Three Men in a Boat

It did not seem ironical to me that the subject that would probably be most useful to us in our post-MBA life was taught by the most incompetent.

Rather, it seemed like fun, for the three characters who taught us Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (as HR was then called) were unintentionally comical.  They were as different from each other as chalk from cheese, yet the glue of incompetence held them together; about the reality of their subject, they knew nothing, about the theory, well, even less, if indeed that was possible.  The two who taught me were gentle, possibly gracious, with their grading of the hurriedly incomprehensible stuff that was written in the tests held, so even as this is written, there emanates a feeling of gratitude.

The first of this triumvirate was a small, fair, chubby, bald fellow, with a genial air and a charming smile, called Lele – a name that undoubtedly led to hours of fruitful speculation on variations, opposites (‘Dede’), alliterations (“Lele lekhak leke lao” for instance) and puns (“Le le le Delilah” from Tom Jones).  His entire demeanour was apologetic: he’d shuffle into class with some papers and smile up at the diligent ones who had deemed it necessary to attend (most didn’t).  Then, with an air of “Terribly sorry to have woken you up before lunch”, he would proceed to lecture with a firm, valiant air.  Nobody, of course, paid him any notice.  Occasionally, he would deem it useful to bring in some humour that he had used with every class since 1982 and these were moments of joy for us, for it enabled a release – I’d laugh more than necessary and go back to idle speculation.   Our senior batch, of course, had given us the low down on Lele’s exams: easy, routine, hence focus on other subjects and that was, shall we say, the last nail.  

The second fellow was Sampangi Ramaiah, whom I nicknamed SamRam.  He apparently taught us Industrial Relations, having worked in some public sector or the other.  Now, this should have given him the early ropes, for industrial relations in the public sector are notable by their absence and the subject could have been lightened up with conflicts, broken glasses, politics and intrigue, which would have, no doubt, gripped our collective attention.  Yet, this sober, taciturn fellow would turn up with the most boring – and by this I mean mind-numbingly tedious, frustratingly dreary, horrendously useless – theory, speaking largely to himself and the absorbing projector that seem to take much of his attention.  The feelings of the audience, if those were indeed feelings, were mutual.  He would cling to his material, as if a bear hug would facilitate knowledge transfer, and this attachment was only countered, sadly, by the class’s collective detachment to the same piece of academic drivel.  It did not help that a number of these classes were in the afternoon in a cool classroom. 

SamRam seemed to wander through the classes with little aim, and it was comforting to know that all not-so-good things also come to an end.   I once asked my friend Sampi, who was a mimic beyond compare, to imitate SamRam and let it be recorded for posterity that, for once, Sampi struggled to perform, for such was the perfection of ordinariness that SamRam had accomplished. 

Yet, the numero uno of this trio was clearly Bijoor.  In incompetence, of course, it would have been hard to judge if indeed he took the cake (or, more accurately, dropped it), for such things are perceptional, but clearly he was in many ways in a class of his own.  Much of the impressions I have of Bijoor are from my mates in another class, for he did not (thank God for the mercy) inflict himself on Section A, where I was.   He taught Section C and it would hardly be out of place to note that what he did was a C-section on them,  making unnecessary incisions on an unsuspecting public.  Bijoor had views (often extreme) about everything, and expressed them apparently with ferocity, and the rather cold fact that he taught Personnel Management hardly seemed to constrain him on expressing opinions on more pressing world matters.  Each class, of course, meant discussions amongst us subsequently about his current perambulations, and in that sense the classes were undoubtedly more engaging, but no one ever had a clue to this venerable gentleman’s course.  He was, I remember, a member of every committee in the country that would have him and those meetings provided the odd relief to the class that otherwise, in a word, reeled. 

The collective influence of the threesome was to inhibit any molecule of aspiration that might have existed in any student to pursue Personnel Management (admittedly, those molecules to begin with had been scarce).  We had a bunch of guys who taught us Organisation Behaviour as well, for this was seen as quite distinct from Personnel Management, the distinctions no doubt enriching many an author.  The OB guys knew their subject, but were as idiosyncratic as a Papua New Guinean with a hernia, and we shall leave that story for another day (though on SKRoy, I have written with feeling).  

Some years later, I opened an old trunk and took out a Personnel Management book, looking at it with some surprise.  Opening it and leafing through, I could remember nothing at all.  I was in the same boat as the triumvirate and it was then that I realised my true potential at teaching the subject.  So, look, I say, for a silver lining, and you will find it somewhere, sometime.