The word alternative means that there is something that’s “mainstream”, something that’s expected and anticipated. Something that’s assumed to be there by default. Something that has the stamp of history.
I use the word history with caution, having chosen to enter the field of professional past-analysers whose task is to tell you who you are at this instant, just as the weatherman tells you what the utility of your umbrella is today.
But have you asked yourself, who you are? What is your history? A history that is not defined and codified like so much programming by a set of professionals? What is the history that is truly yours?
You do have a history, and this history is composed of things no one else could have known, seen, felt, experienced or remembered in a way you have. It’s a history that moves out of the general and into the particular, into your own personal space – the space of your own heart and its emotions. It is an emotional history.
But where did the emotions come from? Facts, events, circumstances? What were those events? Why did you feel the way you did about them? And what could you have felt instead? What could have happened instead? Happening and feeling combined, what would have been your alternative emotional history? And what sort of person would it have made of you?
And would that different person, with that different history, be writing at this time on this topic at all?
These thoughts, like every other stream of thoughts, have context. You see, a few months ago I was an offer holder for the PhD course in History at SOAS. The application process had been a long one, but I’d found some very understanding and friendly people along the way. People who were willing to forego the frostiness of intellectual snobbery and name-dropping to truly look into my topic. People who were willing to provide me the intellectual support I needed for applying to my first university abroad.
Such people live in the UK you see. In India, there are narrow minded people. People who believe they know a lot when they’ve only read a few books. And heard of a few others. I met such people at my Felix interview and three days later, I was, de facto, out of contention for a seat at SOAS.
Move forward three months, yes, just three. I receive an email from a certain Mr. Ross. It’s a welcome letter for those joining SOAS this year. It talks about welcome programs and orientation and various formalities. Formalities I was supposed to go through.
Formalities I’m supervising, sort of! You see I’d joined the BESC as a lecturer and had gradually taken up the responsibilities of a teacher. Part of this included taking the new students to a tour of the library, asking them to head to various orientation programs and being in the front row on the Teacher’s Day.
All this made me a teacher. I am leading a teacher’s life and am likely to do so in the near future as well. But what if I’d been selected for Felix? I’d never have applied for BESC, never would have thought of joining another class as a teacher so soon (again!) and…I’d have been flying to the UK – as a student.
That’s the point isn’t it ? I’d have been a student, and my eyes would probably have been filled with the same wonder I saw in the eyes of undergrad students – my students – whom I led through the college. I’d be making new friends, forming new bonds in a new environment. Did I not ? Of course I did, but as a teacher. There, I’d have been a student. Just like the students who now attend my lectures.
But there’d be one clear difference. My students attend college with their parents’ money. I’d have been attending SOAS off the funds of some donor who must not be named (hell, I don’t even know his name). These kids are close to their homes, to the families who pay and pray for them. I’d be far away from my family and living off the purse of someone whom I didn’t even know.
So how would I have felt as a student of SOAS ? Happy ? Of course. A bit scared, wondering if my manners were up to scratch, if my clothing was proper, if my academic records were in order and above all, wondering if I’d fit in. My students probably thought the same. Eventually they fit in. I’d have fitted into SOAS too.
What if, under such circumstances, I’d received Mr. Ross’ letter ? It’d have been one of many letters coming from various people regarding various affairs. I remember being offered a place to stay by Sanctuary Students. They’d have some correspondence. I remember discussing the future studies in UK with my supervisor. There’d be mails from her. Perhaps from my course coordinator, from the finances office, the Immigration office of the UK….the list could be endless.
The information given inside would be a sneak peek, wouldn’t it ? Building on what I already knew about SOAS and telling me what to do and what I should search for. Actionable intelligence.
But actionable intelligence it is not. Not for me. When I received this email, I was in the staff room, discussing a range of trivial matters with other teachers. Teachers who are today my friends and mentors, who count me as one of them.
So I read it with bemusement, a slight smile playing on my lips that no one noticed. Good thing, because it is never easy to explain these emotions unless it’s past midnight on a Friday (and you’re in front of a monitor instead of at the proverbial party).
So I read it with a slight tinge of pain. It felt as if you had a broken leg and someone passed you racing skates. A mistake no doubt, even suggested (as a self-effacing measure) in the first line of the text. But no amount of mistake could deprive me of the realization that I could have….and then, what could I have done ?
But I would never have thought of a “could have” with bemusement I I had been in the UK. I’d have been filled with dread, excitement and wonderment. I’m not, that history is not mine, that emotional history is not mine : that is not me.
Instead of being in the student’s shoes, I am in those of a person guiding them. Instead of marvelling at the presentations and orientations, I’m in staff rooms discussing the nitty gritty. Instead of being the audience, I’m the operator.
I could have been a student, I am a teacher.
So teacher I am, and that is my history. My existence is defined by what followed through, what fructified and provided me with a place to rest my head and raise it in pride. I did not raise it with pride when leaving the Biotechnology Centre of JNU where the interview was held. I did when I became a full-time faculty and BESC. And when direction removes stagnation, happiness supersedes pain, victory supersedes defeat and the wave of life drowns the islands of what-never-happened, history is written in my heart and mind, I am given identity.
But identities do not destroy memory, bitter or sweet. I can never forget what I went through to get to SOAS, and how its doors were closed to me. I would not forget this mail which rubbed the wounds raw. I will not forget.
But neither will I be able to live in these. They do not define me you see, they aren’t what I am or what I would be. They will become discordant memories, and in this way, shall remain till something brings them to the fore again! Discordant with the joy of my lectureship, discordant with the challenges of teaching and discordant with the identity that I now have – as a teacher.
So my history of SOAS and the letter would become a discordant history, unable to be my identity but too precious to be let go of. I think we all live with such discordant histories – histories created with facts and emotion in equal measure – that challenge our notions of our path in life by telling us that which we never can be.