Bric-a-Brac : Reading her signals

MOST people, who have met Nirmala Sitharaman, the defence minister who formerly held the commerce and industry portfolio, say that she’s a tough cookie. Even the smartest and most confident people are scared to confront her, or even make a presentation to her. The reason: she asks a string of questions, doesn’t allow the speaker to complete their argument, and constantly gets into a monologue. A senior manager was, therefore, frightened when her CEO fell ill before a meeting with Sitharaman, and was asked to go ahead with the scheduled meeting and presentation. Are you sure, you want me to do the presentation before Ma’am? You know how she is?,” asked the worried manager to the CEO. “Well, I know, but we have to do this,” was the reply. The senior manager entered the minister’s office nervously biting her lips. But she was flabbergasted, even shocked, when her one-hour presentation went on smoothly without any interruption from Sitharaman. “What happened?” she asked the senior bureaucrat, who was at the meeting. “She wasn’t interested,” was the curt reply. So, this is how it is. If she is interested, she will impose her views aggressively. If she isn’t, she is bored and passive and waits for the presentation to be over. “Why didn’t you give me a sign,” said the senior manager. “I would have cut the presentation to 15 minutes.”

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