What they don’t teach you in B-school: A new guru-shishya parampara

Today is Teacher’s Day, the birthday of the second president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, providing yet another excuse for many worthies to impart gyan, an activity they engage in anyway almost every day. But instead of the usual perfectly vacant homilies, or the equally usual moans about the sad student-teacher ratio, quality of school and university education, etc etc, we thought it more apt to prep you how to negotiate with the teachers in your midst who, even while not necessarily are in the professional, think they are always teaching you lessons.

Here are a few things you need to do to deal with them:

Makkhan maro: Keep them thinking that they are indeed wise beings, at the cost of their delusion.

GIGO: Take the ‘Garbage in garbage out’ model of listening to their gyan and then letting it out of the other ear.

Quote them back: Nothing will make these gyanis keep (temporarily) quiet as effectively as when you quote them back their own words. Making up quotes and ascribing them will also do.

Titular tel: While adding ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ each time you address them after their names are de rigueur, there’s no harm in going a notch up by adding a ‘O’ also before their name, calling them things like ‘visionary’ and ‘supreme’ Being teacher’s pet is understandably frowned upon. But thankfully, not when everyone is vying for that position.

Best of luck.