New school year

For as long as I can remember of my childhood, spring used to be the most exciting time of the year. This is because spring to me also meant new academic beginnings. The next grade. The smell of new books and notebooks. Baba painstakingly covering each one of them with brown paper and then writing my name and class in all of them with his beautiful handwriting. A new grade meant a new class teacher, new subject teachers, a new classroom, a new seating nook, and experiencing all the newness of the world with old (and some new) friends. There used to be a vibrant energy about week one, everyone wearing new school uniforms and looking ready to take over the world. And then, there would be new things to learn. New chapters, new knowledge, and new ways of making sense of the world. I used to be most excited about my math and science classes. Through those, I made sense of my world, fueled my imagination, met people in textbooks who inspired me, and nurtured my dreams (I had plenty, one of them was being an astronaut). My textbooks opened the doors to new and exciting worlds that existed mostly in my imagination, but were very real for me.

You can tell that I am a lifelong academic, and in a way, I am so glad that I never left school (rather, school never left me). For that is the only life that I have mostly known. This week has seen one more round of excitement, with the new academic year beginning. It might not involve smelling new textbooks this time, but there will be other things new. I am teaching a new online course, and this one is way outside my comfort zone. I have neither developed, nor taught this course before. The first semester, I was so scared of teaching that every week after class I would go and check if someone had dropped out. This time, twenty-five odd students will be spending their time and energy learning with me, and I am excited about facilitating their learning and leading this class.

I am also excited about starting a brand new research study I recently got funding for. I will be presenting at a key conference in Boston soon, and I am looking forward to a restaurant that serves Bengali food in Boston. I am also excited about kicking out those new papers and proposals that I have worked over this summer. You can tell that I never really got over my love for school. I hope that you are as excited about school (if you are in one) or about anything you are pursuing right now.

Cheers to new beginnings, learning and exploring new things, making sense of the world we created around us, and to a brand new academic year. 

sunshine

School Children

 I spent some time last year traveling Sikkim, a beautiful state in India located in the Himalayan mountains. Taking the mountainous, roller coaster rides, sitting in the back of an SUV, and having my innards constantly shaken to the point that I thought if this can actually and miraculously people of constipation. I spent a lot of time being on the road, mostly driving through extremely steep, mountainous roads and navigating dangerous switchbacks. Frequently, I saw little children in groups of twos and mostly threes, walking to or back from school. It's evident that they came from poor families. They wore school uniforms with ties, and never carried school bags. Most of them were single digits in age. When in threes, there was usually someone slightly older among them, escorting the younger ones. Often, they walked with their dogs. The children never seemed to be in a hurry. They took their time squatting by the roadside and examining stones, twigs, flowers, and insects. There were no school buses and no parents escorting them. They walked dangerously close to the edge of the mountains, and excitedly waved at us as we sped by, leaving a wake of dust through the half-built mud roads. Our driver told us that they are used to walking long distances. And I had so many questions as I watched them from my backseat, moving in reverse before disappearing. If they all went to the same school, why did they walk in groups of threes, at different times of the day? Don't they have fixed school hours? Where were their school bags? How did they make sure that they are not lost? How did they walk during harsh winters? Why were they never escorted by adults? How did they get the energy to hike such lengths through the steep mountain roads? What jewels did they seek in those pebbles and twigs they collected?

There is so much to observe, wonder, and learn when you are on the road. I come from the strata where I am used to seeing children being escorted to schools by adults, in cars and buses. They carry cell phones for their safety, and are computer wizards. They are busy, enrolled in a bunch of coaching classes after school. They learn to swim, dance, paint, and recite with elan. They come first in class, and are duly reprimanded by parents if they do not achieve that coveted 95+ percent. That is one reality, the one borne from the complexities of city-life, children caught and strangled between a web of parental aspirations and societal expectations, their lives mostly run by machines, nannies, tuition teachers, and helicopter parents. And then, there is this reality. Of little children who walk to school in chappals, excitedly waving at cars, being escorted by their dogs or older siblings, and crouching over the ground to play with flowers and insects. I have a feeling that there are beautiful stories hiding here, chapters of human lives that have never been explored and have not made it to the mainstream media. If I could, I would shadow them to understand what the harsh lives of these simple people from the mountains look like.

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Strings Attached

"Ma'am thring", I felt a tug at my dupatta and turned back to find a little boy barely a little above my knees in height. I was the assigned invigilator in the exam hall.

"What?", I asked, confused.

"Thrriiiinnnggg !!! To tie my answer paper", the little chap sounded a little impatient.

At that moment, I could have picked him up and hugged him, he looked so cute while trying to explain himself. And it made me wonder- Why does a little child not even old enough to enunciate the word "string" properly has to go through the torture of writing an exam?

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Old School Thoughts

While summarizing my entire trip to Kolkata, this is one moment that takes the cake. This morning, I visited my old school, my first job ever months after I had finished my masters. Readers who have followed my blogs during 2005-2006 know how much the school meant to me. I would regale tales of interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) episodes of what happened at school, with my colleagues, the kids, and even their parents.

