Abstract
A year earlier, I had moved to Moscow, Idaho, from New Delhi, after having worked for nearly four years in publishing houses. I had become exhausted by stets, specs, and style sheets. Whiny authors with paper-thin egos bored me, and I was frustrated with lazy designers who tried to pass off every odd cover as avant-garde. I wanted to return to something familiar, and yet try something new. The world of familiarity that beckoned was lined with the dirt and grime of pencil stubs, and layered with pages torn from a notebook. It comprised big, wooden desks etched with graffiti that screamed out people's names and graduating years. It possessed the grossness of used chewing gum stuck on the underbellies of tables and chairs, traps for roving hands. It echoed with the buzz of conversations and arguments, the hasty scratch of clandestine notes, the drone of teachers and their pets, sleepless Sunday-night assignments, and complex tests. I wanted to return to school.
The last time I had been a student was in 2002, when I got a master's degree in medieval history. This time, I wanted to stay away from dead kings and queens and their wars and treasures. I wanted to get a degree in creative writing. My quest ended—after almost a year of research, emails, prayers, meditations, tests, and applications—at the University of Idaho. After I got accepted by the U of I (as I learned to call it), an orientation package as thick as a baby's mattress arrived in the mail. I saw pictures of the arts-friendly city of Moscow, where my gorgeous university was located. Its big leafy trees and sumptuous red-brick buildings looked both solemn and inviting.
The creative writing program itself was small, selective, and competitive, and had very distinguished faculty members. Most important, it seemed to me that the U of I had the friendliest people in all of America. No matter the hour or nature of my query, Idahoans—whether in their capacity as former students, current teachers, or staff members—responded to me with patience, and with such detail that I fell in love with them even before landing in America.
Moscow offered a cultural pleasantness that took me by surprise. Living in New Delhi almost all my life had accustomed me to 15 million residents in a city, including myself, who were all of the firm belief that body parts, such as elbows and knees, were designed to shove others aside while crossing roads and getting into buses. Moscow stunned me with its insistence that absolute strangers can be friendly toward one another. They can say, “Hi,” and “How is it going?” They can hold doors open and give the right-of-way to pedestrians. And they can look super-pleased most of the time, even if they are standing behind cash counters selling polka-dotted, plastic back-scratchers.
But Moscow confused me, as well, especially when its residents told me, enigmatically, to “Have a good one.” I am positive that within the first month in Moscow, each and every one of its 23,000 residents advised me at least once to have this mysterious goodness. And each of those times, I was confused as to what that they wanted me to get a good version of Sex? Sleep? Supper?
All these were small matters. They were stepping stones, really, to the greatest cultural challenge of them all: becoming a contributing member of the American classroom. I experienced two disparate emotions. On one hand, I felt like a wide-eyed, three-year-old who has just chanced upon a larger-than-life Santa and isn't the least aware that the person underneath the red-and-white suit is actually a woman hired by the mall, who hasn't come from the magical North Pole but from her apartment three blocks away. On the other hand, I was enveloped by the same incredulity E.T. must have felt when encountering Elliott for the first time. I knew in my gut that life, as I had experienced it, was about to change. Forever.
My first teaching job at the U of I was as a student mentor for a class on world religions. I learned how to fill out timesheets and handle the complex, multimedia equipment in the classroom. I was informed about my responsibilities and duties, and given directions on how to assist the instructor in dealing with difficult students. I was asked to sign an officious-looking form, which the secretary said was to ensure that I wouldn't leak valuable information about the students, not to the Mossad or the KGB, but to their parents. Parents. Even if they were paying for Junior's education.
Horribly convinced that I had misunderstood, I asked for clarification: “I am sorry, but are you implying that teachers cannot discuss the students’ performance with their parents?”
“Yes,” the secretary replied, “because they are adults now. As their mentor or their teacher, you can email the parents something to the effect of ‘Sorry, campus policy dictates that your son's information be kept private. Please contact the registrar's office for further information.’”
I signed the form, marveling at how far away Idaho was from India.
Here is a fact the world should know about India: generations of its people have raised their children on the basis of the singular belief that adults (particularly parents and teachers) know the answers to every possible or impossible problem in the universe and can never be questioned. In the same vein, they are of the opinion that children should never, ever be introduced to the concept of a “personal life.” This is because life in India is not meant to be personal, and while our overwhelming population might have something to do with that, I am convinced it's also a mental thing. I believe we Indians are born this way, and during our formative years, any chance we might have to acquire individuality is hammered out of our collective conscience.
