I Think....Therefore....?

"I Think, Therefore I Am", said someone famous.
This oft quoted sentence has been used, rather ab-used by too many self proclaimed thinkers. No, I do not claim to be one among them. IF I was, today I'd not be typing away on my pc, for my own blog, with questionable level of following.
I'd then be in the leagues of Mr. Santosh Desai (Times of India, CITY CITY BANG BANG), churning out text for leading print media.

Incidentally, being a regular reader of his column, I find a great change in Mr. Desai's "stance". Lately. As a matter of fact, this change is visible across the board, not only in TOI, but on many publications. A close scrutiny of the deft transformations, if I may call them so, would reveal, in my opinion, the fact that media is somehow coming to terms with the real India and truth - to some extent!

That's a wonderful change, if continued. Equally abhorring IF a prequel to the polls & completely disgusting IF brought on by the imminent changes in alignments (of all non-user factors that influence most publications).

For example, lately I find one of the country's most read periodical shifting clearly away from their long-held right-wingish leanings! They have actually started singing paens for the other camp! Recently it carried an article where late Rajiv Gandhi has been compared to the likes of Mr. Barack Obama. Well done indeed! After all, the saffron has been cohabiting with green on our national marquee, since independence.....so, why not?

Going back to Mr. Desai's newfound affinity for "straight-talking", yesterday's column (10th Nov 2008) was a bigger revelation. Mr. Desai, a B-School certified product himself, has questioned the worth of such "certifications" in no uncertain words!

If you've been following MINT (the wonderful business daily from HT Media), you may have read how many B-Schools "Manage" their images & rankings, more often than not. It's not really a surprise then, to find that the "products" they have been certifying as AAA+, may be quite incapable of passing the real muster, in a real market!
But then, all "respectable" columns worth their TATA salts have skilfully refrained from focusing their merciless arc-lights on our pride-of-India institutions, like IIMs, IITs etc! For reasons obvious to many.

In Mr. Desai's article, his grandma (presumably 20 years back) asked him a very simple question, when Mr. Desai landed a very well paying job, with his "certificate" adding excellent value. The question was, in retort to his admittance of the salary amount he was about to draw: "What excatly are you expected to do, in return for such a large sum of money?".
By his own admission, the question was & still IS relevant.

Commodity managers like your's truly have been told at many a job interviews that the "stakeholders" would prefer someone "certified by reputed institutions" to head their businesses. Yes, irrespective of their lack real-world experience or unproven capabilities. They ARE the ones with "brains" you see! And one requires significantly more grey-matters, to THINK, about the company, it's future, the BIG picture etc. Those invaluable certificates "guarantee" a thinking mind, I am told!

Well, I second Mr. Desai's pertinent question. I would also like to ask what exactly were these "Quality OK" brains thinking about, while the junta was being led down the garden path?

Though I am not "qualified" to do so, may I turn the title of this article on its head and ask:
Is it then "I Do Not Think, Therefore You Are....?"