The Fox

The face that looks back at me from the photograph in our Year Book is youthful, of dark complexion and sits lightly on a thin body.  The hair is neatly combed - indeed, I rarely saw a tousled head of hair on him in the two years on campus.  He is wearing a T-shirt and his trademark skin-tight jeans many years before it became fashionable to get your daily exercise and leg-muscles massage by battling with the denim trouser on the bed.  But what is most arresting in the photograph are the smile and the eyes: the smile is benign and teasing and the eyes have a hint of mischief, a trace of childlike naughtiness that we see in some truly special children, who are as troublesome and non-conforming as they are sharp and wonderfully deviant.   

When I got to know him on campus, the first image that came to mind was of an endearing, rather saucy fox, one who would be up to no good because, well, he wanted to be up to no good.  I shall therefore refer to him hereon as the Fox.

He was with us at D Quarters, being a Bangalorean, and, when the two of us compared notes, we found that I had actually spent a few months in his class in the 7^th standard, before switching schools.  Later, when I spoke to our common friends about the Fox, they would immediately have a mildly startled air about them, as if I had suggested that their house had been selected for the forthcoming landing of a payload satellite. 

It took me, and the others who spent our happy two years years in DQ and G-top together, very little time to find out why.  For the Fox was the mimic of our batch, an outstanding, exaggerated imitator when in the company of friends (which included a diminishing Old Monk), and a careful performer when in not-so-comfortable company. 

We read nowadays a great deal about method-acting; actors observing others’ mannerisms and then duplicating them on screen.  The Fox needed none of this, for it came to him easily, just as dismay came naturally to an academic topper on knowing the grades of others, just as revulsion came to me when double beans were served for dinner, just, indeed, as cows belch.  He was, in other words, a Natural and would choose some daring moments to display that ferocious talent.

In the first year, we had an Economics professor, whom I shall simply called Bala; there is no point in identifying someone you intend to describe (hopefully) to comic relief.  Bala had the most astonishing mannerisms and, in the rather arduous pursuit of the subject, most of us missed these gems of idiosyncrasy.  For one, he would snort at frequent intervals, rather like a wild buffalo that is cross with its next meal, - the poor fellow, I suspect had asthma or certainly something else that blocked his air passage and the snort had begun as a determined effort to keep the engine going; over a period of time though it had become a habit and now, even when the engine was purring away and conforming to Euro 4 standards, the snort ensued at regular intervals.  His second habit, and this was so fascinating to watch that I nearly failed in the subject, was to swing a leg (alternating between the right and the left) to and fro, in the manner of an elephant contemplating its next course of action.  When he had to smile, the muscles around the lips seemed to cause indefinable agony and he kept the effort to the minimum. 

Well, the story is that, on a particular occasion, before the class began, the Fox walked up to the podium of a semi-empty class and began to snort and swing his legs.  Now, you see, we can all snort and swing our legs, but few can do it in precisely the same way that Bala did.  The observers erupted into laughter, even as the Fox turned to the board behind to begin a mock session and observed Bala watching him with a rather puzzled air. 

In the brief silence that followed, I am told, the Fox gave Bala the same smile – the agony of muscular strain exemplified – and quietly walked up to his place in front.  That he passed Economics implies that either the good Professor did not catch on, or, if he did, is worthy of canonisation.

But the Fox's best acts – his piece de resistance, as it were – were the imitations of the many couples on campus that were dating or certainly of fellows who had set their eyes on a girl.  With uncanny precision, often with us discreetly watching, he would walk past the guy or indeed the girl, imitating the mannerisms of either or both parties.  There would be no advance notice, no ‘watch me do this’, just a natural slippage into a role that he would click out of in a minute, as we rolled over laughing at the sheer audacity of the whole thing.  To this day, of course, most of those subjects have no idea of the Fox’s manoeuvres. 

When he mimicked each one of us at G-Top – his best friends (if such chaps can actually retain best friends) – it was to much merriment, generally after we had downed a measure of warmth from the bottle in regular State of the World Round Tables.  As the evening progressed, the Fox would warm up, his rendition of the day’s ordinary events, embellished with rip-roaring imitation.  Godfy, whose endearment for the 555 cigarette is the stuff of legend, was one of the Fox’s favourite subjects.  He was always, with exaggerated panache, imitating the Godfather’s style: he would pretend to puff away, walk with an air of supreme importance, looking out at the sea of humanity and drawing the conclusion that on him depended any improvement in the national average.  He made fun of me regularly of course, but it was impossible to be offended.  The trademark of genius is when you have the subject helplessly laugh in disagreement.

The thing about the Fox is, we could take his ‘trip’ as well, and did so in considerable measure, for the small of his back – his bottom, in other words – had been constructed generously and the tight jeans made it all come to life. 

On campus, he got himself a marketing job, and we re-lived much of his mischief when we met later in 1992 and, perhaps, 1993 (the way I get dates mixed up, there is reason to suspect prefrontal cortex decay), but you know how it is: you lose touch and people go their separate ways, some in pursuit of a dream,  others a livelihood, yet others, in search of meaning.  At times I think that we should have had today’s mobiles on campus, to capture this hilarity for good, but perhaps, all in all, it’s a good thing that it is what it is. 

