Thanks to Baba Ramdev

THANKS TO BABA RAMDEV
I was attending a course in Mussoorie at the Institute of Technology Management (ITM), an Institute under DRDO, where a class on “Knowledge Management” was in progress. The topic was more subjective and less analytical and the time of the class was nearing lunch, when one is waiting to be catapulted to the Mess after the class is over. I was feeling sleepy while some of my course mates had already dozed off. Although the instructor could see them, he did not bother much as he was more interested in finishing his class rather than wasting his time waking them up and hearing the word ‘Sorry’ from them. I made it a point not to sleep but was finding it very difficult to stop my eyes from closing as it was an involuntary action over which I had no control. I then thought of making effective use of a trick learnt during one of the Yoga classes I had attended earlier. We were taught to sit erect with spine straight, chest out and eyes wide open with hands on the knees, at the same time moving the toes to and fro inside your shoes, and relax your body. I did all this as per the instructions, except the action of moving my toes inside the shoes. To my surprise, I felt quiet fresh and energetic as one feels after a long yawn and stretch after which you gain considerable energy.
I was thus managing to listen to the lecture attentively. My head was held high and erect above all other heads in the class, which were mostly drooped. I could be seen distinctly from any position in the room which the Instructor could take. It gave the impression that I was the most sincere and attentive student in the class, one who was active even at this hour of the day. Soon I was able to concentrate and grasp things better than I could before adopting this posture. I could understand the aspects of knowledge, the various sources from where it could be attained and how it could be managed in everyday life to make problems simple and easily manageable, which in turn would result in increasing the work efficiency of the Organisation.
The instructor carried on, “Now we shall understand this with the help of an example, suppose you want to buy Fork Lift trucks for your unit, how will Knowledge Management help you in this? The first thing to be done is to gather all the information of the various dealers who deal with it in India and abroad and tabulate them in separate columns with their addresses. The third column should indicate the time within which it could be procured. To ease the subject and have firsthand knowledge directly from the horse’s mouth, we have today a guest with us, Miss Nicole Harrison from Gammon Forklifts Pvt Ltd, who is sitting right behind us. I request her to describe the various aspects connected with it.”
Saying this, the Instructor went behind the class just near the exit of the last row and ushered the guest to the dais.
“Here I handover to Miss Nicole” he said and there after he went and sat in the front row on one of the vacant seat along with the student officers.
Miss Nicole Harrison was a beautiful lady in her mid thirties, dressed in well ironed black trousers, a light pink shirt with a formal tie over which she wore a cream coloured coat. Her short black hair was nicely styled and gripped with a silver coloured hair band. She was a combination of an MNC executive and a newsreader from the BBC channel, a perfect example of grace with a model- like figure of 5feet five inches one would like to watch!
She started off, “Gentlemen, give me a few minutes (Why not hours, I said to myself) I will introduce you to the machines which our company is making, along with their applications, in a concise form so that it can be easily referred to as to what type of machine you need in your work and then we will come to the specifics of Fork lift trucks and its technical specifications in brief.”
I was attracted to her way of narration, clear pronunciation and crisp British accent. Although of Indian origin, she must have spent more time in UK, she was fair complexioned with sharp features and light blue eyes. I wondered why the foolish class was still drooping with sleep and not showing any interest, which was something incredible in a situation like this. I considered myself lucky to be awake and the thought of having a nap went miles away from my mind, irrespective of the posture I had adopted! To show more interest I started to think of questions based on which I could get an opportunity to speak to her.
During a pause in her lecture I interrupted and raised my hand, “Nicole, may I interrupt?” I said. “What‘s the turnover of your company?”
I could not think of anything else to ask, since I was already lost from the subject.
“My dear sir, it is very sweet of you to ask me that question. I will definitely answer it shortly but we are discussing tabulating and collation of information so that it can be made use of as a ready reckoner. Do not worry, I will answer you before I let you go even if I have to explain it you while having pastries during high tea“.
Her answer gave me goose bumps as I never thought she would reciprocate in such a lovely way with words like My Dear, sweet, let you go(as if she exercised authority over me in the first meeting itself) along with pastries etc etc as we had to proceed for lunch after that.
I quietly sat down saying,” As you please Ma’am”.
As I sat down after a few seconds she looked at me and asked, “Can you now easily decide how this decision has been arrived at?”
I wondered “Which decision?”
By the time I could think further she raised her beautiful hand, pointing her fingers in a shake hand position towards me with her palm slightly inclined, facing upwards and said with a hundred dollar smile, “Can I have it from you my dear sir?”
What?! I said to myself, sweating inside me as I did not know what to reply.
So, to divert from the specifics of an answer, I stood up and said, “That’s OK but don’t you think the time can further be dovetailed along with other activities?”
“Which activities you preconceive, my dear?” she said.
Now what do I do, I said to myself, cursing myself for speaking just for the sake of speaking so I replied, “I mean the unforeseen activities”.
