10/03/2026
As I have promised, I am bringing the sixth episode of my nine-episode satire series that begins the OTT style saga: “The Vice Chancellor Who Could Never Be Professor”—nine episodes, each peeling back another layer of absurdity from a university that redefined excellence as outsourcing and governance as WhatsApp administration.
Disclaimer: This is a purely imaginary satire. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, place or institutions is entirely coincidental and unintended. This is the work of fiction.
🎬 Episode 6: “The Self-Obsessed VC: And the Postpone University”
The Vice Chancellor of Lotus University was a man who, in truth, had never been considered fit even for a junior faculty post at the Lotus University. He had a résumé so light it could be mistaken for a visiting card. But thanks to the clout of an immediate family member, he parachuted into the VC’s chair at Lotus University. Yet, seated on the throne of borrowed power, he behaved as if he could silence anyone with a snap of his fingers.
At his last private institution, mutiny was routine — his authority challenged more often than the cafeteria’s hygiene. That insecurity blossomed into vanity when he arrived at Lotus University. Within weeks, he proclaimed: “Every board, banner, and flyer must carry my photo.”
Quantum physics seminars, ethics workshops, even lost and found notices for slippers bore his face. Posters of him smiling, smirking, squinting, and looking vaguely confused plastered every wall. Students joked that “Fire Exit” signs and even the “Toilet Closed” signs would soon feature his portrait . The campus became a gallery of his expressions, but nowhere did his name appear where it mattered — in research journals or academic citations. Students whispered that Lotus University had become a “billboard university,” scholarship eclipsed by his selfies.
Drunk on arrogance, he picked fights with multiple upright faculty members — scholars who refused to bow to his unlawful oral diktats. Among them stood a true sage: an internationally acclaimed scientist, the very architect who had built Lotus University from scratch with untiring effort. The VC mistook dignity for weakness. He thought: “I am the god of this university. Who can challenge me?”
The VC launched his attacks with oral orders, petty memos, fact finding committees while sycophantic courtiers clapping in the background. He expected submission. But arrogance blinded him. He failed to see that provoking scholars of such stature was like a reckless power emboldened by its allies, poking a rival it thought was weak — only to discover that the rival was backed by deeper strength, alliances, and moral authority.
This was not just a campus quarrel. It mirrored the kind of provocation and entanglement the world is witnessing today — where arrogance leads to miscalculation, and miscalculation leads to traps from which escape is nearly impossible.
The faculty sage did not shout. He did not retaliate with noise. Instead, he responded with dignity and precision. He documented every violation, invoked statutes, filed RTIs, and unearthed audit trails. He wielded the power of truth, backed by institutional memory and international credibility.
His calmness echoed the Gita’s wisdom: “समत्वं योग उच्यते” (His calmness echoed the Gita’s wisdom: Equanimity itself is yoga-सुख-दुःख, सफलता-विफलता, और अनुकूल-प्रतिकूल परिस्थितियों में मन की समता (संतुलन) बनाए रखना ही योग है)
And his resolve carried the force of:
“कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥”
— Your right is to action alone, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction (आपका अधिकार केवल कर्म करने में है, उसके फल (परिणाम) में कभी नहीं। इसलिए, न तो फल की इच्छा से कर्म करें और न ही कर्म न करने (निष्क्रियता) में आसक्त हों)
He acted with duty, not desire for revenge, knowing that truth itself would deliver the outcome.
The illusion of authority that the VC carried began to collapse. His oral diktats, once feared, were now dissected in inquiries; his foreign tour expenses, once hidden, were dragged into the light; his garlanded mediocrity, once celebrated, was ridiculed. The faculty sage’s calm documentation, combined with the defiance of upright professors, stripped away the mask, and the campus saw the VC for what he truly was — a man unworthy of even a lecturer’s chair, propelled upward by family privilege, now masquerading as the university’s deity.
Worse still, his inefficiency and short‑sightedness had paralyzed campus life. All major academic, cultural, and sports events were postponed one after another, each time with a flimsy excuse. Students, frustrated and disillusioned, gave the university a new nickname: “Postpone University.” The courtiers who once clapped fell silent, the students whispered openly, and the wider academic community recognized the hollowness of his reign. The provocation had backfired spectacularly: just as the world today witnesses arrogant powers trapped by their own miscalculations, Lotus University now witnessed its VC ensnared by the very system he thought he could silence. His reality was no longer hidden; it was known to everyone.
And in the silence that followed, the Gita’s timeless words echoed across the campus:
"सत्यमेव जयते, धर्मस्य विजयते" अर्थ: सत्य की ही जीत होती है, धर्म की ही विजय होती है।