After almost four years, I visited my old school. Even as I got off the metro and started to walk the 10 minutes stretch towards the building, I could feel reliving my old life again, when I used to walk that stretch at 7am everyday. Donning a saree or a traditional salwar suit, dupatta in place and all, I would be ready by 6am every morning, 5 days a week, happily taking the metro. Not a single day had felt monotonous or filled with drudgery. I used to be a mass of high energy, smiling and running about with the attendance register at 7:30 am sharp. At 24, I was the second youngest teacher in my school.

I left that life I so very loved for two reasons. First, it paid me peanuts, and unless I was contemplating marrying a banker or a software engineer minting money in Kolkata, I had no chances of doing well financially. Secondly, I had already set my mind (and heart) on getting a taste of America ever since I had entered the masters program and realized I wouldn’t be doing anything worthwhile if I continued to live in Kolkata. The job was a fortuitous accident.

Back to the present, it was an amazing experience to visit school again. I didn’t really get to meet the students I taught because they are all (thankfully) out of school now. But being a small school, I remember the face of every kid from junior classes I did not teach. My shock came when I saw the same faces on much taller bodies now. The kids I last saw in classes 4 or 5 are now preparing for boards, and have doubled in height. Some of them recognized me and smiled shyly, but I had come at a wrong time when the kids were getting ready to go home. I am surely going to be back in school again to meet them all.

The teachers were as shocked seeing me as I was seeing the kids, this time due to breadth issues and not height issues. Thanks to the way people socially conduct themselves in India, no one made a secret of their shock in seeing me look much “broad” than what I used to be. One of the teachers actually told me what the kids had told them 4 years ago, that they liked me because I was not old and not fat. I could laugh out loud at their innocence, knowing well that probably every teacher they have had was old, stern looking, obese, and taught them in an extremely boring slash soporific way or gave them lots of homework.

I received a grand reception from the teachers and my principal. I sat there for hours in the staff room, chatting about old times. Even the new teachers knew my name, so much they had heard of me. They told me about school, asked me how my life was, and even told me that I had not changed a bit (except for my breadth of course). I was made to sit in the same chair I used to, and it felt like going back in time and living all those moments you had spent teaching, correcting, laughing, arguing, and enjoying. I remember how I used to call G almost every day then, animatedly regaling everything that had happened in school that day. G was in B-school then and am sure barely understood my reason for excitement at how a kid had cleaned his hand using my dupatta or had discovered some weird law of multiplication to get an answer that matched the answer at the back of the math book. Later in life, I have worked as a toxicologist, at a much higher pay scale, attending conferences and preparing scientific reports (though the term sounds more fancy that it actually is). But my teaching job still remains (and shall always remain) my favorite.

So I decided to go back to school to teach, and to volunteer helping the teachers with the exams before the school closed for summer vacation. Of course this would mean waking up early and reaching school by 7:30 am everyday. But I have decided, much to the disappointment of my mother who feels I should relax at home and enjoy my vacations, that I am going to spend my time doing something I really love to do, even if it is just for a few weeks and doesn’t pay me anything. My incentive doesn’t lie in earning a few thousand rupees here. It lies in doing something I really love to do, and to get back to the routine of a regular job.

I’ll always love being a teacher. I know this for sure, given the way I felt living through every happy emotion once again in those few hours I visited school. So this blog will hopefully see a few interesting posts on how the children behave themselves in class and during the exams next. I am all smiles.

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The conversation I needed

It’s been more than 2 months and I am still looking for a job. It’s been frustrating, scary, and disappointing. The fact that I live alone in a huge house only added to my depression. Unexplainable, but I have had mood swings. I have cried myself to sleep. I have refused to answer phone calls from friends. I have snapped at friends when I need not have. I have tried to explain to myself that it is just a phase that shall pass. I have tried taking care of myself, almost as if I was another person taking care of me. My innards have experienced every raw emotion- pain, fear, agony, numbness, rejection, and more. I have tried to hold on and keep moving.

At some point, I decided not to give up, but apply to school again. One of the things I needed to do was to call my ex-colleague and school principal to request for recommendation letters. The first call never went through, and the second had so much background noise that nothing could be heard. It was the familiar noise of children in the school screaming. How I missed my other life back in Kolkata.

When the call finally went through, we talked for a long time. I told her how lost I felt here, how disoriented and depressed I was, unwanted in my job. I was amazed at how I had vocalized my fears for the first time, and that too to a person living half way across the globe with who I had shared a very formal and professional relationship.

“You were a very good teacher, and I know you will do well. You will find a job. And even if you don’t, come back. You will always have your job ready for you back here”.

These must have been the magic words I needed to hear, some kind of positive reinforcement, someone telling me I was good enough and more, that I am capable and worthy. Those were the magic words I had least expected from her. After that, I got a strength I did not have before but so very needed it.

I decided not to look back. I decided to apply to schools. If I had done it once, I can do it again. I still live on my own and feel depressed at times. Who wouldn’t? But with that, I feel a strength, a confidence from the knowledge that not all doors are closed for me. It’s amazing how a little bit of acceptance does wonders, and how strength and encouragement comes from the least expected places.

sunshine