Consider the following story. It's 1985. I am five years old and in the first grade. Our teacher, Mrs. Smith, a wonderful lady on most days of the week, comes up with a particularly odd game one sweltering afternoon to keep her students enthralled and entertained. She explains the almost nonexistent rules: “I will ask a question and all of you will answer it together.”
Fair enough. Simple enough. And so it begins.
“Girls, who is the tallest student in our class?’
“Neha.”
“Girls, who is the fattest student in our class?’
“Mina.”
“Girls, who is the thinnest student in our class? Girls, who is the best artist in our class? Girls, who has the longest hair in our class?”
On and on it goes, question and answer. Mrs. Smith asks, and all 50 of us turn our five-year-old heads this way and that, feeling absolutely no qualms in judging our classmates on the basis of their girth, height, shoe size, hairstyle, etc. What is even more amazing is that while I am sure most of us respond to the weightiest question of human civilization—“So, what did you do in school today?”—by describing Mrs. Smith's game to our mothers and fathers, none of us think it even remotely inappropriate. No complaints are made, and Mrs. Smith makes us play several merry versions of the same game for the rest of the year.
Now, I am sure child psychologists will agree that when something like this happens to you at the tender age of five, it changes you forever. On one hand, it numbs you. On the other, it fortifies you and renders you incapable of pain, even when further public humiliations are laid in your way. Take, for example, when test scores are announced and discussed in class, or better still are displayed on the main notice board for everyone to see, or when your own parents dissect your academic performance with other equally focused parents. You learn to live with such experiences, and you learn that your results are not your own. Instead, they are a matter of grave concern and deep discussion among your family, clan, neighborhood, and even your nation.
But teachers and schools are not the only villains of the piece, because the same scenario is replicated at home, irrespective of the age of the “child.” Take the relationship between my 54-year-old mother and 30-year-old me—a relationship that has remained unchanged in its essential contours over the years. Ma considers it her sole business, absolute birthright, and total obligation to know on a day-to-day, if not hourly, basis what my life is about. She has done such a magnificent job with my upbringing that I know that saying “No” or “It's my personal life” is not an option. When confronted by her, at the very most I can pretend to have a personal life—meaning I can delay answering her questions for all of four minutes.
I remember the one, and perhaps only, attempt I ever made to assert my adult status. I had just turned 18 and was in college. It was the day of our midterm results. True to form, the scores were put up on the main notice board outside our classroom for the students and the whole world to see. All my classmates and I jotted down our individual scores along with those of friends and foes. When I went back home that evening, Ma was waiting for me. Without any preamble, polite or otherwise, she asked, “How much did you get?”
I replied, a tad smartly and with a toss of my head, “None of your business, Mother. Remember, I am 18.”
Her answer came slowly and deliberately. The fact that she didn't have to pause to think before delivering every well-chosen word was proof of how deeply she and the system were married to each other. “All right, then, no dinner for you tonight. While I am at it, no food for you until you tell me and your father your exact scores. Also, no access to the television, telephone, refrigerator, freezer, air conditioner, hairdryer, bathroom, the big couch in the living room, weekly allowance, and any new books or magazines. Or you could just agree to a vegetarian option for all your meals for the next three years.”
“I got 60 percent.”
Ten minutes into a class during my first week of mentorship at U of I, the professor begins lecturing on the religious beliefs of the Australian Aborigines. Suddenly, his words are interrupted by a hand shooting up in the air. It belongs to a bright-looking boy, who asks, “Do you want us to take notes on all this?”
My eyes widen with horror and I hold my breath. If my own experience as a college student is anything to go by, you never, ever, ask your teachers any question that could be remotely construed as absurd. You come to college knowing four golden rules:
If a lecture is being delivered, it is for your own good.
You are to take down all of its words as Vedic truth, because the task of jotting points down is also for your own good.
Anything and everything the teacher brings up in class, whether it is during lecture num ber one or number ninety-three, is for your own good, and therefore has to be studied, without raising a single eyebrow of disdain or muttering a word of complaint.
If you know in your heart of hearts that you are brave enough to ask dull questions, you must also be prepared for suitable punishment. Based on how charitable (or not) the teacher's mood is, the punishment can range from a withering glare intended to beat down every molecule in your body to total submission to being thrown out of the class for that day or for the whole semester to loud and public humiliation of the kind that requires life-long therapy or justifies penning at least one full-length memoir titled something like The Last Afternoon.
