Dirty MBAs; Clean Managers

Almost all my students are business school MBA types; so I may be talking about one specific species. I have one crib against them.   Most look sloppy.  The occasional ones are positively dirty.  

All of them look sleep deprived.  Fifty percent of the men are unshaven.  You walk in to a class of sloppily dressed students and it can be quite depressing. Many T shirts have seen better days.  Trousers are hanging down.  Some wear smelly jackets. The last shower date is possibly lost in the annals of history.  A few wear slippers which even the friendly neighbourhood beggar would refuse to wear.  You get the picture.  The higher the rating of the school,  the sloppier the look.

Look at their pictures when they are in the undergraduate colleges and they seem to look and dress all right.  Look at them after they graduate, they are very well dressed.  I sometimes see pictures of some of my former students on Facebook and I had difficulty reconciling the people in those pictures with my mental map of them when they used to haunt the schools where I teach/taught.

Somewhere after the first term, something seems to happen to the MBA student.  Some sort of metamorphosis happens and the clean undergrad disappears and the sloppy MBA student emerges! Till placement time comes, that is.  If I was a biologist I would almost draw the ubiquitous lifecycle circle. 

I have tried to reason out why this happens.  Could it be time pressure? – but they are under greater time pressure when they are managers. Yet they seem to have no problems getting shaved and putting on nice cloths and reaching on time for the meeting.  Maybe it is shortage of money? – heck, I am not talking about designer wear but a visit to the cleaners two or three times in a term.

The only explanation I have is that they are getting back at us, their professors. The idea being to make themselves as much of an eyesore as they can and so make us suffer. Every assignment, exam, and quizz is met with slightly more sloppiness.  An eye for an eye.....

I have even half a mind to moot an eye sore allowance for professors who have to suffer this. :)

Bala@Jaipur

Long Live the Landline !

This is fantastic news.  Our productivity will go up tremendously.  I do hope, at the same time, that the mobile charges go up a bit and mobile to land line charges come down drastically.  The highest charges should be for mobile to mobile.  People around me are going to curse me for this twentieth century attitude and call me retrograde. 

Some of my younger friends are going to snigger and say “ he is regressing to his child hood”. No; this is not nostalgia for the heavy black telephone nor for the good old times when you had rotary dials.  This is a more practical take on the whole thing.

Managers are going to order more landlines to be installed. Orders are going to go down to the line for people to use landlines for business calling.   People are going to bring down (if not stop) the concept of mobile phone allowances and start expecting people to use the land phones to call other land phones. Earlier it was cheaper to give someone a mobile phone rather than apply for a landline. It is cheaper for you to let the smallest of small minions to call up on mobile phones.   You had funny situation of people calling each other on the mobile phone within the same office.  There is nothing to prevent one guy who is in the canteen calling someone and the other guy ends up being in the loo.  Neither have the relevant papers on hand.  One has toilet paper in hand and the other has the canteen napkin and they are trying to discuss business!! Fall in landline to landline cost would basically mean the nuisance of the mobile phone ringing at all odd hours would stop.

Meetings would be less likely to be interrupted by some inane call from the relationship manager of your bank or someone’s wife wanting to know if he has genuinely forgotten his dabba or he just got tired of her cooking; whatever. Earlier when you went out of your office to a conference room, you left the phone behind.  Now everyone brings in their berrys (black, not goose) and each guy is happily contacting someone or the other.  The meeting takes that much longer.  I am yet to attend a meeting in the recent past when everyone is NOT waiting for someone to finish a call.

We Indians think of nothing to call up our subordinates at an odd time to ask for some information which is not critical.  I can understand if someone is calling late to find where you have left the fire extinguisher or some such thing.  But to start discussing the ways to reduce costs of some painting work to be done; well I suppose such stiff can wait till one reaches the office. Middle of the evening when you are out with a few friends does not exactly permit you to focus on the quality of paint.  People in the Western world do not do this.  They clearly demark the personal and work time. Usually they call on landline first and do not immediately try you on the mobile if they know you are in a meeting.

Hopefully, price of the calls would do the trick which commonsense and consideration has not been doing in our country. We would probably start using the mobile phones more judiciously.

Bala@Jaipur      

Professorji Balaji Sirji

This is what I would be called very soon if the general trend seems to be any indication! 

This forcefully came to me when I saw the photograph of an official function in the newspapers recently (Hindustan Times, P 2 of Delhi Edition, 23rd Nov).  The Chief Minister and a few others were present on the dais and the names were written with the CM and another government functionary indicated as Shri and others, the industry captains, are Mr! Why the distinction and what is the difference, I do not know.  Possibly Sociologists rather than linguists might be able to tell us the distinction sought to be made here.   

