Manjushree

What comes to your mind when you hear ‘Manjushree’? Most of you might say, it is the name of a girl.  True, but if I ask you anything more, some with little more imagination might say, ‘name of your best friend, favorite student, first love, so on and so forth! But I am sure, not many would say that it is the name of a tea brand! 

I come from a family of tea lovers.  Both my parents loved tea.  Not just his love for tea, but my father’s enthusiasm in offering tea to friends and relatives was well known.  Whenever a friend or relative passed by our house, he used to invite them for a cup of tea.  My mother was equally enthusiastic in making hot tea and serving the guests.  Not even once did I see my mother unhappy or angry on my father that he kept inviting everyone for tea and that she had to make tea at short notice! Growing up in this environment, me and my brother learnt to make tea at an early age.  My brother-in-law, Mr. Rajendra Bhat, will vouch for the quality of my tea, because whenever I am at Kochi, he comes home asking me to make tea for him and I always oblige wholeheartedly!

During my childhood, packaged branded tea was not very popular (at least in small cities like Cochin).  People used to buy loose tea from retail shops.  There was a Gujarati trader from whom we used to buy tea.  Though I remember him as a fair tall man with a thick moustache, I didn’t know his name.  Everyone called him ‘Setji’, which was a common name for traders belonging to Gujarati and Marwari communities.  His shop was adjacent to his house.  His shop was full of large rectangle boxes made of wooden boards, which were used for transporting tea.  The tea brand that he sold was ‘Manjushree’.  When a customer came, Setji would open the box, fill tea into a polythene cover using a scoop, weigh the same, seal the cover and handover to the customer.  His shop was always filled with the nice aroma of tea.  As time passed, branded tea invaded the market.  Slowly we moved to the supermarket culture, where the customer can pick from a large variety of brands.  Setji lost his business and closed his shop.  Those days, just like any other kid, I never bothered to ask why the tea was called Manjushree.  I had much better things to do in life!  Recently I learnt from Google that the name comes from the estate in which the tea is grown.  Today Manjushree plantations have estates in West Bengal and Assam.  The brand is available for sale in Amazon! 

If nothing else, I inherited the love for tea from my parents.  Till date, I religiously practice what my father used to say, ‘Anytime is teatime’!

 

 

Ripe Guavas !

There is a guava tree in the backyard of my house.  Most of its branches lean over the compound wall towards the road, making it convenient for the passers by to pluck the fruits.  Interestingly, most of the fruits appear on these branches! 

Yesterday morning I saw a middle-aged guy plucking guavas from the tree using a long stick.  Though I could see him, he was not able to see me as I was standing inside the compound.  He plucked one fruit, I kept quiet.  He plucked one more, I didn’t say anything.  But when he plucked the third one and was in no mood to leave, I went out and told him, ‘Please leave few for us’.  He continued searching for more fruits, as if he didn’t hear me.  I continued, ‘I planted the tree, watered and nurtured it and when it started giving fruits, you appear from nowhere to pluck the fruits, is it right?’.  He said, ‘all guavas are ripe, and you are not taking, so I am taking’.  I told him, ‘that is none of your concern’.  Reluctantly he started walking away.  I heard him murmur, ‘neither do they eat, nor allow others to eat’!!  Anyway, I returned home feeling victorious, as if I had won a debate through logical reasoning!

Half an hour later, a group of monkeys attacked the guava tree.  They ate almost all ripe, big guavas.  I could only stand there staring at them helplessly.  Who would argue with them, and what logic would they understand!  I remembered what I read during my schooldays, ‘Birds and animals do not own even a small piece of land; they own the entire Earth’!

(I am sure, those who have read the famous Malayalam story 'Bhoomiyude Avakashikal' by Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, can easily relate to this!)

The English Professor

Parameswara Iyer was a professor of English.  He was famous for his command over the language, especially his vocabulary.  He knew many such English words, which were not in common parlance.  He was known as ‘Walking Dictionary’ among his colleagues and students.  Iyer passed away in 1990 and went to heaven.  Impressed by his knowledge, the God agreed to grant him a wish.  Iyer said, ‘Oh, God, I would like to go back to earth and live for another month with my family’.  God said, ‘You can do that, but you must know that 30 years have passed on earth since you died.  Would you still like to go?’.  Iyer said ‘Yes’, and he was back with his family! He found two new members in the family, Raghu and Ramya, his great grandchildren.  Raghu was studying in ninth grade and Ramya in the third.

Next morning on the breakfast table.

