The GSB elections at the ISB are almost always keenly contested and thus declaring the results is a very sensitive activity for the staff of the Co curricular activities (CCA) team. Shiv has been doing this for years and I think I assisted him one year when this entire near fiasco happened.
This was a year when Pavit had declared that he was going to buy world peace after winning the elections and Rajesh Mani had declared that he is not half as bad as he looks. To be honest I always though he did not look all that bad at all … wonder what made him say that. I think Bharat Ayer the future NDTV Profit guy was the third candidate but I don’t remember if there was a fourth.
We had finished counting and were ready to declare results. Shiv’s experience told us that the moment the results would be sent by email, all the candidates and their string of supporters may descend on the CCA office.
The discussion that followed set us on a plan. We called Nagmani the office help woman and Shiv explained to her in great detail how she should use the mouse to click the ‘Send’ and once the screen changes immediately switch off the computer. The plan was to get into a car reach the ISB gate and call Nagmani and ask her to do this. We then planned to switch off the mobile phones and return back on Monday and hoped by then the storm would have subsided.
We reached the ISB gate and Shiv called Nagmani and said something to her in Telgu. A long silence from Shiv followed and after around a min he said ‘Shit’ and started to shout on phone. I could not understand a thing but what unfolded later makes me laugh even today.
Nagmani had first switched off the computer and thus has nothing on the screen to click.
Poor Shiv had to go back and set it up all over again and I don’t think he tried anything smart this time round.
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