I worry. I worry that in the deluge of anonymous mails being sent to the PGP common mail, the PGP office, the Chairman, the Director, Chuck Norris and Captain Obvious to name a few, a masked.manager@gmail.com may not suddenly emerge. After all, I never thought of it that way, but this email id would certainly be both formidable and to the point. Let’s face it- whistleblower, anotherwhistleblower, anotheranotherwhistleblower, lordkabaap and all are fine, but they’re so middle class, as Maya Sarabhai would say. Masked Manager, on the other hand, breathes business without banter. In order to protect my respected and entertaining and not in the least blab-prone sobriquet, I thought like Bobby Fisher would once have done before he went gaga. I blocked maskedmanager, goodmaskedmanager, kindmaskedmanager and benevolentmaskedmanager. Then I just decided to post and make a pre-emptive display of my innocence should the worst happen.

Moving on to more pleasant things, the year so far has had 2 very notable things about it. One has been a certain ‘fab’ulous lady from that college across the state border failing to impress on more than one count. The other, of which the first could actually be considered a subset, has been the degree to which sports have played an important role so far.

It all started with the FIFA World Cup. As the Behalas and Belgachias of Bengal bore the banners of Brazil and venom was spouted by anti-European football ‘true fans’, the managers decided to partake in the festivities themselves and donned their own favourite jerseys. It would be going a step too far to say the TV rooms were packed to capacity, but even games like Honduras-Chile drew spectators in respectable amounts. Throughout the tournament, the ‘correct’ gender ratio of ~1:10 that has been deemed respectable by the institute was not for a moment violated by the audience, with only the finals threatening to play spoilsport. Tremors were felt in the Financial world, the Fan world and least of all the football world as Switzerland upset Spain. It was practically a wonder that Joka, the capital of all 3, did not collapse under the huge earthquake as the Sensex dropped by 2010 basis points (one basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point), hearts broke and bookies Muhuhahaha’d. Iniesta’s decider in the 116^th minute in the finals was a great relief for guys starved of goals and girls starved of bare chests.  A despairing sigh could be heard by the males as the ladies present chose not to mimic the goal-scorer in his celebrations and a bigger one by the ladies in the relief that the 2-day old gym-enthusiast also chose not to play Iniesta.

While the insignificant cup had moved from Italy to Iberia, the more important IIMC-XL trophy was to stay put. That’s not to say the other team (insert puns on Excel or jokes on Labour depending on which side your loyalties lie) didn’t try. Men’s basketball was a keenly contested affair, with the Joka captain just about managing to outscore the XLRI squad. And while the drab record books would show the ladies of Joka as having won practically all of their events, everyone agrees that the real winners were the kudiyaan of XL, who yes were very very smart, haye meri tauba tauba. For 2 days, cellphone cameras discretely er… flashed and as the visiting contingent departed with one last lingering look at the trophy, and the managers saw them depart with many lingering looks on their ‘trophies’, another sporting extravaganza drew to a close. (A special mention here for our own Gregory Ipe Kuriakose, under who’s able guidance the IIM-C football team won 4-0).

By now, the Premiership had started, and happy days were here again. Fantasy took a whole new meaning following the XL meet and even die-hard United-haters would sit and hope that Rooney, their captain, would score 9 goals only to be beaten by the other team’s 10. Cries for a penalty had become few and far between, with the said act involving the deadly sins of whistle-blowing and finger-pointing. In the background, the respective Inter-wing footer tournaments also kicked-off amidst cries of ‘Too much’, ‘intention was there’ and songs reminding one of Popeye the sailor man. (A special mention here for our own Gregory Ipe Kuriakose, under who’s able guidance the whatsitsname wing won the OH edition).

The cricket fans too got their fair share as our Men in Blue took on those other Men in Blue. Again. And again. Toddlers in and around Joka started saying that the captain of the Indian team was Kumar Sanghakara. The lines between Muttiah Muralitharan and Murali Karthik were fast obfuscating and forced the former to follow the latter’s steps towards retirement. And just when someone from DMK and/or its AIA counterpart started demanding why Dlishan didn’t use the Dilscoop as often as he did for Delhi Daredevils as when he played Ranji for Tamil Nadu, Suresh Randiv had to go spoil it all by showing rather literally that he didn’t have balls. The outpour began, the distinction between the shades of blue was made and our 22-man squad was sadly halved.

The games will continue as we play host to our partner students from abroad and the nation too prepares to lay out a $103bn red carpet for the Commonwealth Games. Rumour has it that some of the incoming STEP students were under the impression that a visit to India would involve umbrellas worth Rs. 2000 and are offended that the same have not been offered to them as protection from crows and clouds alike. To end the post, I’ll just quote a first-year who I happened to hear wondering if the upcoming ManComm class could be shifted in lieu of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai taking on their opponents in the Archery Men’s Recurve.

(The views expressed by the author are personal. That is why s/he chooses to be anonymous. And a special mention here to our own Gregory Ipe Kuriakose who allows him/her to remain known only as the Masked Manager)

-MM