Humour

The CIO in the Corporate Durbar

T A Balasubramanian writes about a presentation on the benefits of PC use in Moghul Corporation’s royal durbar

Durbars have always been great showcases for royalty.

Which brings us to the proceedings of the Moghul Corporation, known simply to insiders as the Moghul. Although it is a modern corporate entity, Moghul still believes in the splendour and pomp of durbars. A highly regarded chai service has been ritualised to make these exhaustive durbars more productive, because, as we all know, chai is full of anti-oxidants that will put life even into dead rocks.

So it’s not surprising that Baba Bahadur, long-suffering CIO of Moghul, is expected to spend countless hours tied up in durbars presided over by the owner and CEO of Moghul, Aurangazeb, known better in the corridors of the Moghul as Moghu-e-Aura, or simply, the Aura. In these elaborate meetings, which sometimes extend for days, Aura himself, and sometimes Nana Findaloo, Moghul’s tough-as-silicon CFO and Chief Vizir, are the presiding deities.

It is Baba Bahadur’s unenviable task today to make a presentation to the durbar on the benefits of PC use in Moghul. Here is Bahadur’s own version of how the session went:

Babar may have felt like this at Panipat, I thought, facing Ibrahim Lodhi’s vast assembly of elephants and horses with his few cannons.

As usual, the major rabble-rouser is Papa Golconda, Chief Global Officer, or CGO, who heads international operations. Not only does he think global, he also looks like a globe himself.

“The PCs and servers at the Athens office are down most of the time,” he fumes at me, then looks at Aura and Nana with a sarcastic expression that seems to implicate me in first-degree murder. “And the Greeks are used to paper mail. When we send e-mail to speed up our collections, they don’t open it.”

Aura smiles sweetly, then says to nobody in particular: “Huzoor, talking of servers, can we have chai served to all of us?”

Three of the huzoors closest to the durbar hall door, including the head of human resources, spring up simultaneously and sprint out to do the needful. They seem relieved to be given the slight reprieve from the durbar’s dreary dialogue.

“So you want the PCs there or not?” says Nana. “If you like to use paper for the Greeks instead of e-mail, we will take those expensive PCs and put them in the Tokyo office. We can save a bundle that way, since we don’t want to spend any more yen. Am I right, Bahadur?”

“Tokyo has extra PCs and servers already, Nanaji,” I say brightly. My big hope is that one day both Nana’s and Papa’s pilots will get confused about whether they are supposed to go to Athens or Tokyo, and consequently fly their individual planes into the Siberian wilderness.

“Huzoor, did you know Tokyo has opened a new night-club called Taj Mahal?” says Aura, smiling at the entire hall in a manner which suggests that Aurangazeb himself has become reincarnated. Every huzoor in the durbar nods brightly and smiles, as if they get the emperor’s inside joke. I wonder if Aura has ever laid hands on a computer keyboard. Maybe, like Aurangazeb the original, he has only handled swords and spears.

My session is right before lunch and they are all getting fidgety. The durbar has just heard about the reduced budget, which has made them extra surly. Everyone looks at me as if I am responsible for making them starve today. The chai service arrives, an hour late.

Things do not proceed well, even after chai has been served all around, producing an abnormal sense of communion in the durbar, as only sipping sounds are heard. They are all busy sharpening their tongues to get this Baba Bahadur lashed, I imagine. Moghul justice can be terrible.

Papa stops the chai-sipping to start spearing me again, “Why do my global sales-people not have regional sales information available to them while they are on the road?”

Before I can answer that his troops have yet to verify the customer lists, Findaloo, our senior VP and chief financial officer, takes a long sip of chai for fuel, and launches in.

“Bahadur,” he interrupts, “would you like to explain what we do with all of these new PCs we buy every year?”

“Nanaji, our applications mix is typically heavy word-processing with spreadsheets and some presentation graphics. We have closed some sales offices and given the sales-people machines so they can work out of their homes,” I respond, quite soberly.

I make sure to call him Nanaji repeatedly so the world knows that I am relaxed and have the situation under control. I take a sip of my chai, which, by now has grown cold, but the gesture fortifies my ego.

Findaloo, who has earned his honorary title of Dragon of the Durbar, sips his cardamom chai defiantly.

“Bahadur, when will the spending decrease, since everyone already has these applications?”

I consider asking him why his Department of Minor Dragons classifies servers as office furniture to avoid corporate PC standards, but think better of it. Better to keep Nana, and thereby Aura, in good humour.

Instead, I say: “Nanaji, we have no choice. Every indication is that we will continue to buy more PCs. You see, the galloping pace of technology makes what we have obsolete, and our competitors are continually upgrading, so we have to keep ahead of them. Then our company managers want their people to have the very latest tools to do their jobs.” I end, waving my hand around at the chai-sipping huzoors.

My intelligent answer does not satisfy anyone in the durbar, including me, and the situation goes into a downward spiral. Babar too must have felt like this in the battle of Panipat, where he was outnumbered badly.

After all, I think, our standard PCs are loaded with enough software power to rule the Mughal Empire even if we use just 10 percent of the features in the software we have, even counting the things that do not work. These PCs are actually the diamond-studded turbans that our huzoors see displayed around them. They covet these status symbols and want to keep them on their desks. Nobody in the durbar, especially Nana and Aura, can figure out the productivity impact, but they approve having the turbans so that the court stays content.

Babar finally won. And I, Baba Bahadur, am no less persistent than Babar in the battle of the durbar at Moghul. Aurangazeb would not have been around if his great-grandfather had been routed at Panipat.