Thursday, October 29, 2020

Fr Romualdo D’Souza – His Ability to Touch Lives.


A few years back, I was asked to write a small piece about Fr Romualdo D’souza SJ when we celebrated his 90th birthday.  I thought I should now share this with all of you.


He was my former director and a person I admire.  I was not sure which aspect I should write about.  But slowly I got the idea, I should talk about Fr D’Souza as he touched me personally.

I first met Fr D’Souza at Xavier’s College at Mumbai where he had come for some other work. He had asked me to come by in the evening to discuss my joining GIM – then getting off the ground.  I still remember that meeting like yesterday and my going home and telling my wife how courteous he was to me.  After the meeting, he sent me an appointment letter – in longhand, written while he was sitting at an airport.  My wife and I admired the handwriting as much as the content. The handwritten letter was the indication of how he managed to do wonderful things with so little. At that time, he neither had a full- fledged office nor staff; but GIM was up and running.

On a rainy day, I landed up in Goa. The move had drained most of what I had as cash after I paid off the mini truck which moved our things.  My stuff was lying around as it was, unloaded in the apartment, and Fr D’Souza stepped in to find out how his newest faculty member was holding out.  He quietly asked me if I needed any money, sat down and wrote out a cheque to cover my trucking expenses.  It struck me that he was putting into practice the theories on “concern for employees” by visiting an employee in his new quarters, sitting on a chair still in its gunnysack packing to write out a cheque. He was making sure he didn’t embarrass a new entrant to the organization by making him write out a note seeking an advance of the salary!

We were struggling to get along with the limited resources in those early years at GIM and electives had to be offered.  I had already enough courses slated in all the terms that year.  One morning Fr D’Souza walked up to my desk and asks me if I can offer an elective on Performance Management. I could; but there was not even one advanced book on that in the GIM library and I did not have any material with me. Internet and online journals were still to come.  We had a mumbling conversation about Prof TV Rao having recently published his book on Performance Management.  I assumed that I was off the hook, as in those days, it was impossible to get books ordered in Goa.  I was, anyway, stretched without the new course coming my way.   A few days later, he walked in to to drop off a packet from a professor in XLRI; he quietly left it on my table and left without a word.  The Librarian informed me that five or six copies of TV Rao’s new book, have arrived for me.  He had called up Prof TV Rao personally, and got the books couriered down.  The packet had a bunch of cases and other stuff that was sent from a professor in XLRI.  The course went off on schedule! I had forgotten how focussed the man could be when it came to getting things done for students. This was before we even had our phone connection at the Ribandar campus.

A couple of years after I joined GIM, I had a disagreement with Fr D’Souza and I left the institute – it was on a matter of principle.  I continued to live in Goa and we would keep meeting each other.  He never let the rancour show and always greeted me with a smile.  He had pardoned me even before I could seek it from him. I wish I could be half as charitable with others as he has been with me.

My wife and I would also bump into Fr D’Souza in town some times. Mostly, he would have spent the whole day working and then attend some official or social function in the evening. He would still be impeccably turned out; possibly some tiredness showing on his face.  The conversation between my wife and I, after Fr D’Souza had left, would invariably touch on how the man could manage to be impeccably turned out at any time of the day and where he got his seemingly endless energy from.  I would tell her that I wish I could be like him and have half the energy he had, if and when I turn 75.

During occasional conversations, Fr D’Souza would come out with some comment – some time on events and sometimes on people, revealing at the same time a deep understanding of them and a wicked sense of humour.  These were never with malice but often trying to get others around to his point of view. When I congratulated him on his golden jubilee of priesthood, his response was characteristic of him, “So you are wondering how this guy is still around- eh?”  

His achievements, whether it was being a Jesuit for half a century and more, being the Director of three large management schools, founding two of them or having the Government of India confer the Padma Shri on him -- all sit lightly on his shoulders.  

On one occasion, at some event organized by the AIMS in a city hotel, I was one of the few early arrivals.  As I watched, many of the office bearers slowly started coming in.  They were former Directors (including the IIMs) and a few present directors among them.  Fr D’Souza came in quietly and then I saw the respect he commanded when everyone present got up to greet him warmly and with respect. He was, at that time, holding no office and had no official power. What he had was the power to touch the lives of people; as he has done mine. And I am what I am, for that little touch.

