Classrooms and Beyond

Sometime in March this year, my kids wrote their ICSE board exams. If you’ve followed my blogs for years, these are my kids who I taught in school back in India a long lifetime ago. Office commute gives me approximately an hour to sit back and think of things, a luxury for me of course, and of late, I have been thinking of my life in India a lot. I was younger, and saw the world differently. I did want to come to the US, yes, but for as long as I worked in India, I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the kids. I wish I was the one who gave them physics and chemistry lessons before they appeared for their boards.

Now, it is a different workplace I have. I do consulting in public health, which is a very simple way to put it. All I need to function is a computer, of course with the internet and MS office, and a phone. I do not interact with kids anymore, do not teach, and have no fun stories to tell people at the end of the day. I do like my job, especially in this economy, I better like my job. But it is a lot more brainwork and a lot less human interaction.

I’ve completed 5 months of my work here, and in this season of salary slashes and layoffs, I got a hike. I wasn’t really expecting it. For people who have been through the grilling process of applying for a work visa, you will know why today’s date is so important to me. Starting today, my application will be scrutinized by someone to decide if I should stay back to work. It is a disconcerting feeling.

From classrooms to consulting rooms, I have come a long way work-wise. I have learnt new skills and have been put through newer circumstances. My resume looks more voluminous now, with big words thrown here and there. I compare my resume from 4 years back and my resume now, and the stark contrast between the two is so apparent, not in terms of contents, but in terms of the format. No one here cares about father’s name and one’s sex in a resume.

Anyway, I hope that my children do well in their boards and pursue things of their own interest. I still remember the good teachers from my school days (and the bad ones as well) and hope that my children remember me fondly.

sunshine.