The Idea Cellular advertisement has made the word Sirji very popular.  My man Friday insists on calling me Sirji.  It is not merely Sirji, it is always “Ji Sirji” when I call out to him. He somehow has got the idea that Sir is not deferential enough.    When someone addresses me in a letter, it is now “Dear Professor Balasubramanianji”.  Sometimes it becomes “Respected Prof Balasubramanianji”.  On a few occasions, I have seen the “ji” being added by pen by the person signing it; obviously deciding that the person who originally typed it was not deferential enough. I am called “Bala sir”; a reference to my profession as a teacher rather than anything seriously deferential, by my students.  Over the years I have come to accept and even like that.  A dorm mate of mine, who had left leanings, used to call me “Balasaab” likening me to the cartoonist turned politician from Mumbai whose politics he did not like.  He was having a dig at me for having ambiguous political positions. If people call me Balaji, it becomes a completely different name in my culture!

I do not remember politicians of older times being referred to by any Ji. Sometimes certain honorifics were added like Pandit for the first Prime Minister and Maulana for Abdul Kalam Azad. I am sure those who were close to him and equal to the Prime Minister probably addressed him as Jawaharlalji in public; but kids like us could refer to him as Chacha Nehru.  The Father of the Nation was referred to as Mahatma all right; but he was Mahatma Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhiji in Hindi.  I suppose somewhere along he transformed in to Gandhiji even in English.  People who have done research on this could tell us when. (There is a debate on the deshbhakti of a regional newspaper which referred to him as Mr M K Gandhi for a long time – but that is another story)  Imagine Sardar Vallabhai Patel being referred to as Sardar Vallabhaiji Patel or even Sardarji Vallabhai Patel!  The redoubtable Smt Indira Gandhi was that till the Emergency; when she became Madam Prime Minister.  Before 1975 one  would hear some senior politicians who were her equal in age or could be called her equals in politics based on the number of years they spent referring to her as Indiraji; just plain Indiraji.

Dhirajlal became Dhirubhai to those who are close to him and to his equals.  Dhirubhaiji is ridiculous and a contradiction in some sense.  If I was speaking to Mr Mukesh Ambani in Gujarati it would probably flow if I called him Mukeshbhai but definitely not in English.  If I want to refer to him or address him directly, it has to be Mr Ambani and in Hindi it could be Mukeshji.  But somewhere, someone decided that it was not enough to call him that.  So you would hear people introducing him using such funny additives like Mr Mukeshbhai Ambani, Mr Mukeshji Ambani or even worse Mr Mukesh Ambaniji.  Mr Mukeshbhai  or Mr Mukeshji is not right as you are mixing up two cultures; but people insist on doing it.  So far we have not gone to Mr Mukeshji Ambaniji. Why don’t we realize that Mr Mukesh Ambani is honorific and polite enough if we are speaking in English.

Some religious saints and leaders are curious.  One person goes with the prefix Shri 108 times; soon he would be promoted to Shri 1008 times!! Another person goes around with Sri Sri; huh? They are people who have given up the material world but revel in such honorifics.  Swami has become Swamiji in whichever language.  Yesterday I saw a “Parmpujaniya ____ji” arriving at the airport and there were about 500 acolytes and disciples crowding the arrival hall.

When did the need to add “ji” come along? Why is not Mrs Sonia Gandhi enough?  Why has it to be Mrs Soniaji or worse Madam Soniaji!!  Is it that we are adding these suffixes to sound more and more obsequious.  It seeks to bring in some more social distance which were reserved for an era of caste and land owing era.  My grandfather used to get letters addressed to him as Ma Ra Ra Shri – meaning Maha Raja Raja Shri -- even though there is not a drop of royal blood in my family. That is the Malayalam version and I remember M.R.R.Y its English equivalent! Instead of going away from these feudal hangovers we seem to invent new ones.  Thank god Mr has not become Mrji.  In the meantime, co-existence of Shri and Mr on the same table is a new one and seems to indicate new layers to these two words.  Anyone knows the difference?

Bala@Jaipur

Entering the Facebook Disco

I am a recent addition to the phenomenon called social networks.  I kept getting invites from my former students to join the social networks and I ultimately relented, nudged on by the family who did not want a fuddy duddy in the family.  I remained dormant for almost two years and now am reasonably active on LinkedIn. I am the diffident entrant on Facebook even though I registered almost two years back.  If you are not there, you don’t exist, my fourteen year old daughter advised me sagely.   I have drawn the line at two of the networks.  Even with this, the email box is tough to handle every morning.

