Journey to Excellence

On 30 June 2009, Mr. Gopal Subramanium, who has recently taken over as the Solicitor General of India, delivered a lecture at IIM-Indore. The impeccably dressed Mr. Subramanium displayed his high quality oratory skills while voicing his opinion on several issues. Using clear, concise language he analyzed several matters containing legal components. It would be perfectly right to say that he held the audience spellbound for two hours.

Mr. Subramanium was extremely forthright and highly critical. To such an extent that he didn’t even spare people from his own profession. He had no qualms about speaking of corruption prevalent in the legal system. He narrated a few examples which illustrated the hypocrisy that has partially engulfed civil servants, lawyers and judges, the fallout of which, obviously, has been a loss of faith of the common man in the system. I think that speaks volumes of the courage and attitude of the man. He has an integrity as hard and unyielding as granite. He is a person who wouldn’t back down but stand up and fight against wrongdoing. He delivers justice. He is in a position of power but he is not afraid to relinquish it in the pursuit of the truth.

Highly learned people are often criticized for being too idealistic and proposing solutions which look good on paper but are impractical. However, Mr. Subramanium’s solutions for the burning issues of today were refreshingly practical, realistic and based on sound logic. As an answer to a question put forward by a participant, he opined that capital punishment shouldn’t be done away with. However, a convict should be sentenced to death only after exercising extreme caution and after undertaking a lot of deliberations. I think it is an absolute necessity to cleanse the world of the remorseless terrorists who mercilessly massacre innocent human beings. I appreciate that forgiveness is an excellent attribute to possess, but when confronted with an evil of the scale of that of the terrorists, I think it wouldn’t harm anyone if we take a few stern steps.

Mr. Subramanium blamed the ubiquitous ‘chalta hai’ attitude as the root cause of several problems that plague the country. We Indians in general tend to take things quite lightly. There are times when an individual has to take things seriously and act accordingly with responsibility. There are other times when the same individual may not necessarily be in a switched-on mode but may maintain a casual demeanor and hence avoid stress. The average Indian seems to lose focus often. He longs to be in a casual mode when a particular task requires serious action. The result of this is that when time to relax comes, he can’t clear his mind completely and hence he can’t enjoy himself. He suffers both ways.

Perhaps the illuminating lecture reached a crescendo when Mr. Subramanium, in his own words, ‘tried to make us uncomfortable’. Thereafter, he went on to present a brilliant argument. At the end of it, uncomfortable we were. An IIM graduate is reputedly a dab hand at formulating brilliant strategies and implementing them to earn billions for his organization. Obviously, the organization pampers him with fat paychecks and opportunity to work at exotic locations. He can afford an extravagant lifestyle and be the subject of envy for his peers. That explains the present rush in the student community to get an IIM degree. But what about turning our eyes away from the glitz and glamour for a moment and focusing on some of the behemoth of problems our country is facing. After all, India is a third world country. Millions of people still live below the poverty line. They still can’t afford to feed themselves enough to sustain their livelihood. Not to mention the absence of a roof above their heads. What about initiating steps to help the Vidarbha farmer who has been crippled by debt and devastated by drought ? Surely, an IIM graduate can develop a strategy to increase the farmer’s income by, say, a meagre four figure yearly amount. That would enable the poor man to buy his family two square meals per day. Now, it is a fact that very few IIM graduates actually choose this path. One of the reasons could be that increasing the salary of the poorest of the poor by a yearly three or four figure amount is more difficult than increasing the yearly revenue of a billion dollar company by an eight digit amount. But if that is the case, shouldn’t the world beaters of the world renowned IIMs concentrate more on coming up with solutions of the problem that seems more challenging ? The fact that they don’t may give rise to suspicion that their outward hubris masks a feeling of escapism they have deep down inside. Maybe it is this escapism that forces them to choose plum offers from foreign companies so that they can escape from the country’s myriad complex problems which they are incapable of handling. For a person who was about to embark on a blessed journey at the prestigious IIM-I, these were disturbing questions. These questions made me uncomfortable. Mr. Subramanium exhorted us not to run away from these questions, but to confront them and think deeply about them. I urge the reader to do the same.

Planet-I

I.


