Review: A Masterly Memoir Of Another Era

Review of two books in The Deccan Chronicle. 

Sharada Nayak. (2024). A Journey Across Generations. The Write Order, India. 

Sharada Nayak. (2016). The Raj Agent in Ceylon, 1936-1940. The Write Order, India.

I, ME, MY EARRINGS

‘I knew it was you. I saw the huge hoops. Couldn’t have been anyone else.’

Ted Rodgers, one of the most prestigious professors and authors to attend the most prestigious ELT conference in the Eastern hemisphere.

Three years since we had met, the one and only time! He recognized me!! By my earrings!!!

Not by my insightful comments or my dulcet tones but by my dressing profile. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it but it had to be good, right?

And it was, believe you me. He took me to dinner and charted out my academic career for the next 25 years, walking me through my Ph.D. application process, creating a list of most suitable universities, giving me invaluable advice about what to avoid. I owe a lot to my accessorial taste!! 

I don’t like any jewellery touching my skin. So no necklaces or bangles or even anklets. This left me with earrings, long, dangling, daring, for a touch of being dressed up and not be plain and unadorned. 

I can’t remember the first time I wore danglers, certainly since the mid-1980s. They weren’t very common when I was young except for jimikis. The only other dangles I had worn was cut out of an oddiyanam, a family heirloom.

When people comment on my earrings, my hand goes up to the ear lobe to finger it for a reminder of my choice for the day. This is not an affectation. Once I am dressed and out the door, I forget what I am wearing.

I buy my signature earrings, my only indulgence apart from books, as my fancy takes me, with no particular outfit in mind. But they are apparently appealing to everyone, well, most people most of the time. A friend recently said, ‘I would never buy the earrings you do but when you wear them, they look so nice and I wonder why I was not able to see the potential.’ My nieces regularly raid my collection which provides me a legitimate excuse to replenish my hoard.

I gather earrings from various sources. Never expensive ones so that I don’t mind if I lose them or they break.  

Presents from family

Mementoes of my travels 

Gifts from friends            

The past few years I’ve added another consideration of not just length but also weight.

My ears are getting too thin to carry heavy danglers. So lighter materials such as  

Fabric

Wood

Feathers

 Over a considerable period of time, my sisters have tried strenuously but unsuccessfully to dissuade me from flaunting them.

 About fifteen years ago, during the hallowed December music season in Chennai, my younger sister approached me at the Music Academy, all solemn and grim. ‘Can we go to the canteen? I have something serious to discuss with you.’

I was intrigued since neither the Academy nor the canteen there were her usual haunts. Nor could I think of what had happened that could be such a cause for concern. 

Before we could place our order, the manager approached us and turned to me respectfully. ‘Madam, may I say something? I have been watching you for the past week. You wear new, new earrings and they are unique and beautiful.’

My sister’s face changed dramatically from serious to aghast to outraged. ‘Did you put him up to this?’

As I laughed helplessly, she abated her wrath and told the poor, unsuspecting man, ‘You have thoroughly undermined my scheme. I was going to pitch a plea to ditch these monstrosities. And now you have made things a million times worse!’  

Quite unexpectedly, a few months ago in Toronto I found myself separated from my jewellery box for two weeks. I wondered … What if I have bare naked ears? How would it impact my identity? How would others see me? How would I see myself?

So I ran a field experiment. Independent variable: presence/absence of earrings. Dependent variable: people’s reactions and comments and my own self-perception.

Across two countries, Canada and Ireland, for a total of four weeks I went practically earring-less except for the occasional event and even then chose the smallest ones I had.

Initially, I felt a little self-conscious but the family didn’t comment on it at all, almost as though they didn’t notice the dispossession. Or they may have played it safe and decided not to remind me of my base instincts!

Honestly, I enjoy wearing earrings. Also honestly, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-honestly, I am not totally hung up on them (pun intended). 

I don’t see my identity tied up with my earrings. True, they have been the most recognizable part of my ensemble but I think I proved to myself that I can now take it or leave it.

It now follows as the night the day that I don't need 300 pairs of earrings anymore. When I went out to work every day, I did use my vast collection, airing each pair regularly. But my wardrobe has shrunk considerably and my work, play and special occasion dresses are not as distinctly different. Which means I need fewer accessories.

Where does this leave my vast hoard of danglers? Skinning it down, maybe.

I was delighted when my great-niece picked out about 10 for herself. The foundation of a collection perhaps?

My nieces, cousins and various friends of friends have all had their pick over the past few years. 

I thought I was doing well with the winnowing of my wardrobe.

And then … my friend in Chicago presented me with three lovely ones that I received with gleeful pleasure. 