It is leaving me a little fuddled.  Like a guy who has entered a disco for the first time and does not know what he is expected to do.  Notice the guy in the disco who is shaking the legs as if he is trying to get rid of a pair of crabs which are biting both his legs?  Be sure he is there for the first time and wants to belong. The vigorous dancing is his way of blending in but makes him stick out like a sore thumb.

Somehow, I keep wondering if social network designers had the relations between the teacher and the taught in mind while designing the network.  On the contrary, they probably believed that students would want their teachers out of their life once the course gets over! LinkedIn does not have a “relationship” called “I was taught by him/her” in the pull down menu! Yet I get a lot of “friend” requests from my former students on LinkedIn saying “we were classmates” or “we are friends”! I wonder if it a phenomenon with only students from certain cultures and not from others?

Here is the nub.  In real life I am expected to keep a certain distance between me and the students.  That is an occupational hazard.  If a professor shares a drink with a set of students, nowadays it is not taboo.  But it does get discussed amongst colleagues in the faculty lounge with some colleagues even remarking that we should draw the line somewhere. Raised eyebrows and so on.   When my wife and I decide where to eat out, we would debate whether it is the day when a couple of tables would be taken by my current students and whether we should “avoid” the place. Irrespective of the cultures (Jai ho to Hofstede), I suppose the distance between the teacher and the student is greater than the distance between student and student.

Let us say, a student posts a photo of herself in revealing cloths (see the professor in me treading  cautiously with the words) and the comments from various friends range from “phee, phee” to “Sexxxxxxxxxxxxxy.......” to “Aathi kya khandala?” what is one supposed to do?  After 15 such comments even an innocuous “Nice” would make one look like one of the lascivious fellows following the moves of the dancer in a Hindi movie item number.  I am sure that if I were to make a comment on the dress of a student in the classroom, it would be misinterpreted; even found objectionable. Even if I say that a particular student has overstepped the yellow line and needs to be more modest! Is the distance expectation the same when one has become their former professor?

Do students know that their professors can see the exchanges on FB?  Do they care? Why do they then actively befriend their teachers? Do they want them in the periphery? Like professors who are invited to the fresher’s party dance? Take your glass, go to the corner and sit with the other professors and leave us to dance. Don’t even look at us! Don’t you dare join us.

I, for now, follow a very strict code of conduct for myself.  I do not initiate a friend request with any student – current or past.  I avoid befriending any one on the networks who is a current student till they graduate.  Even when the network software keeps bothering me with reminders. I wonder what other professors do when they face similar situations? I am sure the same problem exists for people working in organizations who have reporting relationships in brick and mortar offices but are friends online.  Is there a need to reconcile the two worlds?

Bala@Jaipur

The Ragged, The Raggers and Those who get Jammed in Between

Aman Kachroo’s death is a tragedy.  No young man should die, much less a medical student who would have become a doctor and could have brought succour to thousands.  The decision of the courts is out and it has punished the four young men who ragged him, to four years in prison.  My heart goes to their parents and to these young men too. Their body language in the images which appeared on the TV tells me that they would give anything to set the clock back.  Let us not make them out to be the devil incarnate; they are not.  They are just young men for whom something went wrong terribly. And I do hope they’re contrite.  

Should they go to jail? The judge says so. Law demands it and they should abide by the law.  Should we send them to jail as an example? Yes, and it would deter others from doing such things. If possible, the four young men should go to an open jail, be allowed to transfer to a medical college nearby, finish their medical education and then be allowed to make amends for the terrible mistake they made after they finish their jail term.

Every day they would be paying the price; imagine not being able to go on the college trip because you have to get back to jail. Not being able to date the girl you met (if any girl would talk to them in the first place) because one cannot get the permission to stay out in the evening.  An overshooting internship time because one cannot stay out of the jail in the night to clock enough weeks on duty.  Let them become doctors overcoming such problems.  It is in the amends they do with their lives that they can atone for the terrible mistake they made. Not just with the four years (or whatever part) they would spend in jail.

I am not at all trying to justify ragging in any way.  Ragging with physical violence is terrible and can be demeaning and even force people to the verge of suicide. It should not happen.

But talk to young people who have come out of educational institutions and most, if not all, look at the ragging they went through with some indulgence.  Especially when the ragging they have undergone is mild (nothing is mild when they are going through it) and humorous.  No one would want a blanket ban on the so called socialization process.

Human rights activists would even call asking someone his/her name as ragging.  In all education institution newcomers are teased all the time? Is such teasing such a bad thing? When does teasing become ragging? Or is teasing also ragging? 