The preceeding paragraph/ sentence/ word/ letter (ah, let’s call it entity-I for clarity’s sake) may be any one of – well – paragraph, sentence, word and letter. Regarding its exact identity, however, opinion would vary. It would be difficult to reach a consensus because some people, who claim to see things others don’t see, would claim to have seen a paragraph. As if to see a few tiny, white dots on a clear night sky is to see the universe. Some people would be a bit conservative and opine that entity-I is nothing but a complete sentence which is logically structured and making a point. There would be people who would be confused as to whether entity-I is a word or a letter. A particularly knowledgeable and affable class of people, going around by the appellation ‘cynics’, would perform their usual tsk-tsk ritual and putting on an all-knowing expression on their faces would state that entity-I is nothing but a gimmick (marketing, probably ? ). Communists would sermonize that entity-I is a threat to egalitarian society and that it is a nefarious product of the imperialist Americans (and six months later would admit that adopting this line of thinking was a historical blunder). Some other group of people with vested interests may put forward some other point-of-view.


Well, there cannot be a debate on the fact that the preceeding paragraph is just that – a paragraph. And the paragraph makes a clear, singular point – that there exist multiple POVs on a single issue. In other words, an issue is like a kaleidoscope; what you see depends on the manner in which you hold the thing and different persons hold it in different ways. How interesting ! Without any more digressing from the real issue, let me now propose a groundbreaking idea that would alter the rotational axis (if any) of the earth and would force Stephen Hawking to admit that a black hole is nothing but a much more mundane and a much more desirable thing. The idea here is that – hold your breath – the entity-I better known as Planet-I can have numerous interpretations. As I’m no creative writer, I’m unfortunate enough to have only one interpretation up my sleeve. Which is the following :


If you observe the word “PLANET” very closely, with the aid of a magnifier perhaps, you will not find it mentally taxing to discover that the word has resulted from a merger of two different words “PLAN” and “NET” to create synergy. Notice that both “PLAN” and “NET” are managerial words. The glorious history of humankind would dutifully attest to the fact that managers are great planners. If you are aware of the prevailing great recession that was planned and executed to perfection, you shouldn’t have a second thought. “NET” is perhaps the most used word in managerial jargon. If you aren’t networking, you aren’t managing a damn thing. And if you cannot use the internet, shame on you, you are as useless as the times when there used to be no internet, because you cannot do, among other things some of which are noble and some of which are not-so-noble, social networking. Probably that is the reason why someone has incorporated the word “LAN” in the word “PLAN”.


Coming back to my point – how does this exquisite merger create synergy ? Well, let me explain. Sit on a chair, in a comfortable posture, close your eyes and cleanse your mind of all the dirty thoughts (you must have had a few). Relax your breathing. Focus on an imaginary point somewhere. Now think of the word PLANET. What do you see ? A neat, polished, innocuous, rounded object. Aka, a “GLOBE”. Yes, yes, now you’ve got it (I almost fell from my chair in unbridled joy). You are now able to visualise what is by far the single most important concept that forms the central tenet, the basic premise and what not of the field of management. See, you started with two little insignificant managerial words, and here you are. If that is not synergy, I don’t know what is.


It is a no-brainer that with so many managerial aspects this PLANET must be some kind of a management institute. But, in recent times, so many management institutes have sprouted all over India. Which management school does this PLANET-I refer to ? We need some specific information. That is where I, and let us have no argument on the fact that it is just a letter and nothing else, comes into the picture.


The extremely egotistic and megalomaniac I is one of the most common letters of the English alphabet. And no wonder. Everyone wants to talk about themselves and I am no exception. If you are already confused between the ‘I’ of PLANET-I and the ‘I’ which means, well, I, don’t be. The world around us is confusing. It is evil. And it is egotistical. (for cynics) Ego is the fountainhead of human progress (basically it is a handy thing to possess) as spake the great philosopher Ayn Rand in her legendary book aptly entitled “The Fountainhead” which by the way everybody reads and nobody understands (much like yours truly). Maybe this is precisely the interpretation; that the I of Planet-I signifies progress. Looked at in another way, the I symbolises realisation of the true potential of a human being. Shove in two I’s, and grander things are envisaged. All of this happens via M for management. No wonder PLANET-I is better known to the world as an IIM.


PLANET-I is a cute little nickname lovingly bestowed upon IIM-Indore. It is one of the best business schools in India. Situated some distance away from the dusty, developing city of Indore, PLANET-I is an enigmatic planet, completely different from what lies around it. The breathtaking beauty of the campus and the erudition of the professors notwithstanding, what gives PLANET-I its true identity is the community of the inhabitants. I, a proud inhabitant of the planet, humbly put forward this write-up by starting and ending with the letter ‘I’.