And the hoard grows ... 

WHIMSY IN ORGANIZED TOURS?

I wonder: Do all people have a lot of internal dialogue when they plan a trip?

My trip to Oaxaca, Mexico was a peach to plan for. 

I got an email inviting me on an all-girls trip to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday.
It took me 30 seconds to reply Yes!!
Another friend sent me her flight schedule. It took me another 15 minutes to book on the same flights.

There were subsequent suggestions/questions from Priya, Kalpana and Lakshmi regarding places to visit and restaurants. I sent one combined response which took me 15 seconds: Anything you people plan is fine with me. 
The most time I spent on preparation was an hour setting up a Zelle account to transfer money as required. 

Total prep time for a one week trip: 75 minutes 45 seconds. 

And it was fun. Lots of food, drinking, shopping. Interesting sights. And great company, with our personal translator Durga.

 

A 12 day trip to Ireland, on the other hand, was a trifle more work.

It didn’t start out right. Two sets of friends were supposed to come with me. We had planned to take a car and drive around. With one friend I would have done a lot more shopping. With the other, a Nora Roberts fan, we would visit small, out-of-the-way villages staying in quaint places. I drew up a schedule to accommodate both desires. Neither was meant to be. They had to pull out for various perfectly legitimate reasons.
So back to the drawing board for a solo trip. 
Should I still plan a small-town Ireland schedule? Nah, it wouldn’t be the same without my friend. Also, booking at 8 or 9 different accommodations, checking each one out … I couldn’t bring myself to spend so much time on the task.
Which led to my 2nd question: Should I still hire a car and drive around?
I love driving and am very happy behind the wheel. But I remembered with trepidation a jaunt to Scotland in a friend’s car. A couple of the narrow roads were not exactly me at my best. And Irish roads are reportedly narrow, very narrow, especially the ones leading to Nora Roberts-locales. (Endorsed by a coach driver: You see the roads marked L? They are Local. Avoid them at all costs. The ones with R? Regional. Not down them, either. And those that are N or M? Meant to be easier. But not really. So how do you get around Ireland in a car? With great difficulty!)
And in November, which is low season, not much vehicular traffic to help if I had a breakdown. Let’s not call it an accident, in which I would mostly likely be the causer rather than the causee. Another twinge of concern.
I sighed deeply and decided to be sensible. No driving.
I would make day trips and do all the touristy things. I wouldn’t hunt down the uncommon experiences I would have favoured. I would see the Ireland that everyone saw and raved about.

 And that was my first good decision for the trip.
Next step, I listed all the must-see places, compiled from various official and commercial sites mapped on to travel blogs. Most of them originated from Dublin. Ireland is small enough that it could, by and large, be covered in a week or so, it seemed.
A no-brainer: Dublin would be my base.
Another step, accommodation. If I was taking 10 to 13 hour trips a day... If I was going to wake up early, very early, as early as 6.00 am. to catch these trips... I would pamper myself. Not a B&B where I may have to share space with strangers. A hotel, a good one, with slightly larger space than usual.
It had to be close enough that I wouldn’t have to walk miles to get to the pickup points for the coaches every day. Close enough to Temple Bar for the food but far enough for the night revelry to be muted.
The Morgan on Fleet Street, the perfect spot. My second good decision.

So for 12 days I had a wonderful time in Ireland. I was glad someone else was driving while I could look out the window, soaking in the extraordinary scenery of green fields, running water and the Atlantic Ocean. We drove through or stopped at enough small towns to satisfy my mild interest in Nora Roberts-mentions. 

    

                                              Literature .... History .... Culture

I elected museums and churches over the Guiness tour; I am not a drinker and even a Bailey’s hot chocolate made me sick. At Belfast I passed over a visit to the Titanic for a Black Cab tour by a Catholic who had lived through the Troubles. However, my first ever stop was at a petrol station for a loo break 😄

I preferred a literary tour through Dublin featuring Joyce, Wilde and Bram Stoker and, on the last night, I saw Jane Austen’s Emma at the storied Abbey theatre. 
The guides were chockful of quirky facts such as Jeremy Iron's Norman keep is painted pink and Raman spectroscopy was used in the preservation and analysis of the Book of Kells. 

Myths and legends abound in Ireland with faerie trees in every part of the country. My favourite story was that the Cashel Rock is the deposit of a bite the devil took from the mountain as St. Patrick chased him with incantations. 

I chose not to step into the bars though the music spilled out on to the streets as I walked back to my hotel. Two of the tour guides provided me the touch of Irish music I needed.

And every night I came back to peace and quiet and much-needed alone-time in my hotel room.

