My take: NID faculty is clean!

I feel extremely sad for this ex-student of NID for his misinterpretation of this course. Moreover I am very disappointed and dejected with the one who made these allegations public - someone has satiated the media cravings for cheap publicity, which unfortunately brings needless notoriety to an unassuming professor of a leading institute of our country; that too he is proclaimed guilty even before a proper investigation!

As one of his students, I can definitely speak for the sessions conducted by him as a visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad. Though at the very outset, I must admit that the professor under question either builds a loyal fan-following for himself or is strongly despised; there seems to be no middle ground approach towards him. To his fans, he is highly respected for his dedication, course content and his earnestness to make a difference to the lives of people he touches.

Before I begin briefing about the intent of his sessions, let me state unequivocally that there were NO sexual overtures in his class. In fact the discussions were quite to the contrary - of overcoming our mind's pre-occupation with it! His sessions expect his students with a basic level of maturity in their thinking. At the same time, the course demanded a sense of adventure - an openness to experience life to its fullest potential. And, mind it, life's full potential is not about experiencing sex - it's about overcoming the mental blocks that lead to overcoming inhibitions - of transforming beyond morbid fascinations and primal fears.

The course had a very basic yet potent objective:

To be a creative individual, it was essential to have our mind function to its utmost capacity, fullest potential. And that requires immense self confidence, an unwavering inner locus of control, and the ability to rise above obstacles that may come along the way. His sessions targeted overcoming three sub-conscious mental blocks - of body consciousness, fear and possessiveness. And of course, he never asked us to strip in public - instead he posed us with a question of how we would react if confronted with such a situation. He implored us to meditate, to be conscious of our physical reaction to any external stimulus; and to extend our consciousness to eventually become the master of our 'self'!

Another allegation that has been raised against this professor is that he insisted that his students sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Firstly, it has to be understood that this was not an NDA. An NDA implies that you are not supposed to divulge any information on the content of his course outside the forum / class. That was definitely not the case; in fact, he even allowed the non-signatories to sit-in on his classes if they deemed useful. Though as has been craftily extracted from a fellow student's blog in a TOI story, if one reads through carefully, the contract clearly stated that we are completely responsible for our actions, and for taking up this class. The sessions involved commitment, of participating in group meditation that required active engagement of the class and taking solitary walk at night under thick forest cover that happened to be a dwelling of quite a few wild animals and reptiles. The aim of such walks in the dead of the night were to overcome our primal fears - a step in the direction of becoming fully aware of all our senses. That meant he needed full commitment from his class to conduct these exercises. Along with that, the contract also covered him against any liabilities in case any untoward did happen (though if ever a need arose, such statements written on plain paper could be challenged in any court of law). I did not find anything wrong with it, more so since this was an elective course and anyone uninterested could always opt out of it. In any case, all adventure tourist agencies across the world do make their customers sign such contracts.

But unfortunately in a group of 20-30 odd students in a class, there would always be those with a degree of immaturity, those who misinterpreted the simple message he delivered. I believe that the individual who complained is just simply unaware of the possibilities that he could have experienced - something that just cannot be learned, it has to be experienced with a lot of practice. Again, his reactions could have a lot to do with the conditioning of our mind for over twenty-thirty years of our existence. Now if we are asked to meditate and imagine ourselves growing out of this fascination of sex and treat it as just another natural act, for a few naïve individuals like this complainant, it seems to have had just the opposite effect.

For centuries, our society and our education have created a taboo on this subject - the mere utterance of this word (even in a supposedly mature audience) keeps pounding in people's heads and the inferences drawn, as in this case, could be entirely orthogonal to the essence of what was being taught. It is extremely sad that a few such individuals have lost their way out in their 'self-created' deep-rooted clutter of emotions. In the process they have lost out on an invaluable experience!

I sincerely hope that this unfortunate set of individuals (like the complainant) first become rational and good-hearted human being before they achieve success in their respective spheres of life.