Raghu: Dadaji, I want to take a selfie with you and post it on Instagram.  I am sure, it will become viral.

Iyer: Selfie? What is that?

Raghu:  Dadaji, it is a picture clicked with phone.

Iyer: How can one click pictures with a phone?!! By the way, what is Instagram?

Raghu: It is a place where you can store your pictures, which all your friends and relatives can see.

Iyer: Oh, we used to call it Album! And what did you say, ‘it will become viral’?

(Iyer could see that Raghu was getting annoyed)

Raghu: Dadaji, you just google it, and you will get all answers.

Saying this, Raghu left for his school.  Iyer was wondering, what ‘google it’ meant!

After breakfast, Iyer moved to the courtyard to read the day’s newspaper.  Ramya came rushing and jumped on to his lap.

Ramya: Dadaji, you did not come to my school yesterday for the annual event.

Iyer: Oh, sorry Beta, I could not come. Tell me, what did you perform in the event?

Ramya: I performed a dance with my friend.  It was live on Facebook; you could have watched.

Iyer: Facebook? What kind of a book is that?

Ramya: It is not a book.  It is a website, where you can post pictures, videos etc.

Iyer: Website?

Ramya: Dadaji, you don’t know what a website is?  It is a site on the internet with a specific web address.  Anyway, Dadaji, I will WhatsApp the YouTube link to you.  You can watch it at your convenience.

Iyer: Beta, I don’t understand what you are saying.

Ramya: Oh Dadaji, don’t you understand English?!

 

Thoroughly confused, Iyer took that day’s newspaper.  The first headline read ‘Twitter fails to comply with the privacy policy guidelines issued by the government’.  The second headline was ‘Government bans Chinese Apps including Tik Tok, Pub G and We Chat’.

Iyer was thoroughly confused.  He was feeling bad that he could not make sense of most of what was spoken by the current generation.  He lamented ‘what happened to the English that I knew’.  He quietly got up and went to his pooja room. With a smiling face the God asked ‘What happened Iyer? Why are you looking so despondent?’  Iyer said, ‘Oh, God, please take me back to the heaven, I don’t know English!’

Video Lecture!

 

A consulting firm approached me recently for developing video lectures for a reputed university.  The course for which the lectures were to be developed was one of my favourites.  Having adopted to the online teaching post-pandemic, I told the consulting firm ‘you have come to the right person!’.  The course contents and other specifications were sent to me.  They wanted me to send a sample video before the project was formally assigned.  I started the work with much enthusiasm. 

 

Within no time, challenges started popping up one after the other.  The first challenge was that I did not have the required software.  But, thanks to the benign software developer, who was providing free updates to teachers, I downloaded the latest version.   The second challenge was talking to my laptop.  Online or offline, I always enjoyed interacting with my audience, posing questions, relating their answers to the concepts, and teaching through discussions.  Here, I was talking continuously to my laptop!  I got over this challenge by simultaneously playing the double role of asking the questions and answering them myself.  Finally, my sample video was sent for feedback to the university.  They suggested two things – to increase brightness in the room and to avoid noise disturbance in the background, mainly from the traffic on the road adjacent to my place.

 

I could enhance the brightness in my room by fixing a bright light above my table, but the noise disturbance was a real issue.  My house is just about 100 meters from the busiest road in the city.  All my windows, except in kitchen, open to the road.  I tightly closed all the doors and windows, still the noise of traffic and honking of vehicles got into the video.  By now, I had lost most of my excitement.  Having committed, I had to find a way out.  Finally, I decided to stay late in the night and do the recording after midnight when the traffic becomes very thin.  So, the first day of recording, I settled down in front of my laptop at midnight.  With the new light, there was brightness all around, except on my face, because I was sleepy.  The traffic on the road had almost stopped.  Fifteen minutes into the recording, suddenly there was darkness all around.  The power supply went off and the screen of my laptop became the brightest thing in the room.  After waiting in darkness for a while, I retired to bed.  The optimist in me was heard shouting, ‘power supply doesn’t fail every day’!

 

The next day, I was back in front of my laptop.  The power supply had more voltage on that day, as if it were making up with me for the previous night’s erratic behaviour.  I started the recording.  Suddenly, I saw a spark of dazzling brightness through my window followed by a loud noise.  It did not take long for a heavy downpour with lightning and thunder.  Now, the noise of traffic was replaced by thunder.  Despondent, with no signs of the rain stopping, I closed my laptop and went to bed.  The optimist in me was saying, though in a much lighter voice, ‘it doesn’t rain every day’!

