Chew on that

Noble sentiments "" whether in relationships or in building institutions "" don't really get you anywhere.

What I've liked
If ever there was a TV ad that captures how humans honestly feel about the things they love, it must be the ad for Musst Bites. No false pretenses there, that we can be sure of!

Regardless of how close the relationship may be, with loved ones or others, this succinct spot makes it very clear that its consumers will do just about anything to fend off encroachers.

I can see that most people feel the same way; the Naani and the girl friend do, for every time the ad comes on air it induces a spontaneous round of laughter from anyone who is in the room. It is as if there is an empathy with this hitherto "un-confessed" deep, dark trait.

Comedy is a difficult art to master and this ad skims over the dangerous waters of morals and good manners with its skilled execution and masterful timing.

Watching the interaction on screen, one almost forgets all those years of teaching and being taught civilized behaviour, until the kid beside you replicates the same rabid canine behaviour, mistakenly reading your laughter as approval!

Well, troublesome little repercussions aside, the ad is a delightful spot of entertainment that deserves applause for everything: production values, casting, storyline, direction "" the whole package deal. Never before has an ad for a new snack actually made me want to go out and ask for it. In achieving that, it truly is worthy of special mention.

What I've Learned
Let the professionals do their job

It is an issue close to my heart because all too often, in many instances across the board, I see this happening. The IITs and IIMs are planning to open more institutes of the same academic stature across the country.

While it is a noble sentiment, the ignobility of non-professionals trying to do the job of deciding its modalities is both counter-productive and futile.

I know all too well from my personal experiences both with Mudra and MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad) the difficulties of starting an institution from scratch, building it, and elevating it to a status that commands respect in its peer group. It is a Herculean task from day one.

And it doesn't stop even if one is no longer directly responsible for its day to day functioning. Every single decision taken rightly or wrongly can set off a chain reaction, which might leave the professionals responsible for running the place in a continual spiral of complicated fixes, right from the choice of locale, to the curriculum, to the hiring of staff.

These venerable academicians will then be forced to spend their time trying to fix the problem created by the non-professionals responsible for this, rather than taking the institution forward by focusing on their job.

The first task in any venture is to attract talent and when it comes to fledgling institutes almost no one wants to be associated with them, while fully established and recognized ones are those that augur favourably on an academician's record.

When the odds are stacked so much against the builders of new centres of learning, it is best that they are consulted before hard-to-retract decisions are taken.

With all their years of unmatched experience, the seasoned professional can see pitfalls way before bureaucrats can. Surely it must be so much easier to have them on board with their rich storehouse of learning to draw from, so that one wonders why professionals are rarely consulted when grand plans are drawn.

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