Decoding the Temple Guardian

“I’m so going to kill my Team Lead!” sounded Swapnil.
The frustration on his face reflected the kind of work pressure that he had been going through at his workplace. Since it was a Friday we all tried cheering him up.
“Just leave that behind now. Don’t spoil your weekend over it. So where do you want to go now!?”
“Let’s go to Pashan Lake and booze there by the lake side with moonlight to light up your mood” babbled George. This indeed sounded like a great idea as it felt more like a countryside get away than a mundane urbane setting of a pub to spend a Friday evening.
Since Raunak and myself were teetotalers we decided to go to the lake side directly while Swapnil, Keerthi, Bhakti and George decided to buy booze and food before they got there. Hence we parted ways in two cars from there. Once we hit the highway we were confused regarding the road that led to the lake . Finally after wasting a lot of petrol we managed to stumble upon a pedestrian walking that street, who aided us to find our way. He said that the lake had access only through the temple and not otherwise. We reached the Pashan Temple only to realize that it was an isolated place located at the end of a service road running parallel to the highway. There was barely any human activity around that place. As we walked into the gate we caught sight of a small beautiful temple and a man standing near the sanctum of the temple. He was a tall skinny man who walked in a very peculiar manner. He spoke Marathi and Hindi. He exhibited some amount of authority which led us to conclude that he might be the watchman housed there. There was a community hall under construction to the right of the temple. A small orange colored room which supposedly belonged to the watchman was situated diagonally left to the sanctum of the temple.
As Raunak enquired about the way to reach the lake the watchman insisted that it was parlous to be there at that part of the night as the clock had already struck 8:30 pm. Instead he suggested that we lingered around the temple for some time and vacated the place .Meanwhile I called up our counterparts who had gone to buy booze and informed them of the situation leading to the conclusion that we would carouse by the lake side once they joined us. Until then we both decided to lounge around at the temple premises. We settled down on a bench opposite the community hall admiring the temple that looked magnificent on a full moon night. Raunak had shouldered his hand on the bench as I sat beside him. We ranted and made garrulous conversation regarding Swapnil and meandered around various topics awaiting their arrival. The watchman who noticed us sitting there for some time swaggered up to us and offered us “Prasad”(coconut pieces) and went away.
As we started gnawing into the coconut pieces something was ubiquitous about the watchman’s activity. He walked to and fro all eyes like he was invigilating kids trespassing the temple compound to pick mangoes. Since he was a watchman we took it to be part of his duty and ignored him. After a while, he walked into the dark and dingy community hall and got busy doing something there that our sight couldn’t register as there was no light at all. After which he began strolling across the ground towards us. We wondered what this guy was up to!
He stood akimbo in front of us and said
“Is mandir ka trustee abhi ayega.
Agar usne tum logo ko is samay yaha dekhliya tho meri vaat lag jayegi.
Isliye acha rahega ke tum dono woh samne wale shed(community hall) mein chale jao”
But I said
“Hum bas abhi nikalne hi waale hai.
Isliye hum paanch-dus min yahi baithenge.
Aur waise bhi udhar ek dum andhere hai to kuch dikhega bhi nahi”
But again he implored that we move onto the community hall to save his ass! So we moved there just to catch sight of something quirky.
He had placed a mat, two pillows and a blanket there.
Suddenly all sorts of crazy thoughts began gushing into my head
• Firstly since it was only Raunak and myself apart from the watchman, I pondered if he took us for a couple who were here for all the wrong reasons!
• Secondly why would a watchman sleep in an open community hall when the weather is so benumbing and when he already has a cozy room overlooking the sanctum within the temple premises?
These thoughts struck hard on me and suddenly I turned towards Raunak. He too seemed to have thought about the same. At that moment, the watchman walked pass by us and then impishly turned towards us.
He said
“Bahar ek dum katarnak thand hai (Its freezing out here)
Toh aap log andar us room mein chale jao aur agar chaho to raat ko yahi rukh jao, waha koi nahi aayega”

Raunak vehemently flared up and was about to abuse the watchman as I held his hand and signaled him to say nothing. Thanks to my snoopiness of the entire episode!
Then I asked the watchman
“Room! woh kaha par hai!?
tum ek raath ka kitna lethe ho!?” (How much do you charge per night)
He said(with a leer look on his face)
“Aap chaliye mere saath aapko room dikhatha hoon!
Yeh peeche apna hi jagah hai waha pe koi nahi aata.
To aap log waha aaramse raath ko rehe sakthe ho!”
With this he reached a room at the corner of the temple and opened it. I was flabbergasted! It looked pretty much like a well facilitated room that was put in place.
I didn’t know how to react and blurted
”Sorry bhaiyya humko bada kamra with attached bathroom aur jacuzzi chahiye!”
to the watchman’s offer. He further tried convincing me
“yeh jagah aksar booked rehethi hai.
Lekin aaj tum log lucky ho ki aaj yeh khaali hai aur yeh sab mein paise kamane ke liye nahi kartha .
Upar walein ki meherbani se apna dhandapani sab acha chal raha hai!” (By god’s grace I’m doing pretty well )
I pondered on the thought that he actually had the audacity to make such a statement. He walked us up to the car making all efforts to woo us into that vicious circle which unfortunately went in vain! With that we vamoosed from that place never to return again.

Disclaimer *
This is a true incident that happened with me. There was no deliberate offence meant to any religion in this context and was merely subject to my personal experience.

PAT deserves a pat!

The clock struck 6 pm as I looked out of the window to catch a glimpse of the orangish red sky which was being gulped by surrounding darkness. I was confused and lethargic to decide if I wanted to put on my shoes and go for a evening walk .As my eyes shifted focus I noticed that I had a mail in my inbox waiting to be opened. The mail was sent by our class representative which read as follows
“Hey!

