Listen, like my literary touchstone, K Jo, I am sick of all the conjecture about the Jio Institute, and hope to put an end to it once and for all.
Yes, after careful deliberation, the HRD ministry, along with a redoubtable committee of experts, picked six institutions of higher education for the status of ‘Institution of Eminence’.
And, yes, one among them is Reliance Foundation’s Jio Institute, helmed by none other than Nita Ambani.
And, triple yes, Jio Institute doesn’t exist.
Phooey, is what I say. So what if it doesn’t exist?
You mean to say excellence or eminence can be attributed only to things that exist? What kind of archaic, un swachh notion is that? Our very culture is built on things that purportedly existed in the past and things that may exist in the future. The present is merely an inconvenient link.
The bullet train isn’t here yet, is it? But can you deny its eminence? What about the black money from the Swiss banks? Is it here yet? Next, you’ll say that isn’t excellent either!
Let’s look at it another way. Does Nehru exist now? But don’t some of you insist he is eminent? You can’t have it both ways.
Be that as it may, I’ll have you know the committee that decided to award this certificate didn’t do it on a whim, okay?
Any time they wished, they could have flown into the future in a time-travelling pushpakavimanam , checked out the faculty (which would have had the likes of Dronacharya, Einstein, Alok Nath and Rana Pratap as guest lecturers), assessed the students (who would have all been able to perform the ashtavadhanam while making pakoras on the bullet train with one hand), and found the campus to be full of centrally air-conditioned kutirs , with herds of delicate golden deer flitting in and out of gardens of ancient healing herbs, Karan Johar overseeing the prayer sequence at the morning assembly...
Or they could just as easily have asked Biplab Deb to check all this out on his vedic internet and forward you the link via WhatsApp.
If you are still cribbing, have you seen the video of Nita ben Ambani dancing at her son’s engagement? Have you ever seen anything as divine? Sixteen arms magically appear behind Nita ji in the first minute itself, making all of Bollywood give her a standing ovation. It is so good, and puts the eminence of the institute so beyond doubt, that the deans of Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Lovely Professional University are unfit to even be her backup dancers.
As I write this piece, I have fresh news. Something that shows the naysayers in an even poorer light.
Like everyone else, alas, I, too, seem to have assumed that Jio Institute has been certified an ‘Institute of Eminence’.
Not the case.
The HRD ministry has said that there was a misunderstanding, and that Jio Institute will be given that status three years from now... provided it fulfils all the conditions.
Now how is that for straightforwardness?
It’s just that their stenographer was going on leave for three years and, to be on the safe side, they had a post-dated certificate and letter typed up when she was available, and had it laminated, too.
Also, the ‘office boy’ was free, apparently. And being highly duty-conscious, he proactively dashed across to Nita ben ’s house, bolted up 27 floors, interrupted her dance practice — this time it was Dola re dola re — handed over the certificate, and actually had a glass of chilled thandai served by Nita ben herself, can you believe it?
I hope this ends this pointless debate. No more questions will be entertained, so there.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a satirist. He has written four books, and edited an anthology.