I have been staring into space for much of the last few minutes, and I now look down with a start.  Is it my imagination or is the face in the photograph now sporting a Bala smile, of gentle, momentary imitation? I feel a surge of emotion and, I will confess, a lump in the throat – for those days, for those moments when a sportive, naughty, mind would put on an impressive display because it was fun, because it was mild, perhaps even because it needed to be there.
But one cannot go on and on, isn't it?  It is time to turn the page.

Sampy, when we all meet in a few days time, those who knew you well will miss you and your splendid, warm, enchanting company. 

But some of us will try to imitate you, that is for sure. 

Malsum wocs her talk

If I asked you to define just who a good teacher would be, the answer would possibly revolve around things such as erudition, communication ability, empathy, humility and so on.  On campus at IIMB, we had our share of such profs, but they are, for the most part, most uninteresting to write about.  What can one write about a splendid teacher, other than the fact that he or she is indeed a splendid teacher? 

Malsum was different, vastly so.  Writing about her is most motivating, only because she was supremely incompetent.  Indeed, any race for ineptitude would have been horribly one-sided, and any bets placed on others done, no doubt, by those entirely ignorant of facts or unable to afford the Official Guide to the Races.

It’s not that incompetence was absent on campus; if anything, it was significantly pervasive.  But none were in her league.  To stress the point further, we had some profs who were far from erudite, others who spoke but occasionally in English (including the redoubtable Bosky, who insisted on spelling 2 as ‘tow’ and would have imploded if you had asked him to spell balloon or Mississippi), a few who had been put out to pasture (notably in Personnel Management, as it was then called), who spent their time in class awaiting their retirement momento, and a large section of profs who saw the teeming humanity in front of them as an interference to their obscure research work on algorithms for logisitics optimisation.  But those who lacked knowledge made up, sadly, by their communication, others like Bosky inspired compassion and the algorithms-fraternity occasionally even smiled when students slipped on wet floors; they too, as you can see, had a few strands of human DNA.  All these folks didn’t quite combine their sterling incompetence in one field with that in another and hence may be excluded from analysis.  Malsum, I repeat, was different. 

She taught us Written and Oral Communication. At the best of times, this isn’t a subject you teach grown-ups who have passed a competitive exam that included an English language section and it struck me that the selection process for a faculty member for Woc had been simple.  There is no doubt that all those present and on the rolls had refused to teach the subject and the Director in charge then had put up a signboard by the backgate that read ‘Trespassers will be recruited’.  The rest, you will concur, is history. 

Also note that these were the days before email.  Hence, the days before clean wholesome entertainment such as flame mails, escalations at the touch of a key, sending mails to the wrong person, particularly when you were writing things about him that you shouldn’t have and so on.  We had none of these examples of hilarity, so this sterling lady had an uphill battle.   

When Malsum fetched up in class and took her chair (actually she didn’t, she just sat on it), what struck me was the long, pointed thingy that had been poked through the bun at the back of her head.  It was a particularly sharp instrument – the sort that you’d keep handy when you expected trouble – and the visibly finished keen tip suggested an attention to detail.  This spear fascinated me and absorbed much of my attention, for there was not much more to do.  In one class, this prolonged concentration prompted an outburst of creativity, resulting in my first nonsensical ditty at IIMB: 

No spear in this bun of hair

We have looked, I promise, everywhere

Just how do we tell Lady Malsum

That the bones have lost their calsum 

The students in her class – when they did attend, for in those days the Attendance Register wasn’t the Holy Grail and was not infrequently doctored – ranged from the distracted to the somnolent, from the fidgety to the fretful.  In the quarter of a century following her classes, I am yet to meet anyone who remembers anything of what she is alleged to have taught in communication– written, oral or in any other unexplored form – yet they all remember that she had a modest vocabulary and worked hard at keeping it modest and limited to words that had no more than five letters (and not more than one vowel); anything beyond this was truly overwhelming. 

Malsum would spend all her time in class seated in her chair on the podium, getting us to write entirely meaningless stuff or make presentations, while she thought of, well, whatever it is that she was capable of thinking of (it is unlikely to have been research insights into contemporary literature).  Her real skill was in grading, as the instances below will conclusively prove.

A classmate who had studied literature and is known to have read Kafka, Whitman and possibly Shaw was once berated by her for incorrect salutation in his letter to branch manager requesting a transfer of goods to warehouse.  When he saw his grade, I saw him cringe in horror and disbelief and he spent the remaining few classes with his head in his hands, avoiding the eyes of his fellows. 

When it was my turn to make a presentation, I did one on marketing and branding, ending with a recitation of a ditty that I read somewhere: 

A lion met a tiger as they drew beside a pool

Said the tiger, “Tell me, big boy, why’s your roaring like a fool?”

“It’s not foolish,” said the lion, with a twinkle in his eyes

“They call me king of beasts because I advertise.”

