The Pillars...

Girish Gowda alias bunty exclaimed “O Fish!” and his facial expression expressed his sympathy towards the person whose angst he was sharing. She was inarguably the most beautiful girl in the batch and right now was sharing the misery of her exams with him. Bunty, with his shaved head, always-a-book-in-the-hand, doing his second MBA and being an ex-banker would have passed off as a nerdy type in any college setting except for his way with words and his ability to charm the girls. Simply put, bunty was a charmer. But more than that, he was an individual with certain principles in life, which is so rare to be found in these days from people of the same age as him. He believed in ideas, what he called as the 4 pillars of his philosophy…but, we are digressing!

Setting

An assignment meeting in the second term of the MBA, with heated conversation between bunty and Raj Tarun. Raj was junior to bunty and was as unique as bunty was. Some of his principles in life were almost antithetical to what bunty believed in, yet they managed to gel as a group. The topic of conversation right now was the situation which existed in the country right now and what the future of the country was.

“This country is never going to be a fair country to live in. All these politicians and the IAS officers are so corrupt that this country will never become prosperous. What we need is not democracy but dictatorship. Then only this country will learn”
Bunty, with his counter argument delivering in an amicable way “How can you say that? There are so many things that the government mechanism is doing. Even after everything is said about the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, there still are people in the system who really wants good things to happen to the citizens”
“That is absolute nonsense; I don’t think any of the politicians today even think about serving the needy in the country. All they want to do is to get power and money”
“Again, I beg to differ. There are lots of people, at least down south, who try to make a difference in the lives of millions of poor. True, their glory might not be sung by the media and they might be unsung heroes, but the fact is that there are millions of invisible hands with a noble heart who move the limbs of the huge machinery of this country. If we, the next generation, start losing faith in them, then what chance do we stand?”
“Do you think that one person thinking or two people thinking are going to make a difference? The system is so corrupt that, for every honest person, there will be at least 100 dishonest people! What do you think, we as a normal citizen of the country can do? Nothing! You might say that we can cast our votes? But does it really count? Fine, I think that party X or the candidate Y is an honest individual and the country needs people like that and I go and cast my vote? But does he win? No, of course not. The elections are won by people who have money and power and those people who have both in our country almost most certainly does not have the best interests of people in their mind. So the only way in which I could possibly make a contribution from my side has also been negated. I don’t see any scope and that is why I think a good 5 years of dictatorship is good for this country”

Bunty listens patiently to raj’s passionate argument and replies.
“If you and me and thousands of people like us, who have good education, who understand the problems of the country, who are empowered to a certain extent, and who would like to see our country prospering, start thinking like this, what is going to happen? Why don’t we try to make a difference? Yes, I do agree that the politics in India is driven by vote banks and caste politics and hegemony and “family” politics etc, but we need fresh blood and educated minds into these institutions”

“Yeah, sure, flesh blood. Look what happened to that much hyped about political party launched by students from one of the most premier colleges in the country. The last I heard, they had split into two. I tell you, no matter who tries, we are not going to get rid of dirty politics, corruption and nepotism. Hell, all these exists in our college also!!!”

“Sure, I do agree that elements of these are present in the college that we study, in our work place etc. but like all necessary evils, we have to accept that they are there and work towards removing it. If you and I and our friends raise our hand and say that we are not responsible and neither is empowered to do anything about it, then surely we will never reach where we want to reach. But at least we have to give it a try and give it a chance….”

And so on and so forth, the conversation continued then and then in some later meetings also…

Fast forward 10 years later

“Sir, the proposal has again been rejected by the tehesildar”
“What bloody reason does that idiot given now?”
“He says that we don’t have the license for the area adjoining the water tank and our contract specifies the boundary as the petrol pump and hence he cannot sign on the papers”
“The bloody &*#$#%%#%. I am sure he wants money from us and I am not going to give any”
“But saar…..”. Nair stammered, scratched his head and showed his toothless smile. He was in his fifties and had seen the ways of the world and how things worked in the south Indian city. He knew that if you were a multinational and wanted something to do with any of the government agencies, a lot of palms would have to be greased. He could not understand why his 35 year old general manager could not see the simple reasoning that the lowly bureaucrats expected some “benefits” from them. After all, they made the system and so you have to pay them their “dues” isn’t it?
“Nair, I tell you, I am not going to pay even a single paisa to this corrupt fool. Let me see if there are other ways for us to get this sanctioned or not”.

And so, the general manager of one of the biggest multinational real estate agencies drafts a letter to the local ministry for land reforms about the corruption he was facing from the municipal corporation bureaucrats and enlisting his difficulties in obtaining a sanction which was blocked for more than 3 months now and which should have taken them only 2 weeks to get.
“Nair, please make sure that this gets send to whoever is in charge as soon as possible. I don’t have much hope, but I don’t want to give in without knowing that I tried to beat the corrupt system”
Nair nodded and again gave a whimsical smile.


1 week later
“Sir, we have got the sanction. Your action has paid off. The municipal officer even called up and apologized profusely. He wanted to talk to you, but I figured…..”
“Nair, you are the best. You know me too well don’t you? Thanks for sparing me the trouble of speaking with that jerk. Please call the ministry official who helped us out here right now and I want to thank him and tell him that the efforts of the minority of honest people like him counts”


And so, Raj Tarun, the general manager of the real estate firm waits for the phone to be picked up from the other side. It does get picked up after 3 rings and the minister in charge for land development, Girish Gowda comes on line……….

MBA @ ISB - The first 5 Terms

There I sat in my first MBA class
Dreaming of my brand equity one year hence
The liabilities (loan!) thought put me off
Relax, said the economics prof, MR = MC
Trust the normal curve, whispered my neighbor!

Acquaintances were made, and a few good friends
Fiscal deficits and money supply became the way of life
Kill the SAMA; create the VODITE; in my dreams too!
Learnt the art of being "hindsight clever" aka u-kno-wat!
And Monte Carlo ceased to be just a brand of sweaters!

A few new friendships made, some grew apart!
Seinfeld and goal, Littlefield and queues,
Value the company, value the project; value my time puhleaze!
ABC is not just the first three alphabets, neither the channel,
VC is not just vice chancellor and Angel investors aren't pretty!

The last core term, step up the throttle!
Markowitz just sounds cool; term 'structure' ain't sexy!
More is to "bow tie" you see, dialectical inquiry, say what??!!
Errr...which is the favorite brand whiskey of amartya sen?
Need some 2-sided network externalities, or a beer will do!

Yippee core terms are over; the worst is just to begin!
Will I get a fixed income in the future?
Do I have an option on my future?
Will my moment of truth in February be invisible?
Don’t know friends, baithkar batcheet karenge!!!!