“Can we move to the next slide?” Swami yelled while sipping his coffee the other day. Jigneshbhai and I could see that he was in a bad mood. We didn’t stop him.
“Let us get straight to the insights!” Swami howled.
“Come on, who is the time-keeper? We don’t have all day,” he shouted.
“Was it Raichand who said all this?” I asked with trepidation.
“Who else? Raichand, his gang, and even the client executives who Raichand spurred on during my presentation!”
“As if all of this is a piece of cake,” Swami yelled, throwing the notebook with his notes. We knew he had an important presentation. It didn’t seem to have gone as per plan.
“People are waiting for the answer, the juice, the crux,” Swami howled again. “They are over eager for it, so that they can act on it.”
Jigneshbhai and I didn’t know what to do. When Swami gets irate, we hold our horses.
Right then, as we sat in silence, we saw the wealthy old man from the sprawling bungalow walk towards our table. He had heard Swami’s wails and signaled to us to keep quiet with his finger on his lips as he walked closer.
“Don’t trouble me with the details – the methods, the techniques, the tools, the charts,” Swami continued yelling. “That’s what they say. Isn’t that important?” he asked.
We didn’t say anything again. The wealthy old man intervened this time.
“Don’t waste time on the introduction, the background, the data, the analysis,” he said with gusto, as if angry himself.
“Yes,” Swami nodded, somewhat relieved to find someone who identified with his wrath.
“Just tell us what your take is. That’s what they say,” Swami yelled again.
“Just tell us what the takeaways are,” the wealthy old man howled this time, much to our surprise. The cafe staff had started watching us and wondering what the fuss was about.
“Just tell me what I should do. Right now,” the wealthy old man now shrieked at the top of his voice.
“Not after a few months, Not next year,” Swami replied with equal tempo.
This started a jugalbandi – a duet of two competing musicians – of sorts between them. They performed as if they knew each others’ notes well. It also had the effect of cooling down Swami as he vented out his frustrations.
“We need to drive coordinated action,” the wealthy old man yelled.
“We can’t leave this project only on paper,” Swami matched him now.
And they continued as Jigneshbhai and I watched them like Nadal and Federer rallying on Centre Court. One shot after another.
“We have limited budgets.”
“We can’t hire new teams.”
“We need to come up with an action plan.”
“Who is tracking actions from this meeting?”
At this point, the rally ended and they stopped. Both of them flashed a smile, almost with the satisfaction of a game well played.
I learnt a nice way to deal with an angry Swami from the wealthy old man who had been there and done that. But he wasn’t done today.
“That’s where most of us find ourselves on most things, most of the time, isn’t it?” he asked. Swami nodded in agreement.
This was the most the wealthy old man had talked after a very long time. Otherwise, he spoke just a few cryptic wise lines that left us scratching our heads.
“They are all so fixated on an action, isn’t it?” he probed.
“Yes, that is true. everyone wants answers,” Swami agreed.
“Rather than asking the questions with stillness, isn’t it?” the wealthy old man was in a great talkative mood today.
Swami nodded again at the wealthy old man. Jigneshbhai and I watched in silence. Today, we didn’t have anything to say.
Just as we finished our coffee, the wealthy man left us scratching our heads with his cryptic remark. “But the urgency for an answer won’t reduce the importance of the questions one needs to focus on.”
***