If anyone would like to replicate my schedule, take 75 minutes and 45 seconds of your time, and just ask me. I can be your Priya-Kalpana-Lakshmi!!

Oh, by the way, the visuals here are whimsical, too. Not a chronicle of every place I visited. Totally arbitrary and personal, just what I liked and would like to flip though again.

Before you go, would you like to take a quick stab at identifying some quotes from Wilde inscribed on his memorial in Merrion Square?

Garage Sale-ing with Aunty

 

“Hello, Hema.”

I looked into the smiling eyes and expectant face.

“Ready, Aunty?”

“Yes, chalein (shall we go)?”

We walked out to my car. Her woven handbag was hanging from her wrist. I knew it contained a handkerchief, a small coin purse and a few dollars.

 We were off on our weekly jaunt. Me a 40-something and Aunty a 60-something. A ritual like no other for me. A delightful pleasure to both of us. We shared a ride and a determination to keep to a very low budget of a few dollars only.

 Every Saturday about 12.00 pm, I would pull up outside her house, pick her up and we drove around neigbourhoods in Indianapolis and Carmel, looking for treasures that no one else wanted.

 “The Senior Centre, they said Meridian Hills is a good place today.”

“A community sale?”

“No, each house only, many houses.”

“Did anyone go there?”

“No, from the Community bus they saw three signs. We’ll go?”

I pulled out my Indianapolis map to plot the road. And off we went.

 In Indiana, unlike some other states, you didn’t need to get permission to hold a garage sale. You organized all the stuff you didn’t want in the house, displayed clothes on racks, knickknacks on rickety tables (also for sale sometimes), books and records in cardboard boxes and furnishings on the ground.

 I parked the car in the middle of the row of Garage Sale signs so that Aunty would not have to walk too far to any of the sites.

The first house we went to, she cast an experienced eye over the offerings.

She smiled at the woman who was sitting in the chair, reading a magazine.

“Hello,” Aunty opened the conversation. “You are selling books? No magazines?”

“No, these books are gathering dust. I need to clear my shelves to buy more,” the woman explained.

Aunty continued to make small talk while I browsed

“Yahan tho kuch nahin milega (Won’t get anything here),” Aunty observed.

We smiled our goodbyes and went to the next sale site.

 Aunty was clever and creative, always busy with some craft project or other, some of which would be dictated by what she found at these garage sales. She had an uncanny nose for bargains and a keen eye for all kinds of things that would be useful. She saw potential in every scrap where most others saw junk.

A skein of wool. Bits of cloth. An old dress that had a good pattern that she could cut up. Buttons of all shapes and sizes and materials. Picture wire. Crochet hooks. Knitting needles. Magazines with knitting patterns.

She shared her insights on how she would turn what seemed like random pieces into dolls, earrings, bracelets, wall pieces, blankets, patchwork quilts. Only those which had specific uses that she identified as gifts for her circle of visiting relatives and friends.

“Remember the blue napkin set we bought last month? I can use this print material to stitch a hem on it. The blue is very plain.”

 What I loved best was the camaraderie. She never persuaded me to try my hand at any of her craft work. Never said, “You can if you only tried… Of course everyone can and should be interested in crafts.”

 I am a later riser. She never complained that I didn’t get in time before the choice bits were taken, that we were never among the early birds to catch the brightest and cheapest stuff.

 She never blew her budget nor allowed me to. Once her store of dollars and change was exhausted, she would go with me to sites more to my taste. Initially when I was setting up my house, I would be on the lookout for lamps and side tables. Later through the years, I mooched around for used books, earrings. She never offered her opinion, never directed my taste. Her comments always centered on how I could use it, and gently steered me away from unsuitable or over-priced articles.

 I now have a flat in Chennai that has sufficient furniture handed over or shared with me by my family: antique chairs from my great-grandfather and my sister, bookshelves and a chest of drawers from another sister, crockery from the third one, a dining set from my aunt and cousins, beds from friends before they moved abroad. Each piece is imbued with personal history and emotions.

I still need lamps and side tables to make this flat into a home and I am reduced to banal shopping on Amazon.in

But no more quirky bargains from garage sales. Aunty isn’t here to go with me.

In memory of Mrs. Roma Bhattacharya, my whimsical person shopping companion.

OBJECTS OF CURIOSITY

 

At the confluence of the rivers Kathjodi and Mahanadi in Cuttack, it is a wondrous sight to see the birds coming to roost. 

At about 5.30 pm, cormorants and egrets fly by the hundreds to the river and gather in large and small groups, resting on the still waters against the setting sun. In time, they swoop and slide, going around in circles without ever running into each other. 

