M(a)X-doms

I had the honor and the privilege of working with MX. MX, a born leader, prince among men, a teacher, an institution, who in his inimitable demeanor; shared the wisdom beyond comprehension. To this day I grapple with the profundity of his genius.

I miss MX.

There are many that I can share with you, the little nuggets of wisdom that MX would dispense more easily than we breathe, but there are two which particularly stand out.

M(a)X-dom 1: Never let technology get you down.

And man did he stand up against the technology. He was the rock of Gibraltar, unflinching, steadfast in his abhorrence towards technology. E-mails, mobiles, IMs, were meaningless for him, the bane of human emotions and in his counter-offensive against technology he never let a tree stand in his way. He and his printouts – like brothers in arms. And he rubbed technology’s face in the mud, humiliated it to the core, wounded its soul by asking for three sets for everything –one for him, one for me and the third for just in case.

And in case you have made a any itsy bitsy error, no offense taken, he would calmly ask to simply cut some more trees.

And such meetings were never just about work, they went beyond business and delved in the realms of art. MX – you connoisseur of fine art – so subtle was his understanding that a neophyte, the philistine would never get the nuances at one glance. Every job needed to color coded, not just any green, that green or that red or that blue, never this always that.
But did the patient man ever take offense. No, never. He was almost a saint.

Got it wrong.

No problem, here’s the MX Axe, go chop.

Wrong again.

Chop chop and chop chop and……

Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my printouts to me.

M(a)X-dom 2: Nothing can stop me from meeting you, you and you.

MX was a great believer that social decline of our values, culture was due to lack of human interactions. He tried to stymie this degeneration by creating opportunities for interaction where logically none existed. But then such limitations were nothing in front of MX’s will and genius.

Let me give a simple specimen of his effort. I used to sit about three meters from him but whenever he had to ask me anything - inane to absurd to abstract – he would never ever call me, he always desired my physical presence in his room.

But the process was always open for innovation so that more can come in the fold of his benevolence.

He would call his secy and ask her to come to his room and then ask her to ask me to meet him, then the secy who had crossed my desk on the way to his room, would walk back to my desk and ask me to meet him and then lead me to his room and then inform him that what he had asked has been achieved and I am present in his room as he can see himself, then walk out and then MX would ask what he had to ask.

Do you see the brilliance of his maneuvers?

Where any ordinary person would have sufficed with a simple phone call, MX created four unique human face to face interactions – one MX with his secy, second secy and I, three, MX, secy and Iand four, MX and I.

In the deep jungles of Africa, legends say that MX is so busy in spreading happiness that he eats his breakfast at lunch time, lunch at dinner time and dinner only next day at breakfast time.

I wish everyone either has the privilege of working with him once in his/her lifetime or get a
boss who is at least equal to the shadow of MX.

Long live the master.