Return to Sender

Gurus come in all shapes and sizes. Each one is responsible for my learning journey. There are no labels on experiences, labels on people are there? It is what I take from each interaction that counts.

Some things I have learned this year:

When my students' resources are challenged, when their right to access is hindered, I do not stay silent. I stand up and speak. 

When I keep discussions issue based, some people don't like it.

When I stand up for the courage of my convictions, their whispers don't matter

When I work hard at something and people label it is as deficient or 'whatever', I don't beat myself up.

When I do not open the presents of negative labels and comments, these gifts get returned to the sender.

 

Here it is then: the big learning moment for me. My work, my efforts and my learning are what they mean to me.  My mistakes and AHA moments teach me to be more, to see more, to grow.

Everything else is headed for the compost heap. And it makes the soil richer for new ideas and blossoming of positive energy.

So back to sender it is.

Happy day!

The real story

Here I am sitting with a grade 6 student who has finished his EQAO test a few minutes ahead of time. I am going to work with him next year so we are spending a little time chatting. He tells me about his family, I tell him about mine.

"Were does your daughter want to go university", he asks, wise beyond his years, knowing what he knows: after all he comes from a culture where "these parents" want "these kids" to go to university. So he knows what comes next.

"Have you been to Quebec", he asks. "Yes", I reply, " My daughter is going to university to Montreal, so we visited last month.

"Do you know there are bad people in Montreal now? They are bad, very bad", he remarks. He's been watching the student protests and this is what he remembers from the vivid images. I choose not to engage in the politics of this discussion, time enough for that later. Now, I only sit and listen to him.

So we chat. I talk to him about the conversations around equity and affordability and democracy as simply as his young mind can understand.

At the end he says: "You mean it is like selling a slice of pizza for 10 dollars so no one can afford it anymore. I get it."

You sure do, young man. You sure do.

Flaneur Rashmee: Homeward bound

At the Graduate Conference yesterday, I was completely transfixed by the Flaneur presentation.

I watched as the presenters shared their pictures of the changes they perceived in the communities and their responses to these changes. There were many heartfelt moments where my sentiments echoed those of the speakers: what it means to be an insider or outsider, what it means to touch the wistful twinge one feels to see a high rise amidst the cookie cutter homes one is used to be, what it means to be thrown into the midst of a movement and realise the anonymity of being the other.

I touched the feelings that I go through when I see the well lit balcony of my childhood home in Mumbai, where no one lives anymore. A place that once bustled with voices, arguments, the aroma of food cooked with love, a door that never shut anyone out is today a relic of the past. It is a pilgrimage site for the sibs to take their children to. I have one old key that does not open any doors in that home. Yet, I have the memory of my mother's soft hand pressing the key into my hand as I left her there, the last time I saw her still recognisable. After that she became a patient, sliding into assisted living, to be talked at and around. And I am still angry from that. Sitting in silence does not help. That is another view.

I have been doing this all these years without realising that it had a name. I have walked the streets of my neighbourhood, extremely mindful of the changes in the urban environment of Mumbai, Markham and Goa where I live everyday.

The wistfulness, the sensations of loss and of progress in myself and the view I see has always brought me back to the ephemeral nature of life.

My usb and Picasa account are filled with photographs of my walks. Just yesterday I realised that I was Flaneur Rashmee.

I sribbled my thoughts as I listened. I know what it means to be an outsider and an insider. I guess once I chose to leave, I lose all those factes of being an insider that made me who I am. Once I cross that line in the sand, I need permission, mostly tacit to revisit. I cannot encroach. Therefore I do not photograph Dharavi. These are homes of people who have found a way to survive, not to be gawked at. I respect that. It's home for many, not a voyeuristic destination for media moguls and hotshot filmmakers.

Does naming something make it richer?

Or are memories worth what they are just because they are there?

And my gaze, it is forever mindful.