“Like?” She asked curiously, looking at me with her beautiful eyes radiating brilliance but now beginning to look a bit confused.
“Like anything which cannot be forethought now”, I replied and sat down forcibly in order to close the point.
She gave a long smile, a pretty long one which I cannot forget till date indicating she knew that I was off the track but to divert the issue and save my skin said, “Then we go for the second option as I have already explained earlier. Now would you like me to explain it once again, or are you clear?”
She looked at me again and there was a stunned silence. The whole class was looking at me expecting the answer from me. I, afraid to say anything more, just nodded and raised my hand indicating an all clear. Laughing while looking at the board, she proceeded with her explanation.
After few minutes she said, “Gentlemen, I would now request all of you to join me for a cup of tea just outside the class in the lounge where my staff will introduce our company products. We will proceed further after it.”
We all came out. The students mixed around with everyone, watching the catalogues and photographs displayed outside on the easel and some were more interested in eating. As I was coming out Nicole came near me and said with raised eyebrows smiling, “Your face looks quite familiar. Where are you posted?”
I replied, “At a location much colder than this” and smilingly added, “Every two people out of ten from the army tell me that my face is very familiar, and you are one of them.”
We both laughed together and now seeing me relaxed, she ushered me towards the photo display board saying, “This is how our Fork lift Truck looks like.”
I looked into her eyes and my look conveyed that I was more interested in her than the Fork lift truck and said assertively, “Beautiful colour”. Incidentally, the colour of the Fork lift in the photo was also blue.
She replied, “It seems you like blue colour.”
I said again after establishing eye contact with her, “No, not blue but light blue to be more precise, and don’t ask me why”.
She smiled with a blush and I shared the smile with her. We were getting closer. In an intimate gesture, she held my arm and directed me towards the pastry table, asking me to pick up one. I wondered why she held me like that as she could have also indicated the direction without touching me. She treated me as a special guest in front of everyone and it looked slightly out of place as she was not exhibiting the same behaviour with anyone else. I was convinced by now that she was expressing solidarity and warmth towards me by this gesture and was interested in talking further.
Suddenly I felt her hold on my arm growing stronger. I loved it but it looked awkward in front of everyone. Her grip grew harder still and now I could feel the pain. The hold tightened further and was soon becoming irritating when anger started to overtake the passion in me. Suddenly, I got a big jerk in my body and was completely shaken off. I saw Arun holding my upper arm and trying to pinch me to wake me up from my sleep, whispering loudly, “Hey! Get up, the instructor is looking at you for the last 30 minutes but is not saying anything, thinking that I will wake you up and diffuse the situation. And you are sleeping like a horse and that too sitting up in such an erect position. If you wanted to doze off you could have at least slid down a bit in your chair like the others! Why the hell are you bent upon making the situation so insulting for the instructor?”
“Oh my God! What the hell has happened? Where has Nicole vanished and where is the plate I was holding to get the pastry?”I said to Arun.
I was sitting in the same erect posture and was fast asleep all this time. How did it happen? How did I go to sleep and when did I fall asleep? I just could not understand.
After recovering from the painful shakeup Arun had given me, I understood everything and came back to my senses, cursing myself for trying that experiment of Baba Ramdev’s Yoga here. Fortunately, I saw half the class had also dozed off and nobody took any notice of my action except one or two officers sitting behind me and on the sides, who just laughed off the whole thing as people falling asleep was a routine matter in the class just before lunch!
I was totally relaxed with my head and neck sweating and the first thing I did was indulge in a long yawn by throwing a pencil down so that I could bend down while yawning and pick up the pencil. My eyes were watering as it happens after a huge yawn and I was in a very refreshed mood. I thanked God for such a lovely dream.
The question which arose in my mind was at what point in time had I dozed off? If you as a reader were not able to guess before I said, “Where has Nicole vanished?” after Arun woke me up, then I think my effort in writing this semi fictitious story has been successful.
Now I shall tell you that I had really dozed off when the instructor had said that he will explain the subject with an example and after that from the word ‘Horse’s mouth’ onwards I was in the dream as he never used this word as was clarified later from the alert student officers who had listened to the complete lecture in the class.
“Then what about Gammon Forklifts company? How did this come into my mind? I do not have any knowledge of this”, I asked Arun later.
Arun said, “There is no such company by the name of Gammon Forklifts pvt ltd. ‘Gammon India’ is a construction company and to the best of my knowledge it does not manufacture any Forklift trucks”
After lot of discussion on it with my course mates we all had a very hearty laugh. After dinner in the hostel Mess I finally said, “Gentlemen, to summarise this incident after carrying out an in depth analysis of it, the lesson learnt is Never try a trick without practice in public!”
“Especially when you forget to move your toes!” added Arun, and we all had a thundering laugh together before we left the Mess for our rooms.


It’s an RSN production
Written by: Rajinder singh Narula
Edited by :Madhavi Murthy