initial plans for the sabbatical are best reflected in the post that I wrote well before it started.  It is a terrible piece of writing.  But it captures the plans I had dreamt of for my leave period.  Here is the link to that post.  http://sgchalayil.blogspot.in/2015/11/anticipating-wandering-life.html

Now that the year is over I am able to report that I achieved none of what I wrote about in that post.  The reasons for my not being able to pursue those dreams broadly fall into two categories. 

 

One relates to some family related commitments that I had not budgeted for when I wrote that post.   I shall not go into them.  The other relates to my decision to stop what I consider creative writing.  At some point during the sabbatical I felt it was just a waste.  I was extremely unhappy with my ability – or the lack of it – to write.  I decided to kick myself out of the state of delusion that somewhere in me lay the promise of a decent writer.

That brings me to the first noteworthy outcome of the sabbatical.  I have resolved not to read any more creative writing or write any more creative stuff.

 

Apart from writing two utterly foolish working papers, doing one round table on angel investing, completing two cases, starting off four more cases, preparing myself to teach a course on investments and a few other sundry things that I did like write six short stories that will never see the light of day, I also used the sabbatical to achieve some clarity in life.   

For the remaining 2793 days that I have at IIMB - from the day I started counting down - I decided that I would divide my life into three buckets:  Family, academics and a little bit of religion.  I have not decided how I will split my time across these buckets.  But I do pray to God to give me the good sense not to be distracted by anything else.  That perhaps is the most important outcome.   

Net net, am I happy with the way my sabbatical turned out to be?  I am unable to answer that question.  Apart from temple hopping in North Kerala and reconnecting with comrades from my past life I wanted to learn a lot of maths and economics.  I did not manage one bit of that.  Instead I was busy trying to ensure that I will have some deliverables to show at the end of the one year.  Learning Maths and Econ would not have allowed me to do that – even if it made me a better finance academic!

Would I do another sabbatical if the rules allowed me to?  Absolutely not, if I am going to be tied down by these deliverables.  I believe that the sabbatical should ideally be used for activities that I consider “blue sky” in nature.  Like reading stuff that one will not have time to do when one is on duty.  I am not sure the current sabbatical rules at IIMB allow for that.

Did I meet the objectives I set for my sabbatical?  The answer to that would depend on the objectives that I benchmark it against.   At one level I looked at the sabbatical as a break from seven straight years of administrative work of which the last four years were quite intense, both in terms of professional engagement as well as emotional stress.  I certainly got time off from that.  Did I achieve my academic objectives?  I am not so sure.

That brings me to the third major outcome of the sabbatical.  It made me realize that I had burnt through four long and precious years of my academic life.  To put it in perspective that is the time I took to complete my PhD! 

Agreeing to be Chairperson NSRCEL is one of only two decisions in my long professional life that I look back upon with regret.  The one year of freedom from administrative work made me realize how much of enjoyable reading I had had to give up as Chairperson NSRCEL. 

That it is an utterly thankless job that no one in IIMB probably cares a s**t about (that is the only time that my post descends into that language - I just cannot think of another word to replace it!  My apologies to those who feel offended.)  is less agonizing than all the reading and time with family that I missed.  Just for those reasons alone I would never, ever, ever, ever, go anywhere near that Centre again!
Nanni….Namaskaaram...