A rabbit heard them talking and ran home like a streak

He thought he would try roaring, but his roar was just a squeak

A fox came to investigate and had his lunch in the woods

The moral: if you advertise my friends, be sure you have got the goods.

Having recited this with flourish and to the modest applause from those who were awake, I turned to look at the lady herself.  The entirely impassive face suggested that I had probably made a presentation in a dialect spoken north-west of Reykjavik.  In essence, an entirely wasted effort.

Yet, her high point arrived when another classmate made a presentation on sunsigns and proceeded to describe, with gentle humour, the characteristics of those born under these various signs.  Malsum, of course, got it all wrong; she had written the title of the talk down as ‘Sunshine’, paid careful attention to the presentation with its description of Virgos and Saggitariuses and stuff, saw the clear correlation of all of this with the sunshine above the building and gave the student an ‘A’.    

This is the stuff of legends, the sign of unforgettable greatness.

Srini's List

Srini was, very possibly, the most competitive loser in our batch at IIM.

I distinctly remember my first impressions of him – a tall fellow, with a big belly that clearly advertised his weakness for all things carbohydrated, a neatly combed shock of hair with a lock of it falling onto his forehead, a moustache that was never allowed to fulfill its potential and a prominent, out-sized bottom much like the stomach but in the reverse direction, which caused much merriment over the two years he spent on campus. Yet it was his voice that was the most distinctive feature. It was a scratchy, harsh voice, much like the drongo’s and more indicative of a rough barrel making its way down a road, a voice devoid of humour, with a flat tone that rose to an unpleasant pitch when his competitive spirit was aroused to a challenge. The overall impression of the man was of a bull in a china shop, albiet one with a rather sore throat.

An early indication of the competitive spirit was provided when the first party was hosted on campus. This was a getting-to-know-you sort of event, where we, the freshers, put up the usual stuff like Hotel California and the odd jamba. Srini was horrified (as indeed any true TamBrahm would like to be) and dismissive, and shunned it with the words “I am here to study, not to party”, words that immediately acquired cult status. This is exactly the kind of thing you don’t say on campus. The one thing that you are expected to do but expected to pretend that you never do is study. Such niceties were lost on him and this, we realised over the next many months, was typically Srini. He would not hesitate to speak his mind, most often saying precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person at the wrong place or publicly dismissing those he saw as inadequate (in front of them, needless to add).

In class, Srini was intensely competitive, scanning the horizon for the brainy and the studious, the ones with a history of ranks and those in the ranks of history. If any of these folks asked a question, Srini's would be the next. When he asked a question, his mellifluous voice was much like the movement of finger nails on glass. The strong willed would clench their fists, most would grind their teeth and cross their toes. Presumably, the faculty felt the same way as they were (occasionally) human, so it was no wonder that his many queries were often answered in a tone of finality, with no second question entertained.

My paths with Srini crossed right in the first trimester, where a key subject was financial accounting. Now, I was at best an average guy at academics, reserving my hidden genius for such intellectual pursuits as putting up posters of events, imbibing midnight tea, practising for a future speech that I would make as a Chief Executive and the like (as you can see, I still don’t admit that I did study). Yet accounts was a forte, having done my undergraduation in it. When I did well in the first accounts quiz, Srini had me in his sights. I recall a moment one evening when I went to his room to pick up a handout and saw a list that he had put up on the wall. It was a neat list of the classmates he considered to be competition, with their grades in all subjects. My name, I was mortified to see, was on it. I went back to my gang of friends, in some agitation, for grades are confidential and about as personal as your toothbrush. The gang, having adequately dosed on spirits, was waiting for me to join them and the list became a subject of intense discussion; some of them suggested that we lodge a complaint against this restrictive and unfair trade practice. In the end, we chose to stay silent (while the next day’s hangover went away).

Interestingly, for all his competitive zeal, his hundred percent attendance, the copious notes, the determined use of the library and the relentless pursuit of past questions, Srini never really was a topper, though he was, I will happily admit, a darn sight better than I could have been. The more he saw himself as a loser the more competitive he became as I discovered when, sometime in the third semester, more by necessity than by choice, I happened to drop by his room again,

The list was there, of course. Some names had been added to it. My name had been neatly scratched out. If there was anything that could have caused greater mortification, intense chagrin and wrenching indignity than having my name on that list, it was having my name scratched out from that list. With my ego in terminal decline, I slunk back to the room determined to undo this affront, this inconvenient truth. My place on Srini's list was my only goal.
The feeling lasted for about a couple of hours after which I slept well and found the next day far too beautiful to spend on a text book.

Srini, of course, did not change in all the time I saw him on campus. Years later, when I thought I saw his form emerge from a chair at an airport, I stood behind a pillar with my head buried in a newspaper till the danger had passed and all was well. He works, I am told, with a large manufacturing company in New Delhi. Some classmates have allegedly met him at airports over the years (and not hidden behind pillars), and most reports indicate that the two protrusions on either side have only grown. Yet, frustratingly, no one has asked him if he still keeps his list on a wall; now possibly a list of potential competitors for the top job in his company.