The third day, before starting my work, I looked at the sky.  It was clear, there were no clouds, the stars were bright and no signs of rain.  Traffic had almost stopped.  I was confident that nothing would stop me that day.  I started recording the video.  Halfway through, I was shaken by a noise.  A group of stray dogs had assembled in front of my house.  They were fighting, barking, and howling.  I tried shooing them away, but in vain.  My shooing got subsumed in the noise of their barking.  Shivering with anger, I closed my laptop and went to bed.  There, on my bed, I lie wondering what was happening.  All the excitement of video lecture had disappeared, and now I was cursing myself for agreeing to do this.  Suddenly, I experienced an eerie silence around me.  Where have the dogs gone?  The next question in my mind was, should I get up and get back to my work? Will the dogs reappear as soon as I start my work?  I sharpened my ears to listen to what the optimist in me had to say.  No, I could not hear anything.  He too had gone silent!

 

The Teacher, I love to be!

Today is Teachers’ Day, a day on which we remember and offer salutations to our teachers.  I have been closely observing teachers right from my school days.  I have observed them as a student, as a colleague, as training partner and at times, just as an outsider.  I have seen many teachers in my life.  Most of them were ordinary; few were good teachers; still less in number were great teachers.  But, I have always held one person at the top; the greatest teacher that I have ever met; the role model for me – Prof. K Balakrishnan, retired professor of Business Policy and Finance at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA).  I had the privilege of being his assistant during my tenure as Academic Associate at IIMA during 1996-98.  Prof. Bala was already a legendary teacher when I met him at IIMA.  His style of teaching was so profound that it drew not only his students, but also his younger colleagues to his classes.  Nobody wanted to miss the opportunity of attending his classes.  Prof. T T Ram Mohan, mentions in his book, ‘Brick by Red Brick’, ‘K Balakrishnan brought unusual intensity and drama into the class room…… there was never a dull moment in his class’.  On teachers’ day, let me offer my salutations to Prof. Bala through this blog post.

 

Prof. Balakrishnan with me, when I visited him in 2014

 

Even though I have drawn lessons from most of the good teachers whom I met, the one who had the greatest influence on my teaching style is Prof. Bala.  During his sessions, I used to sit glued to my seat, staring at him, trying to absorb whatever he taught.  In fact, what I learnt more from him is the art of teaching than the subject he taught.  I could learn the subject from anyone, but not his style of teaching.  Today, more than two decades later, when I glance through the notes that I wrote in his class, his classes comes back vividly in my memory.  I started thinking, ‘what made Prof. Bala stand apart?’ Here are my thoughts:

 

  

a) Knowledge: Undoubtedly, Prof. Bala’s knowledge in his area of expertise was deep.  As he used to say, the teachers have to push the frontiers of knowledge, if not, at least be at the frontiers of knowledge.  True to his words, he knew the latest developments in his area and was quick and keen to bring the same to the class room discussions.  His expertise in the subject used to be so deep that he would have critically evaluated each concept that he taught.  He didn’t hesitate in expressing his disagreements either.  For example, while teaching BCG Growth-Share matrix, he didn’t like calling the products in the first cell as ‘question marks’.  He preferred calling them ‘babies’.  His logic was simple and straight forward: ‘question mark has negative connotations, while babies are nurtured, so that they turn stars one day!’

b) Application of knowledge: Prof. Bala strongly believed that teaching just theoretical concepts without practical applications was a waste of time.  That is what made him one of the finest teachers of case study method, where whatever is taught is explained through real-life applications.  I still remember how enthusiastically he would explain the concepts through cases like Gujarat Pharmaceuticals, Dansk Designs, Vlasic Foods, Mridula Ice-cream Parlor etc.  Every concept was related to a situation in the case.

c) Flexibility: I have seen Prof. Bala teaching at Post Graduate Programme (PGP), Management Development Programme (MDP), and Faculty Development Programme (FDP).  Even though he taught the same concepts in all these programmes, his approach was entirely different.  While he stressed more on learning the basic concepts through applications in PGP, his emphasis was more on managerial challenges in MDP and when he taught for FDP, apart from teaching the basic concepts, he would share the teaching techniques with the participants.  Prof. Bala, like a performing artist, clearly understood the audience and delivered exactly what they expected to learn from him.  This flexibility is extremely important for a teacher and I find the same missing in many.