 

Their objective is a large tree in which they all settle for the night. How all those hundreds of birds find a resting place without the branches bending, let alone breaking, is another wonder. 

If you have been to Lodi Garden at sunset, you have an idea of the noise created, and the sudden silence that descends at a point when some elder apparently says, ‘Enough, silence, sleep now.’ Any teacher would envy the immediate obedience this unheard command seems to engender😀

I go there to watch this spectacle regularly, though not often enough.

Two evenings ago, however, a motorboat with some revellers were on the water. They were roaring around, making a lot of noise, leaking fuel exhaust into the river water, and causing a fairly small but distinct backwash, apparently uncaring of how they may affect the birds. I don’t know if it indeed did affect the birds, they didn’t seem to change their ritual of getting ready for the night.

But I resented this interference in my enjoyment of a ritual in nature, even while I acknowledged I had no right to feel like that. None of that belonged to me, not the river, not the water, not the boat, and definitely not the birds, any more than they belonged to the revellers.

In this scenario of birds, their flying patterns, their final dance of the day, I am an observer. I like watching them, wondering about their lives, and asking questions which I have no intention of answering more cursorily than with a quick search on Google. To me the birds are an ‘object of curiosity.’ I don’t seek to make any changes, nor interfere with, such natural events. I am not expected to, nor would it be encouraged. On the contrary, if I tried to choreograph this sunset dance in any way, everybody I know would be revolted and I would be reviled, not without reason. Nature, for me, is to observe, to marvel at, to enjoy – and to go back home with pleasant memories.

Is that what we do with our students when we set them a project or have them study a phenomenon?

We ask them to examine, look at, observe the world around us. We encourage them to ask what-whom-when-where-and-why about the things they see. They attend, describe, hold, identify, locate, name, recognize, select, and use, if they can, these ‘objects of curiosity.’ They may also discuss, examine, greet, and label them. They may even report on, recite, respond, tell, and write about them.

However, do we expect them to see how they affect the things they observe? Do we encourage them to acknowledge that by just being in the proximity of these objects of curiosity they affect the behaviour of these objects? And that is not always desirable? Is our null curriculum that we discourage them from seeing themselves as part of the word around them?

As teachers, are we teaching students that having curiosity is enough, that passive appreciation is sufficient unto the day? Is our hidden curriculum that deciding what is important and actionable, and following through on it, is not necessary? That recognizing ‘objects of curiosity’ is enough to make us good citizens of this earth?

Should our explicit and stated curriculum be that our students get involved in the lives of these ‘objects of curiosity’? That we teach our students to judge how they should respond actively rather than be silent, if keen, observers of, say, climate change? Should we prepare them for decision-making and following through on completing the process of change to the environment or their society? That it is not sufficient to go through the motions of writing to the mayor about the trash on the roads, and then walk past that same trash for months without making efforts to ensure the corporation’s trash-collection processes are regular and effective?

I wonder …

Are we preparing Greta Thunbergs? Should we be preparing Greta Thunbergs?

Photo credit: Rakesh Raghunathan 

My Diverse Self-Learning, Unlearning and Re-Learning

 

Narratives of South Asian and South Asian American Social Justice Educators

Edited by Anita Rao Mysore 

Foreword: Christine Sleeter

Contributors: Nina Asher, Anita Chikkatur, Dimpal Jain, Saili S. Kulkarni, Anand, R. Marri, Anita Rao Mysore, Hema Ramanathan, Dilys Schoorman, and Raji Swaminathan 

Lexington Books, 2022

Series: Race And Education In The Twenty-First Century

Narratives of South Asian and South Asian American Social Justice Educators carries the voices of faculty in higher education. Caught between the stereotypes of the model minority and invisibleness, the authors narrate their triumphs, trials and tribulations as social justice educators in US teacher education and in allied fields. Their autoethnography-based narratives substantiate that a racial America is far from over. Stemming from their experiences in classrooms and in the community, the authors offer usable strategies to educators and administrators, with the objective of creating a socially just society. 

Chapter Eight: My Diverse Self: Learning, Unlearning and Re-Learning

I wrote this chapter in 2020 when I was lockeddown in Toronto. Fortunately, I had backed up all the required data online and so was able to access it. 

I owe a lot to my group of friends who helped me remember my childhood days with greater accuracy, and my students who read drafts and encouraged me to tell their tale along with mine. 

It was an intense period of self-reflection which made me glad for the experiences life afforded me.

A Review of Two Books: 'Parthiban's Dream' and 'Meeran's Stories'

 Another review that I wrote in May and has  been published. I hope you get to read the originals and their translations. 

Both these books are available on Amazon.