15 Sep 1998

Dav!

I am bald now. No, I did not do it b/c I am going potty in the head and have joined some weird cult. In order to save money (a haircut costs
$30), I asked one of my teammates to cut my hair. She did a reasonable
job except she did not remove enough from the top of my head, leaving me looking like a mushroom. So when I came back to my school the next night I decided to trim it a little more. I was doing just fine but a little slowly so I decided to speed up the process by swishing at it twice
without a comb. And lo! I had a nice little bald spot right at the center of my head. The only solution left to me at 1am was to shave it all off. Was quite a sight the next day at school – I then learnt it was against the rules to shave one’s head – skinhead and neo-nazi all that.

A couple of teachers were a bit upset but luckily the headmistress likes
me and she laughed it off. At least I get to save on some shampoo bills. The other consolation is that I finally got to see the scar on the back of my head – the counterpart to the scar on my lip – something I had always wanted to do – did not realize how deep and wide it is. Moral of the story: always use a comb while cutting hair with scissors, and be careful how much you cut b/c once it is off there is no way to stick it back!

A few more days have slipped by. Some tougher than others, some brighter than the rest. I wonder if the greater toll is on one’s body or on one’s emotions. At the same time, the joy of touching another’s life is quite refreshing. There are days when it seems the entire world is arrayed against you and you feel totally helpless. You look around at all these lives drifting by and you think “Why?” An insignificant notch on a
nondescript tablet. Then there are those few moments when one connects with another soul and you see the pain being eased just that little bit. Not sure who the healer is and who the healed. Perhaps there is only healing.

I sleep well these days. I don’t dream much. The memory of those sleepless nights when one battled with who one is and where one was headed with this life seems quite distant now. The wretched agony was almost physical and each morning was just a dull reminder of one’s
struggle. Now each night ends a day and each day ends a night. There is
no carry over from one to the other. It is as if the erstwhile gap
between life and work has been bridged. Earlier, work was something one did to enjoy the rest of life. It was to be endured so one could relish other times. Now work is life and I am unable to distinguish the two. There is no struggle in this sense any more. Perhaps the most important
realization has been to see the fallacy of “becoming”. There is no grand
destiny to be fulfilled or a legacy to be left behind. The present is no
more a merely inconsequential moment in a Grand March towards the Eternal. The present just is. It is no more and no less.

I see some of my students vegetate in front of the TV and it scares me
to think I was not very different a few months ago. Not many know of the number of hours I wasted in front of the idiot box since I left India. One day my headmistress remarked that I have a lot of energy and that she would be very surprised if I were to burn out. She refused to believe me when I told her just how lazy I had been before I came here. Fatigue seems to be a state of mind rather than of body. Of course there is physical wear out if one is not careful with what one eats and how much one exercises but that is different than indolence. Perhaps I am talking too soon and I might have to swallow these words a few months down the line. But I would like to think not.

Taught a short course on Gandhi. Nothing scholarly – just tried to introduce the concepts of non-violence and civil disobedience. One of
the teachers did not want me to stress too much on the latter, in case
the students found a contorted justification for their behaviour. Reminded me of a rule I learnt when studying cryptosystems: never rely
on the secrecy of an algorithm to protect your system. Mere knowledge of the algorithm should not be sufficient to break the system. Same with “character development” methinks. Hiding information, tools or ideas is not an effective means to prevent deviant behaviour, especially with children who have seen it all. What is perhaps more sensible is to
distinguish how these ideas may be abused and how they may be utilized effectively. Of course it is ridiculous to learn about non-violence as a mere concept when there is nothing in one’s life to believe it can be
anything more than a mere concept. What I tried to do was to get them
thinking whether violence by means of words, thoughts and actions may be ceased completely – not in the entire world but within our small
community. And what will it take from each of us to achieve it? Could
each of us have said or done something that day a little more gently?
Did not get far in terms of “results” or a plan of action but I hope
(perhaps a little too optimistically) that a seed has been sown
somewhere in their minds and it will act subconsciously. Who knows?

Taught another mini course on the Big Bang theory. Lost control of the
class almost totally. For the first time I realized the handicap of not being fluent in Danish. A student asked me what difference did it make
to her life whether the universe started with a big bang or not. Indeed,
what difference? It was not so much the content of the topic that I was
trying to convey to them but I was hoping to start a discussion, to get
them to start using their minds, to feel confident of voicing opinions
and to defend them logically. So much for planning a class. It just went
haywire with one student walking out, two lolling around on the carpet,
one making a sketch of a ship, and just two remaining to watch the video I was screening. However I did manage to get them to agree to look up at the sky the next time they walk outside at night, and to just take a few moments to wonder how it all got there. Who knows what they will see, if they see at all?

There are times when you lose your temper but one needs to constantly remind oneself that the temporary anger is targeted towards an act rather than the person who committed the act. It is even more important to make sure the students understand it. Sometimes the abuses get a little too harsh not to take them personally but the moment you show that the abuses affect you they have a new weapon against you. It is amazing how much of all this is a matter of power play – come to think of it, much of “normal” child rearing is based on power equations.

Do me a favour the next time you see a child on the road – just give it your brightest smile. It costs you little and saves much for the
child.

Hilsener,
Arvind