Back in the 1950s, I was all smiles when I learnt my first lesson in Management from Northcote Parkinson's essay in The Economist — that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The second came not long after — that expenditure rises to meet income. During the last six decades, literature on Management has grown unmanageably.
Much of it is serious, matter-of-fact, grazers of one's attention. But when the same ideas are presented to us through the Parkinsonian glasses, they become attention-grabbers. Increasingly, teachers of Management are turning to humour to make the subject attractive. And there is plenty of it in published books and the internet. So what is new about Management--Say it With Fun?
The answer is formulated easily. It is a two-in-one effort. The cartoonist is the inimitable Gopulu and the aphorist is the hard-working R. Natarajan. Fancy sitting down with a sheaf of cartoons published half-a-century ago and giving it a fresh coat of contrastive paint for the present century!
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The original intent was different. Gopulu's silence spoke when the cavalryman came home and had to become a horse for his two-year-old son, or when a fruit-seller bought a modern cane chair as a decorative basket to carry his wares. We saw those fun-drawings, and turned left and right with a wild ‘ha', ‘ha' and an uncontrollable ‘ho', ‘ho'. Did I ever think that I would live to see the day when the former would be interpreted as “cavalry ranks and robes do not count at home?” Or, the latter had in it imbedded the management dictum, “the user is wiser than the maker”?
Obviously, like music, cartoon is universal. You don't need a language and you can enjoy the presentation in the light of your own experience. The ubiquitous beach-comber of Marina made us laugh heartily, for Gopulu had turned the familiar sight into a poem. Now the cartoon grows heavy because of the caption: ‘Misjudgment embarrasses either side'.
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Sometimes Natarajan gives a light touch, as when a roadside Romeo turns away sheep-faced: “window-shopping allures but deludes.” One could go on like this and Natarajan has gone on writing captions for 278 cartoons. Sometimes the Management lingo gives way to pun with proverbs. The sword-master from the circus and his wife prove that the pill is mightier than the sword.
What pleases me most with this presentation is that neither Gopulu nor Natarajan embarrasses the reader by going for contemptible or tawdry expressions when handing out rich wisdom on a pleasantly carved platter. Yes, “the more you talk, the less you are heard.” One must know when to stop. Gopulu and Natarajan know that, and the reviewer better learn the golden rule as well.