With a class full of budding, young managers, all eager to perform and impress, our first session was enthusiastically attended. Every few minutes, eager students would throw their arms into the air like dismounting gymnasts and speak at length. Some of the suggestions—such as e-marketing and online retailing—were utter nonsense, but Barua did not rebuke us. Over time, we would get better and Barua would become less forgiving.
I asked Barua about one recent development on campus that was mildly disturbing. Five years ago, three-fourths of the incoming batch was made up of engineers. The latest batch had a staggering 94% engineers. “The diversity of the batch has come down in the last five years. And this is actually a direct consequence of things like the Right to Information Act (RTI),” said Barua.
He says that because of RTI and extreme pressure on the IIMs and IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) to explain admission procedures, the institute could no longer be “fuzzy” in the selection process. “Previously, we ensured some sort of diversity by picking up a mix of people from those who cleared the written test. We could introduce a level of subjectivity at the interview stage. But now, because of RTI, applicants who don’t make it demand to know why they weren’t selected when they scored better than another admitted student in the written test.”
But this seems to bother me more than it does Barua. “I think engineers are just as creative as arts or commerce graduates. What irks me is that I lose the ability to pick up someone even if they scored a little less on the test but impress in the discussions and interviews,” he adds.
The manager
While Barua spoke at length about the institute and his vision for the future, there is one other person on campus who has been here even longer, who has been on campus as a student and then as faculty since 1976.
On the ground floor, a stone’s throw from the iconic Louis Kahn Plaza, Shashi Nair was working in the PGP office that handles all the administrative affairs of the MBA programme—from scheduling classes to conducting exams and tabulating grades.
Nair remembered me instantly. But then, Nair remembers everything instantly. With 40 years of experience in various administrative functions, he is a human Wikipedia on all things IIM-A. Every PGP student leaves campus with at least one Nair moment. And not all of them fond.
In 2003, Nair was manager of the PGP programme. When I met him, he was just two weeks away from retirement, but the institute has asked him to stay back and help.
Even while we talked about old times and new stories—“What! No children yet? Why not?”—Nair kept processing work on the side. A second-year student on exchange in London had forgotten to choose her electives. She had missed the deadlines, and most of the courses had been booked solid (even though the institute now offers an unprecedented 70 electives in the second year, there is still a keenly fought and digitally managed process for students to choose their courses). The PGP office kicked into panic mode. Two people hit the phones immediately, asking professors to allocate an additional seat.
Nair is like the tough love coach in a B-grade Hollywood sports movie. He is not there to be your friend. He, however, is there to ensure you get the best educational experience possible.