8/2 – I am on the last hour of my flight to Dubai and
dreading spending another day on planes, but excited that Nate and Ryan have
agreed to meet me during my layover.
Looking forward to friends and family has made leaving Kolkata more
manageable, but I am still sad to be leaving behind friends and places that
became dear to me.
In India, Kolkata is called the City of Joy, and that name
is fitting despite the impression the rest of the world has about it. I think that most people think of it as a
destitute and backwards place, and it is that, but it is that layered with all
types of progress and wealth too. I
think that every city is complex and full of contradictions. The complexities and contradictions in
Kolkata are just more overwhelming because the population is larger, the
religious diversity is broader, the combination of technology and the old world
is constant, and the people are more expressive about their highs and
lows. I have never spent time in a place
where life is lived so fully by every person.
Because there are few (if any - except the Oberoi) quiet and private
places to retreat to, people live in front of each other and embrace the wide
range of human emotions that they are likely to see at any moment. Everyone is so accepting of human nature
because they must confront it and display it in the open. There is not one day that I didn’t have a
moment of experiencing something that I had never experienced before. Not all of those experiences were pleasant,
but I am leaving with a better understanding of the ultimate goodness of
humanity. Some of what I saw was ugly
and heartbreaking, but mostly what I saw was a city of hundreds of millions
loving one another and doing their best to make their communities and the globe
better. It was heartwarming to
experience and witness the selfless generosity of people who have so
comparatively little.
On our way to the airport, Janet, Drew and I discussed
India’s lack of social programming and how ordinary citizens compensate for
that by helping each other. This is behavior that is both instinctive and
learned. The school where I taught has
classes take turns bringing in food and clothes to distribute in the slums and
there were always fundraisers to help the citizens in the north who had suffered
some serious flooding. Yet, there were
also just spontaneous acts of charity where people handed over the leftover
food they were carrying out of a restaurant or gave money to beggar. I know these things happen the world over,
but remember that Kolkata is packed, so these things were happening constantly
and beautifully.
Later - I am now less
than 2 hours from landing at Dulles and I have never wanted to be home so
badly. I think that I have decided that
flying is dumb and painful. My entire
body is achy and I am starting to dislike children. No good.
I am trying instead to use my last hours to reflect on what I want to
take home with me.
I know that I want to take home memories of my students and
how hard-working and hopeful they were.
I was consistently in awe of how much time and effort they were willing
to put into any assignment. I know that
most of my students in the States are the same way, but for my Indian students
there was a desperation to learn that is unmirrored in U.S. education. Students in India know how much their
families are sacrificing to put them through schools (especially the more
expensive English medium schools). They
know that they are the hope of their families to escape poverty by raising a
doctor, engineer, astronaut, etc. My
students in India often were not learning for themselves only, they were learning
for the welfare of their families and the lengths that they were willing to go
to were incredible. I think the idea
that there is no safety net of social services also spurred them on. In India, I never heard anyone blame a
teacher or lack of support as a reason for failure; there is this internal
belief that they are responsible for their own destinies that drives their
studies. That is why they go home and
try to make sense of content heavy instruction that is delivered in a very
lecturey way. I don’t know that I want
my American students to have to feel the same kind of desperation or
responsibility for the fate of their family, but I do want to remember how beautiful
that spirit of determination is.
I also want to take home the hospitality and selflessness
that I witnessed. I am not sure that I
have done as many kind deeds for others in my whole lifetime as were done for
me in the course of a month. I hope to
remain inspired to share what I have less selfishly. This will be hard for me. I am especially selfish with my time and
always setting boundaries on how much time I am willing to spend doing
something; in India, nobody ever made me feel like they were enduring me until
they got to what they really wanted to be doing. They never made me feel like I was asking too
much of them or taking more of their resources than I should. The generosity in Kolkata is a special sort.
I also want to remember how many times I felt thankful that,
as much as I loved Kolkata, for me it was temporary and escapable. For so many people all over the world, they
don’t have the same options of mobility and upward progress that are available
to me. They are likely never going to
experience huge change in their situation, but they don’t resent the lives they
were given. While they might long for
better; they keep living what they have.
I still have much reflection to carry out, and I don’t doubt
that India will continue to change me from afar. I am a lucky girl to be carrying back so much
love and friendship and insight into another place. I am lucky even if I am in an uncomfortable
seat with some baser aspects of humanity showing through in the tired and
cranky passengers around me.
