| ashu |
Posted
on 02-Nov-00 11:42 AM
What follows is a piece of satire I first wrote
and published in The Kathmandu Post in 1995.
I hope parts of this are still funny for your
amusement.
oohi
ashu
****************
What They Can't Teach You At
The Harvard Business School
By Ashutosh Tiwari
I am a big fan of my friend of Rajaram. Just back
from Boston with an MBA from Harvard and a stint
at McKinsey & Company in New York, Rajaram is a living, breathing example of a young Nepali nationalist's coming back to this [then communist-led] country to use his capitalist training to fly the "Afno Nepal Aafai Banau" program to the Himalayan heights.
"I am going to open up a business school," Rajaram informed me over chicken chowmein and Tuborg. "Not just any business school. But the business school of the South Asia ... the one with the best all-around curriculum to train the best and the brightest Nepalis to make as much money as they can."
Well, well, well. How could you possibly disarm such charm? No way, right? So, wide-eyed, I kept on chewing the rubbery noodles.
"You see, I have two problems with top American MBA programs," Rajaram continued. "First, they are only good at cranking out graduates to take charge of the IBM, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble and other big Fortune
500 companies. What this means is that our own Gorkhali students in the US never get to practice how to run and profit from Nepal-compatible businesses that can only bloom in our kind of economy."
"And the other problem is that so widely has the generic American MBA model been copied, even at other Nepali universities, that there isn't much room to teach and learn NATIVE skills that are more necessary to profit from a business... any business... in Nepal."
From a Hahvahd grad throwing me a free dinner at Nanglo, all this sounded impressive indeed. But exactly what kind of skills was Rajaram talking about? And how would his business school teach them?
"Well, let me not bore you with abstract ideas," smiled Rajaram. "Here, why don't you look at something concrete?"
With that, Rajaram clicked open his briefcase on the table, and took out a blue folder. He pulled out a few sheets and pushed them forward. I had no choice now but to put down my fork and pick up the neat, laser-printed pages.
"To earn an MBA at the Rajaram Business School (RBS), you must give an up-front donation of Rs. Five Lakh (500,000), exclusive of tuition and other fees, to the institution," read the first page.
On page two was: "The faculty and the staff of the RBS FORCEFULLY recommend that all RBS MBA candidates take all of the following courses, each of which has been carefully designed to teach only the necessary professional skills that they are most likely to make use of in the big, wide world of Nepali finance, commerce and business. Case-studies have shown that the lessons learnt in these courses can also be applied in Bihar for equally lucrative results."
So far so good. Now on to the names, numbers and the descriptions of the "challenging courses at the Rajaram Business School."
FINANCE 420 -- An Introduction to Black Marketing:
Just as a fish needs water, a Nepali businessman dreaming of profits needs black markets to survive. Finance 420 will sharpen your skills to evade the formal bureaucratic market to buy and sell dollars, movie-tickets, sugar and all kinds of commodities. Learn ways to smuggle gold and export ancient and neglected idols. Master 101 ways to charm the police and seduce the customs officers to bend the laws and the rules in your favor.
MANAGEMENT 530 -- Fundamentals of Cartels and Monopolies:
Why share your wealth with others? Through Management 530, learn how to get together with your alleged competitors to form a cushy all-Nepal association of your trade. This makes it easier for you to fix prices and devise ways to deter newcomers from entering your industry. See how you can pass on your costs to the consumers by driving up the prices and thereby capturing huge producers' surplus. Discover ways of killing anti-trust bills, and learn to protect your expanding millions and comfy monopolies.
SCIENCE 150 -- Physics and Chemistry for Business:
Science 150 will teach you to mishandle the weights, the measurements and the "taraju" to your ultimate profit. Get paid for one KG of rice when you sell
only 950 grams; collect money for one liter of kerosene when you give out only 900 ml. Also, get a solid grip on the 101 ways to throw in all kinds
of impurities in various kinds of food and sell them all as "taja, suddha" stuff.
SOCIOLOGY 290 -- Creating the "Afno Manche" Network:
In Nepal, nothing gets done without an "Afno Manche." That sums up the best-selling insight of anthropologist Dor Bahadur Bista. Sociology 290 will train you to you apply Bista's theory by teaching you ways to cultivate the afno-manche network by personal visits, flattery, gifts, favors, bribes, threats and
"chakari". Learn how to win friends and influence people in all the right places -- from the political
parties to golf clubs, from the HMG bureaucracies to the airort.