As you all know we have a session with Mr. Atul Tandon tomorrow. He was the director of MICA.

He said he will teach on topics we want to be covered. So just mail me if there is anything specific you want to be taught.

Please note that he is super awesome and is very knowledgeable so DON'T ask trivial or stupid questions just for the sake of asking. If sincerely there is something u want to be covered then reply back NOW!
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel”
. Instantly this reminded me of the last time I attended a guest lecture where in the faculty was flown all the way from Pune only to mind boggle us with simple concepts that went above our heads leaving us clueless if we finished our first semester at all!!The loud ringtone of my roomie’s phone brought me back to reality leaving me with a grimace on my face!
As I entered class the next morning there was an air of excitement about Mr Atul Tandon’s class. A few minutes later this gentlemen walked in along with our Director and the class representative. He was a tall and white bearded man who was dressed in a suit and had a “cute” white hair pony tail. He had a very assertive and charismatic personality. But that did not stop me from thinking about the kind of concepts that he would throw at us leaving us perplexed! Our Director Mrs Maya Chakravarthy introduced and welcomed him along with a brief history about his past work experience and achievements by Pradyumna(class representative).Having heard so much about him I wondered if I could avail an opportunity to leave the class! Thanks to the faculty who flew down from Pune!
At the end of it, Mr Tandon stood up from the chair he was seated in and questioned the class if at all he could live up to the expectations of the class!?Well his voice commanded the respect that his personality resonated. But with this statement of his I was confused if he was talking about the IQ level of the class or was he being sarcastic! He further went on to sort out the issue as to how he wanted his students to address him thereby deriving at his pet name PAT(Professor Atul Tandon).Thanks to his student way back in 1999 who gave him this identity! It was still hard for me to digest that a man at his age with this kind of experience and dignity and respect wanted to be called something like this apart from ‘Sir’. This also kept me thinking about the so-called generation gap that our parents keep talking about! As he kicked off the session with questions and discussion i was convinced that the session wasn’t as complicated as i thought it to be. Moreover I was more than glad to realize that he spoke of a lot of issues and concerns in a logical manner so as to get across his communication right. Though he was a man of such vast and varied experience he never had a condescending air about himself and instead was open to accepting his weakness and called himself a ‘student’. This further broke my misconception about ‘GREAT’ people (prof Udayshankar) who has had an opportunity to work with the business magnates of the nation. Voice modulation along with his presentation skills and the approach towards the subject along with a tint of humour got us stuck like barnacles having him in our vision field not realising that we had surpassed the usual break time unless his phone alarm alerted us.
He emphasised on the point of what creativity meant to our generation and what it actually means in the business of communication. He further went onto give a broader picture of India and focussed on the rural area communication thereby driving home a very strong point that rural India starts where distribution ends. The challenge lies in getting across one’s communication there and capturing the markets. Brand communication across various cultures also formed a chunk of his lecture along with the screening of a few ads. Thereby he concluded his class with the statement “40 years from now, I’ll sit up there and evaluate what u did!”. With his class, there was one thing that i realised if one needs to carve out a distinct persona like him it was important to focus on your career more than money and challenges more than comfort zone. He had left an everlasting impression on the class. As a matter of fact, I was so proud and thankful that I studied in this institution for getting an opportunity to hear such men of mettle.

Can Lectures be Interesting!?

(Cacophony of noises)
He’s here..
Oh my God! He looks so weird.. He’s coming...
Subconsciously having overheard these statements I slowly raised my head to witness my batch mates rushing to class.(Courtesy ,compulsory 75% attendance).As the class rose to wish Mr Ashok Sarath , I was perplexed for a minute .The only imagery that came to my mind looking at his face was that of the cartoon character Popeye. He was a tall middle aged man in his 40’s with a pot belly and walked in a dazed manner. He was very casually dressed like any other layman too surprised to be found in an MBA institute! He looked like one of those intelligent geeks who passed out of IIM-A! By then my friend,Ms Puja passed a comment “OMG! He’s soo gay! Professor Sunil who followed him introduced us to Mr Ashok as our Integrated Marketing Communication professor who has worked with Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency and so on and so forth. On hearing about his work experience I confirmed that he was one among the cream of the society!
As he wished and addressed the class he stated the ground rules of his class which is as follows
Rule 1 – If I find anyone using a cell phone in class during my class, it will be auctioned.
Rule 2- If I find anyone using laptops during my session ,it will be auctioned and the money will go to the orphanage i choose
Rule 3- If you are not clear with any concept stop me then and there and question me.
With these golden rules he kick-started his class. The first two rules sounded more like a corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity to me than mere disciplinary rules! But as I went through his class I realized that it was a different experience in itself than the mundane lecture that happens! I was truly impressed with a few things namely
• The way he started and maneuvered through the class
• The Macbook that he flaunted
• The usage of language
• His attitude towards the subject
• The kind of in-depth knowledge that he possessed due to his industry experience

I always thought teaching was a very prosaic job. Usually the worst of the lot who never found a job anywhere else ended up in this profession. Otherwise it was the middle aged people with some work experience who wanted a well paid leisurely job! But Mr Ashok completely broke my misconceptions about teaching. He did not belong to either of the category and was here doing the job as a result of his passion to impart knowledge. It felt like a jiffy of a second as he completed his 3 hour lecture and said”lets call it a day! Good afternoon!”
With this I conclude that people who want to teach in undergraduate or graduate colleges must compulsorily have nothing less than 10-15 years of industry experience. This in turn would change the way students perceive lectures, lecturers and teaching as a profession.