" Dr Swasti we are supposed to attend a discourse by a so-called management Guru at 9; 45 am", Dr. Shakti, a senior PG at NIHFW told me last Friday. We were already knee deep in the analysis of the data recently collected in the LEM exercise (please refer earlier article -The war long lost) and was wondering whether to attend the lecture or not. Plus we had a dateline to meet.

I enquired more about the speaker and found out that he was Arindam Choudhuri from IIPM and author of the books "Count your chickens before they hatch" and "The Great Indian dream" I had read the earlier one and found it to be some indianisation of some books like The Magic of thinking Big. And his regular photos with the funny ponytail in the papers made me grow more and more skeptic of what he would teach us.

So it was more of curiosity and I-will-sure-find-out-what-sure-freak-he-must-be attitude that took me to the Lecture theatre in the Teaching Block that morning. The hall was almost full and after waiting for 10 min. the Dean himself went down to receive the ultra-modern Guru-the so-called youngest Professor.

"Must be a Self-styled Prof-these freaks", my skeptic attitude kept soaring. Then the floor was left for the performance of the Guru who had supposedly left the great American Dream to build a Great Indian Dream.

He spoke and all of us the PGs, the faculty and the Senior DMOs attending the Professional development course listened in silence. And I started writing down the points to attack him at the end of the session. But the Guru gradually disarmed us with his simple comparison of the American, Japanese and Chinese and finally Indian styles of management. I was then listening more to him than writing down the points and I found a rare thing in him that possibly singled him out from the crowd-he was positive and he could find solutions to problems.

I wanted to share an anecdotal account he shared with us. It was the story of a man with a problem in search of a solution. The man went to his Marwari friend with the problem and sought his help. His friend agreed to help him out but on one condition that he shared with him 50:50 of the profit he would make from the solution. The man was shocked at this proposal and he went to a South Indian friend. The south Indian friend welcomed him and said that they have filter coffee first and they solve the problem. So after listening to the problem the south Indian gave him the solution, "Sir, if you look from this angle you can do it this way, and if you look it from this angle….and if you look at it from another angle…" the man thought that he came with one problem and this man had given him six more problems.

Dejected he went to the Bengali Dada who was busy making and counting smoke rings with his bidi. The dada listened and finally said, "Nothing can be done until Jyoti Basu becomes the PM of India." So our friend had reached his Sardar friend who yelled from distance and hugged him and gave him a big tumbler of Lassi made in his Washing machine. Then after listening to his problem he finally told "Arre Yaar, tumhara problem bahut difficult hain, tu problem badlo yaar" (your problem is too difficult, change it). So the session thus ended with all of us roaring in laughter.

By then I had lost the slip where I had written the attack-points. But in between the story I had started thinking whether he would reach Manipur but the nearest he could come was Kolkata. But it had already stirred in me that area of my cortex, which is always alert -the Manipur area. Actually whenever any such area or topic is discussed I used to think "How would it be solved in Manipur.? How would an ever helpful Manipuri react to his problem?" For 2 days , I thought and thought much to my own amusement. The thing isn't clear yet but I can already see the two men trying to dissect the problem at the War cemetery, or the Nikhil café at AOC over a plate of momo or over a macaroni plate at Orchids in Sagolband area or over a plate of tharoi angouba at Chinga-mathak.

How reluctantly the bechara bhaiya would squat with the Manipuri friend at this hot spot opposite Singjamei Super market in the hope of finding a solution to his problem. Or it could be over a Chak with pork dinner cooked at the Yennakha to avoid the prying eyes of the Gouriya grandma. The elaborate arrangement would have actually drowned the problem itself. Ah! The Manipuri friend has a lot to in life-to fill the petrol before 5 and that too at DM College pump (there it's not adulterated it seems) or stock foodstuff for the coming bandh, or charge the invertor while the current is still there etc etc.

Well friends the story that Prof Arindam told had really stirred me and made me think and I am sure if some of valued readers suffer from this "Apply to Manipur Syndrome" it must have happened to them too. As for me I am already in the advance stage of this disease. Whenever a lecture on Emergency deptt/ Casualty is attended by me I would be thinking right away how to apply it to RIMS. Can we do it there? (please refer earlier article Dream RIMS). Or a discussion on Dietary Deptt of a Hospital would make me remember a neighbor who would bring back firewood from the Hosp strapped in his cycle carrier (he was a cook there) and wonder whether he would be doing with the gas-cylinders nowadays. Can we prevent these? What could be the style of management? And the list of my symptoms goes on….

At the end I had all respect for the young pony tailed Guru who meant business and made us think. Only he has made me more aggravated with the syndrome from which I was already suffering.