d) Story telling: Prof. Bala was a master story-teller.  A case would slowly unfold in his class like a wonderfully narrated story.  People were always eager to know what happened next.   His uncanny ability of telling stories brought every character of the case live in front of the students.  Be it Shah of Gujarat Pharmaceuticals or Ted Nierenberg of Dansk Designs, he made them all come alive in the classroom.    

e) Generating interest in the participants:  On one side, where Prof. Bala was an excellent narrator of the case situations, he gave equal importance to participation by students in the discussion.  He would ask questions, pose challenges, mock the characters in the case, crack jokes and keep the participants continuously engaged.  I still remember, he used to start the MDP session at 2 pm and go on till 7 pm with just 15 minutes break in between.  In one of those sessions, where the participants were all senior managers from various companies, when the session ended at 7 pm, I heard the participants saying, ‘Oh, it’s already 7, we didn’t realise how the time passed!’.  This was the power of Prof. Bala.

f) Teaching style: The teaching style of Prof. Bala was unparalleled.  He brought lot of theatrics to the classroom.  His expressions, actions and modulation and tone of voice made his classes extremely attractive.  At times, he would position himself in one corner of the room, crack a joke and come rushing towards the centre of the room; he would identify a participant whom he wanted to ask something, stand far away from him and come rushing towards him with the question; sometimes he would speak so softly that everybody had to sharpen their ears to listen, and the next moment he would speak at the height of his voice and laugh loudly.  I may not be able to completely explain his style; it is beyond narration; it is something to be experienced.  I used to be so fascinated by his style that I used to come back to my room and imitate him in front of my colleagues.  This imitation sprung from a deep sense of admiration towards his teaching. 

g) Uncompromising Commitment: I haven’t seen any other teacher who is so committed and passionate about his profession.  When I was assisting him during 1996-98, he had already crossed 50, had a major surgery and had difficulty in hearing.  But none of this dented his enthusiasm in the classroom.  Once, after a five hour long session for the MDP, I wanted to discuss something with him.  When I asked him whether we could spend five minutes, he patted my shoulder and said, ‘after these sessions I get really tired, I go home and sleep, sometimes I don’t even take dinner, so can we meet tomorrow?’.  I stood there, staring at him walking towards his residence, wondering who on earth asked him to stretch a 2 hour session to 5 hours!  That day, I learnt an important lesson on professional commitment.  Immediately after his retirement in 2001, Prof. Bala gave an interview to the IIMA Alumnus magazine, where he talks about the extra efforts put in by the young faculty members during the early days of IIMA.  He calls it ‘individual pain for institutional gain’.  Today, when everybody is asking what is there for me, before performing any task, Prof. Bala stands apart.  In the same interview he says, “Teaching is my addiction; I am essentially a teacher and would like to continue to be one. I get my excitement from that. In fact, teaching is a more powerful medicine for me than all the chemicals prescribed by my good cardiologist and I hope I will continue to get my minimum dose!”

 

 

Today, we hardly find such teachers.  Of late, I have been observing two disturbing trends in the field of higher education.  First, the youngsters who are entering the field of academics are not giving enough importance to the art of teaching.  The second, which is more disturbing, is that many institutes of higher learning are not doing enough to encourage their faculty members to excel in teaching.  On the other hand, they are asked to focus more on research and consulting.  I am not undermining the significance of research and consulting.  In fact, they should complement and enrich teaching.  But, focusing on research by diminishing the significance of teaching is not correct.  It is in this context the contributions by teachers like Prof. Bala assume significance.

 

 

In 2014, I met Prof. Bala at his residence in Ahmedabad.  His health had further deteriorated; but his energy and enthusiasm were intact.  He spent almost an hour with me, catching up old memories.  He hugged me when I was about to leave and wished me all good things in life.  I couldn’t have asked for more.  Let me conclude with a message to Prof. Bala:  ‘Dear Prof. Bala, you have always influenced me, and would continue to inspire me to eternity.  I have been trying to be like you, but failing time and again.  You are the destination for me; the cliff of the mountain that I would love to climb.  I know I would never be a teacher like you.  Every time I feel closer to you, like a mirage you move away, and I find lot more distance to reach you.  That is the level of professionalism and greatness that you gave to teaching.  Still, I continue to strive to reach you, because the journey of getting closer to you is itself rewarding and enjoyable.  My pranams to you.  YOU ARE THE TEACHER I LOVE TO BE.’

