8 years ago, I found myself
amidst an eclectic bunch of people who seemed to have suddenly decided that ‘academics’
was their chosen career. Although I was quite earnest in my presentations to
the admissions committee, I am quite certain (now) that I had no idea what I
was getting into!! How they must have laughed and laughed.
This is how I surmised what was
expected of me - I was expected to pass an exam (I was good at that - taking
exams - or so I thought), and then write a big fat book that no one would read,
and then keep talking about what was in other books to batches after batches of
students. Who would then proceed to promptly forget everything that was said,
just like I used to. So I said to myself - I get to read and write and even
bully fresh minds into hearing about what I had read. And they would actually
pay me for it – AWESOME!!!
So no fret! Seemed fairly easy to do. I wasn’t up to
taking up the ‘amazing race’ challenge anyways. Retrospectively, I think I was just
so relieved to be interacting with grown-up people after having spent the past
year and half with squalling-screaming babies that only wanted to be fed and
diaper changed at frequent intervals. I was simply starved for social
interactions in which I didn’t have to baby talk!! Or with whom I didn’t have
to talk about babies!!
The first year was a flurry of
readings, assignments, tests, projects and grades that I didn’t have to try
very hard to botch up – all of a sudden I seemed to have developed a natural
talent for doing that. Some revelation that. After a point, I could actually
see my grades shouting – “Surprise, Surprise” from afar as I hit lower and
lower depths.
But then there were a sturdy set
of gentlemen who would keep propping me up and sending me down the rabbit hole
again – only to botch up again. I sometimes like to think (to protect my ego of
course) that they did this only to their favourite pupils – the ones they
thought were most amusing! And salvaging me must have helped them prove their
own prowess. I think they should go ahead and pat themselves on their back for getting
me across the huge chasm between not-understanding and understanding.
Tremendous task!
Having written that huge book,
which was a labyrinthine 400 pages, which no one expect my supervisor could
have read more times than I myself could stand it - I was lost. Sent requests
to the lost & found department that returned a report that said, "Srividya Raghavan was found
in a dazed condition trying to figure out what just happened to her. She reports being hit by a meteor, for which no evidence was found".
Then it dawned on me, somewhere along
the way (Hey, epiphany takes its time to arrive ) that I had more to do than
recite what I had read in the books, even if told myself I did it eloquently (I
like to hear myself talk J).
I needed to do much, much more. I had to get my students across that big wide
gap too and I couldn’t do that by simply telling them what was in the book.
Making sense of what was in them books - and getting critical and practical was
an art – an art that is most often not amenable to subtlety and grace. Getting
there is indisputably, a rough ride. I started sensing that the ‘gap bridging’ might
have been the whole point of that convoluted journey called a doctoral program and
the Management Teachers Program (MTP)* anyways.
That started the next leg of my
journey at IBS - learning from not those who were more learned than me, but
those who were less learned than me and still knew more about what I wanted to
know - My students. What a scenic journey that has been!! I have vignettes in sepia
etched on my mind that I’ll carry to my grave (figure of speech – doubt very
much if I’ll have a grave of my own). I had been “teaching” at IBS since 2007.
But it wasn’t till 2009 that I actually started realising what I was doing and
what I needed to do. Like I said – a slow learner. Story of my life.
In a lot of ways, still
meandering in the no-man’s land between the lost and found regions, I have been
ambling along with all kinds of experiments in my classroom and research. A lot
of effort that ended with a big fat ‘FAIL’ label, a majority of them quite unremarkable
and few sweet success spots (Seeee.....notice the bell curve right there?). But when in the
business of learning, I realise now that I have learnt more in failing than in
succeeding. I know now few things that could work and almost everything
that could go wrong. The fun though is
in doing it like the Nike folks say. Rather do it and make the mistakes than
not do it at all.
That might sounds rather
masochistic…but trust me, it is not. In the company of those you love, success
and failure does not matter as much as the intent. It’s just the feeling of
security and acceptance from which one draws the strength to make mistakes. Of that - Security and Acceptance - I have had
abundantly at IBS. I have been fortunate enough to have had the most incredible
set of students and colleagues who have put up with all my charades and
experiments. IBS gave me the platform to
do all my trials (tribulations of course is for those who are put through them) and has allowed me to grow as a person. I couldn’t thank
IBS enough for absorbing all of the risk that goes with hiring ‘nuts’ like me.
At the threshold of leaving IBS
to start another leg of my journey as an academic - it feels like cutting off
the umbilical cord. I feel the pangs of separation, but I also know it must be
done for the benefit of both.
I will miss IBS more than IBS
will miss me. Of that I am sure.
But like they (not sure who ‘they’
are) say, a good bye is only a promise to return!! (Now, don’t panic!)
PS: (For those who dont know, MTP was the doctoral program designed to make scholars and teachers of us at IIMT - Icfai Institute for Management Teachers).