Bala@Panaji

Friday, February 5, 2016

Why One Should Donate Blood In College


I am the mentor of a student club in my B school.  This club also takes responsibility for the annual blood donation camp. Each year, we have the same conversation with the office bearers. They keep emphasizing that the blood donation camps success is the number of units donated; they keep talking about the feel good factor for the donors and so on in their campaign. They try to get the list of last year’s donors to keep up the numbers.  I keep emphasizing that this is the wrong measure for the success of the camp. I remind them that the success of the camp is the number of FIRST time donors who come and donate.


blood drop : Blood Guy Asking You To Donate  Illustration



Why do I think so? Students come from different backgrounds.  Some conservative, some overprotective.  Parents have a way of shielding their children from potential “harmful” situation and often blood donation is not something which naturally gets encouraged by parents.  Each time there was an need to donate at home, the elders in the family jump in and their office colleagues jump in and so on.  Now, please remember these occasions have always been stressful and each person (barring exceptions) feel stressed or apprehensive when blood donation is being talked about.

Here is where the college event has its role. Usually, the camps are in cheerful locations (a nice lounge or the mess hall) which evoke positive memories.  There are buntings, posters and a festive appearance.  There are jokes and happiness all around. All kids are brimming with good health. The plump guy is ribbed for the number of units he “should” donate and the thin one makes every one wonder aloud if any blood would be available or not. Bravado of the guy who finishes up in 15 minutes and his friend who has thinner veins still lying around pushing the rubber ball wondering what is going on.  And the doctors and technicians smiling indulgently through all this half-baked stuff!  More importantly, there is the assurance that one’s friends are around to help out and encourage each other. There is no better place to lose one fear of the unknown than amongst friends in such a lovely and friendly atmosphere.

We just finished the camp this morning.  We pitched to the students as to how to lose their fears and become life-long donors.  It worked.  This year the collection was substantially more than what it was last year; with 40% of them first time donors.  They had to stop because the hospital ran out the blood bags they brought along!

Remember that each new donor would keep donating blood most of his life once he or she loses the initial fear.  So a new donor is worth more that the one unit of blood available from a second time donor.

Blood donation camps in colleges and universities is not about the number of units of blood.  It is about creating new blood donors in a happy and enabling environment.  The biscuits and juices too help!

Bala@Panaji

Monday, November 30, 2015

A Requiem for Ancheri Sreekumar

My former colleague and friend Prof A Sreekumar is no more.  His sons took him to the US and the best doctors there, could not save him.  Cancer ultimately conquered him today in the wee hours of the morning. But he will live on in the memories of the hundreds of students and academics he touched in his life.




Though born of royal lineage of the Kochi maharajas, he was always humble; almost self-effacing.  He trained to be an engineer, became familiar with the leftist ideology in his college days and as was wont by the Keralites of his times, grew a beard. The time he spent as an MBA student of the School of Management under the tutelage of doyens like Prof MV Pylee and his merry men was another life changing experience.  Sreekumar started working in the same school as a teacher- a junior among the men who taught him but a giant intellectually. Somewhere along the line he was joined by Raji (Rajashree) his wife who lived with all the idiosyncrasies of a man in search of a different meaning in life.  Not the conventional life for him!  He then went off in search of more meaning to the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad; another mind broadening experience.

Each class which he taught was an odyssey for him to plumb deeper depths.  He would spend hours in his preparation for class.  He would try to be as innovative as the circumstances would allow.  His ideas were lofty; even as his personal bearing and his clothes were modest.  Many are the academic battles in committees he has won on the mere merit of his arguments.  He would spend hours reading the answers of the students and grading them even as administrative tasks piled up and ate into his time. Truly admirable qualities.

Even when he was afflicted with the life threatening illness, he would still be on emails and Facebook keeping up with his interests on all things academic.  Even travelling after a serious surgery. Just recovering from the after effects of the surgery, he would be often commenting on events.  It was in the last two months that he became too ill to be active.  His last post on FB was a video of the NY Marathon taken from his bedroom window.  Rather symbolic for a man who ran an academic marathon for all his life- irrespective of whether he was rewarded monetarily for it or not. It didn’t matter whether he got the medal or not.  Ultimately, it was the race one ran that mattered! I guessed that things were not going well when the video came up.  There was no way he would have watched it from the bedroom window if he could have stepped down and watched it at eye level. I knew he was too ill.

A life well lived.  Proud to have known you, Sree.  Great to have learnt from you.  Wonderful to have shared life with you. And to have fought with you on matters academic. Happy to have lived life with you and laughed with you.  Go in peace, knowing that you have left the world enriched.  And given so much more than you have taken………


Bala@Goa