 

 

 

 

The Story of a Book

If there is one thing on which I spend lot of money, that is books.  Buying books (not necessarily reading) has always been my passion right from my college days.  I have a reasonably big collection of books (mostly non-fiction) which is stacked away in cupboards at home and in the book shelf in my office.  Frustrated by the space that my books were occupying at home, my wife once told me that I should not bring any more books home, till I finished reading all the books that were stacked in the cupboards. From then on, I started accumulating books in my office!

But, today, I am about to narrate an interesting incident about one of my books.  Recently I was driving to Bangalore and a senior professor of my Institute, Dr. P Venkataramana accompanied me in my car.  We kept discussing about many things during the journey and in the process he also mentioned about his experience of interacting with Prof. Pradeep Khandwala, the ex-director of IIMA and an expert in the field of Organisational Development.  He also told me that a book written by Prof. Khandwala on Organisational Designs was an international best seller few years ago and he had been searching for a copy of the same.  He could not get it anywhere.  When I was a research staff at IIMA during 1996-98, I had the opportunity of meeting Prof. Khandwala.  Mr. Ram Mohan Rao, who was a member of the research team of Prof. Khandwala was a close friend of mine at IIMA.  He had once gifted me a book, which I had kept among many other books in a corner of my shelf.  Since my area is not Organisational Development, I never read that book, except for reading first few pages. But, since it was a gift from my friend, I kept that book safely in my shelf.  When Prof. Venkataramana mentioned about the book by Prof. Khandwala, I was not sure whether he was referring to the same book, because I had almost forgotten the title of the book.

The next day, I searched for that particular book gifted by Mr. Ram Mohan Rao among my old books and found the same.  The title of the book is 'Organisational Designs for Excellence', written by Prof. Khandwala.  I was really thrilled to realise that this was the same book that my colleague was searching for.  Next morning, when I gave this book to Prof. Venkataramana, I could see a glow on his face and he immediately grabbed that book, promising that he would return it after reading.   I was wondering, this book remained in my cupboard for 17 long years without being read or even touched by anyone, finally to reach the hands of an individual who has been longing for years to read the same..!!! Can we say that every book is destined to be read by someone, some day?

A Search for you, Dr. Kalam

My dear readers, It has been a long time since I wrote something here.  It is also a sheer coincidence that this post is in memory of a legend (Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam), whereas my last post was also a tribute to another legend (Sri. Dakshinamurthy Swamy).  The news of Dr. Kalam's death came as a shock as nobody had even an iota of expectation.  I have had the good fortune of listening to him twice during his visit to my Institute.  He always exhibited high level of energy and enthusiasm.  He was constantly thinking of taking this country to greater heights and busy in preparing the next generation to take up this daunting task.  He occupied the highest office in the country and was honoured with the highest civilian award.  But none of this had any impact on him - he remained the same humble human being, caring for the people around him.  Today the print and electronic media is full of stories and instances to narrate the simplicity of Dr. Kalam, a man for whom, the saying "simple living and high thinking" was true till his last moment.  During the last three days, whenever I was free from my work, I was reading and thinking about Dr. Kalam, his life, his work and his contributions.  Based on all that I read and thought, I decided to jot down four qualities of him that made him stand apart.

1. Thirst for knowledge: He was always a student.  His curiosity to learn was not confined only to his area of expertise and research.  He believed in holistic learning.
2. Dedication and discipline: He exhibited complete dedication to whatever task he performed and was highly disciplined in executing the same.
3. Passion to disseminate knowledge: Mere acquisition of knowledge was not his aim, rather, he believed in passing it on to others.  Moreover, his interactions with children and youngsters is a classic example of how a highly learned man can come down to the level of the audience and explain things to them using simple examples and layman's language.
4. Compassion to humankind: He was always compassionate to the people around him.  He tried to understand the difficulties that people go through and tried to console them, even if he couldn't do anything more.

One can list many more qualities of Dr. Kalam.  But I feel, if we are able to inculcate at least the above qualities, we can go a long way in our life.  I believe that the above four qualities come naturally to a human being.  But, since we do not exercise enough care to nurture them on a continuous basis, these qualities remain subdued in us.  They surface once in a while in one form or the other, but are not sustained over long time.  Conscious and continuous efforts to practice these qualities is the only way to sustain them.  All these days we had Dr. Abdul Kalam as a living example, but now that he is gone, we need to keep searching for him within us.  When we start inculcating his qualities, when we start identifying ourselves with him and when we start exhibiting more and more dedication to our mission, discipline in our lives and compassion to others, Dr. Kalam would live through each one of us.  Let the search for him within us begin.