After all, the more afno manche you have, the more insider information you will have. And the more insider information you have, the more rapidly your business will grow.
MARKETING 101 -- Giving Hell to the Customers:
Remember, the customer is there to serve you; you are not there to serve the customer. As such, figure out ways to prey on that vulnerable, believing-everything and never protesting idiot called the Nepali customer. Find out how to sell foodstuff such as biscuits that carry no date of manufacture, no date of expiry, and no mention of ingredients and other mis- and missing information. Learn how to hoard scarce commodities now to sell later for huge profits. Also, practice the fine art of humiliating Nepali customers by loudly shouting at them, "Janoos, janoos, you don't have the money to buy this." For foreign-looking patrons, however, learn to bend over backward to provide special service.
ECONOMICS 230 -- Policy-making for profit:
Learn to fight against copy-right and patent bills. Imitate and steal other people's products,
goods, ideas and styles without paying them any fees. Learn to say "no" to quality, customer service
and reliability. Get the inside tips on how to
produce quality goods only for export, while dumping
shoddier products on the general Nepali public. Master ways to manipulate the inside info on various
shares. And be well-versed in ways you can influence the government, any government, to help you get away with the least of taxes, that if, if you pay any at all.
POLITICAL SCIENCE 350 -- Entrepreneurship in Infant Democracy:
Not many people know that Nepal's democracy has opened up lots of opportunities for business. Learn, for example, how to run the highly profitable "julus for hire" business. Find out how the lazy days of Nepal Bandh can be turned into busy days of business by hand-delivering video cassettes, Paplu cards, beer and "sekuwa" to Kathmandu's newly-rich. Discover ways to win the contract to supply "paan" to Kishunji for life; and beer, whisky, cigarettes and luscious babes to other political leaders who spend all their waking hours thinking of ways to make Nepal as developed as Singapore.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 310 -- India : So Close Yet So Far:
The main "mantra" of Nepali businessman should be "Nepal India, Bhai Bhai". IR 310 will teach you how to buy goods in India and sell them in Kathmandu as "Made in Nepal." Not only that, you will also invent ways to open up more supermarkets that sell consumer goods to Indian tourists only. Also, you will understand the ways of getting the juicy contracts for water-resource projects, road-building schemes, and citizenship-distribution programs. What's more, this course will enable you
to keep your mouth shut when Indian businessmen, riding vehicles with Indian license plates,
dominate you right in the Nepali market.
ANTROPOLOGY 201 -- The Mysteries Called Marwaris:
Why are Nepali businessmen so jealous of the Marwaris? What makes the Marwaris allegedly so successful? Explore these concerns in depth by studying the history, family newtorks, religious rituals, immigration patterns, language and the business practices of the Marwaris, Nepal's most
prosperous minority. Do not just sit back and criticize them; you too can learn all their clever tactics to beat them at their own game. We at RBS guarantee that by the end of Anthro 201, you will be
able to sell Banarasi saris even to the Marwaris.
RELIGION 103 -- Desperately Seeking Protection:
Learn to run away from competition against better and stronger foreign or domestic companies that can give quality goods at lower prices to the customers. Whip up the sentiments of Nationalism, socialism and
"Naulo Janabad" to raise tariffs on imports. The idea behind seeking protection is that when you block
competition from outside yet are free to create internal monopolies, you are all set to make millions
from idiotic Nepalis who have no choice but to buy your products at prices you dictate.
ETHICS 175 -- The Brighter Side of Child Labor:
For the purpose of sponsoring NGO conferences once in a while, Ethics 175 will teach you to be against child labor in theory. But come on, who are we kidding (no pun intended!)?
In practice, you will all be for child labor. Children, after all , are too tempting a source of unused labor: They eat less, take up little space, are
easy to train, don't need pension and health benefits, can be yelled at, and don't hit back when slapped
and beaten. All these make their services cheaper and easily replaceable. In this course, you will learn to justify child labor as a self-less act of social service: Think, for example, if you don't hire the
child, what will his parents eat?
Well, Talking about eating, the chowmein on my plate was already cold by the time I finished going through Rajaram's catalog.
What could I say, except to be lost in the thought that with management gurus like Rajaram, our beloved Nepal is well on its way to become the Banana Republic of South Asia. After all, it's only through the efforts of visionaries like Rajaram who act global yet think local that a few Nepalis can get super-rich at the expense of million others.
Long live such fantastic management principles. Then again, who says RBS is 2/3 BS anyway?
THE END.
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