Thinking myself to be fully aware of the trajectory that lies before the student, I whisper, “Here it comes.”
The professor replies, “Yes, please, although I will give you a study guide at the end of this topic. You'll be required to study from that for your test.”
Really? That's it? No violent outburst? No scars that will warrant a lifetime of cosmetic surgery or, at the very least, drug abuse, or therapy, or both? No, I am definitely not in India anymore.
A year later, I get my own class to teach. Thirty-five Americans, all white, mostly 18 years old, mostly from Idaho, and all waiting to learn from me, for one whole year, the ultimate truth about the religions of the world. And at the not particularly super-pleasant time of 8:30 in the morning, given that Moscow is cold for nine of twelve months in the year.
Once classes start, the lessons, assignments, and discussions proceed at a good pace. My students usually complete their homework, are almost never late to class, and look fairly awake, even at that most unfortunate hour. All goes well until it is time for the first test and one of them fails to turn up for it. She meets with me soon after and sheepishly says, “Sorry I didn't show up for the test. I just didn't get to study this weekend. Both my mom and grandma had their boyfriends over. The two couples were so noisy that I couldn't study a word! I was hoping I could ask you to reschedule.”
Instantly, an image flashes through my eyes. I see my own sari-clad grandmother, her long gray hair not pulled into a bun but snipped to a stylish, short cut; her more-than-ample girth magically shrunk and ensconced in leather, and she herself transformed from a homely, food-friendly matriarch to a lean and mean machine, loud and boisterous. On top of that, she has a boyfriend with whom she engages in noisy activities. I close my eyes and shudder.
Next semester, I teach an advanced class on South Asian History. The class is mostly discussion-based, its topics ranging from the possibility of another war between India and Pakistan to the rising factions within Bangladeshi politics to the Tamil-Sinhala conflict in Sri Lanka. Given the well-thought-out and complex arguments my students are putting forth, I sense that they are enjoying the course and are comfortable in my class. But I don't realize the extent of this comfort until the day one of them, a young lady a little over 18, says to me, “I will be missing class tomorrow. I have to go to the hospital.”
Concerned, I ask, “Oh no! What happened?”
She replies, “I think I might be pregnant.”
I blush, although I am neither the one pregnant nor remotely responsible for her pregnancy. At the same time, another vision races across my mind. I see myself making a similar confession to any of my New Delhi teachers, be it Mrs. Smith or any of my college or university professors. I see them not even bothering with the telephone but instead dragging me by the hair straight to my parents, their faces set in determination to teach me and my family a thing or two about the proper way of doing things.
So much for adult consent.
It's now been close to four years since I moved to Idaho and, as might be expected, a lot has happened. I have graduated from my creative writing program, and my primary identity at the U of I is no longer that of student. Instead, I am a teacher. I smile at strangers and open doors for them. I have lost track of the number of people to whom I have wished “Have a good one.” In the classroom, I am no longer intimidated by either my students or by the plethora of multimedia equipment. Most surprisingly, I have made peace with the fact that students can, and should, have rights.
I have also learned a thing or two from my very Idahoan and very 18-year-old students, such as the wisdom of not starting class with a monologue about the topic at hand. Instead, I utilize YouTube, that most blessed of all human inventions, and for the first five minutes of every class, my students and I watch Rugrats or Aladdin or The Lion King, bringing back memories of their childhood to these early days of their adulthood. As the images explode on screen, I watch their faces and note the smiles, even from the burliest of football players and the most cynical of unbelievers. On days when I am homesick, we watch a Bollywood song and answer thought-provoking questions such as “Do all Indians know how to dance?” before getting down to studies.
My Idaho students have also shown me that the core of an 18-year-old is perhaps the same all over the world, irrespective of color and nationality. I have seen that treats, be they for Halloween or Diwali, are met with the same exuberance; that class debates and discussions are far more fun than the uninterrupted drone of a teacher; that early mornings in a college student's life apparently are not just hard but torturous. But most important, they have shown me that teachers and students can often be on the same side, that they can rejoice in the same achievements, and respond to the same markers of hard work, cooperation, and success. Which is why, during this last spring semester, when several of my students showed up for my thesis defense, I didn't miss my family. When they sat through hours of the interrogation through which my committee put me, and noisily hooted and cheered for me once the same satisfied committee announced, “Sayantani Das-gupta, we declare you a Master of Fine Arts,” I knew I had found another home. It felt right. It felt just right to teach in Idaho.