The problem has always been to determine the thin line between a healthy socialization process and what can be called ragging. In many top and large B schools there is no ragging; they have no time to do it or in most cases most of the juniors know the senior students.  They have been together in the engineering colleges where they have already been ragged by the seniors !! The pre-admission socialization through social media possible in the last few years also makes ragging unnecessary or even impossible as the identity of the senior is known. 

But in some (do I dare to say most) educational institutions some kind of a socialization process or a semblance of ragging does exist?  The problem here is that every time a senior student demands that his “facha” should call him “sir”, should one file an FIR? Would the cops be amused?  Would the parents of such a senior student take it lightly?  Heads of institutions would get an earful on generation gaps, how they need to be a bit more flexible and understand youngsters and not take such behaviour to heart, that their children are really “well behaved” otherwise and so on.  The people who would have more serious objections as a group to such a regimented control by the authorities would be the junior bunch or the possible victims!!

Besides, heads of institution have also to consider the serious social implication to the “victim” in case it becomes known as to who complained to the authorities.  In case there is a feeling among the student community that the student could/ should have taken the ragging as it was within the acceptable “norm”, and the head of the institution has gone over the top to report the matter to the police, the particular victim/student may be “silenced” or become a social outcaste.  It takes a long time (and sometimes not at all) for someone to outlive that sort of reputation. Then the question becomes which is more of a difficult thing – to suffer the minor forms of ragging or to suffer the “silencing”, especially by the peer group?

Many a time, heads of institutions and other authorities would try to intervene.  These interventions are not recorded. Parents are informed to caution their children to desist from such activities and so on, even if their toes just touch the yellow line.  The main effort is to take a call on how serious the issue has been.  Verbal warnings are given and they make some effort at policing the chain of events through a system of informers among the senior students. 

The new set of laws of having to file the FIR for all intransigence has made it even more of a necessity for authorities to hide “minor” events.  Earlier, it could have ended in a suspension or some fines.  Now that the cops have to be involved and the law demands that even minor overstepping of the line should be punished, heads of institution now get jammed in between the victims and the victimisers. Should any of the issue become serious and a student really gets hurt, the heads of institutions just cannot talk about whatever they did to prevent such events. Because the way the law stands, anything you do (except filing an FIR) is illegal and attempt to hide a criminal act.  You become an accessory. You cannot even admit that you know what “ragging” is!

One can argue that the authorities need to take cognisance of even minor intransigences. But then how many times has it happened that the student who was found copying becomes your favourite student later, even though you flunked him in that particular test? How many times you let off a student who jumped the hostel wall with a warning?   How many times have you used humour to keep awake the student who has a tendency to nod off, rather than throw him out of the class?

You are always hoping.......... Hoping that you have not misunderstood the thin line between a prank and criminal intent or between the rush of young blood to the head and habitual offence; the occasional nodding off as something he would outgrow and poor behaviour which he would still have when he starts working.

Heads of institutions are teachers first.  Is this forgiving nature of a teacher to be re-learnt?

Bala @ Jaipur

Yet another blog is born. Tentatively.

There is space out there for another blog, of course.  But the question is if there will be readers for it? Who wants to be bored with the thoughts of an academic who anyway inflicts them upon his hapless students?  I am hoping (tentatively as the title of this blog suggests) that I would have some things to say to all of you which you would find interesting.  Something which would make you come back to read more of my stuff. If not, it is any way a tentative attempt and it would fold up.

A little about why I chose this title for my blog.  It was started a bit hesitantly, but that is not the tentativeness I am talking about.  I do hope to get my bearings of the e-world soon and become surer with some practice even though I have been pushed and prodded into it!

The tentativeness comes from having been an academic for over two decades.  One has seen the world change.  Attitudes change, and even the values one held dear seem to be changing all around. Knowledge which did not exist is now everyone’s pet discussion.  What would have been spelling errors previously is now my habit while sending SMS!

As the saying goes, I have learnt “never to say never”.  By training one is taught to keep accepting a theory as true until one gets a clearer understanding of it, only to have that replaced with a newer theory.  So anything which I say here is tentative in the broader scheme of things. 

But am I firmly convinced of what I am saying?  I am.  Until a fresh vista opens up for me, when I will come back to you provided I am convinced of a new way of understanding.

Join me in the explorations of my understanding – I hope to have you come back and tell me if I am wrong.  Encourage me to think louder if you feel I have a point.  This is the place where I am going to explore those of my ideas which I cannot explore fully in the classroom. 

Come, have a virtual seat for a chat with me.  We could chat about anything under the sun or the sea.....

Bala @ Goa airport