Category: Bloody Opinions

It is never pleasant to defend one who has just insulted your profession. Neither is it easy to do so when your friends think the said offender to be lacking in the very skills you admire him for. And it’s nigh impossible in the age of Facebook, because here everything’s clickbait. Including the topic at hand – the relevance of the historian.

Before I continue on my own thread, a little background. I’m a fan of Chetan Bhagat, a big one. The type of fan that people like SRK and Salman Khan get. Trouble is that it’s still okay to profess undying love to SRK on his birthday even when he’s hit 50. It’s not okay to praise Chetan Bhagat for being a great author of pulp fiction. It becomes near anathema when Bhagat goes and gets himself “had” (trolled in internet lingo) by a renowned lyricist and then says that historian do nothing more than give a date or a name and call it a day.

But my point here is not to discuss the logic behind Bhagat’s reckless comments. Neither do I want to comment on the quality of his writing compared to the posts he puts on Twitter, etc. The point here is one which we students of history take for granted the moment we enter a class of history (either as student or teacher). That is –

HISTORY = PROFESSIONAL DOMAIN  = TASK OF THE PROFESSIONAL HISTORIAN

This equation, in my humble and unobtrusive opinion, is bullshit.

Why ? Let’s break this equation down.  First, what is history ? Without going into Carr and Amales Tripathi (neither of which are read by the general populace), let’s say that history is the study of the past. More pertinently, study of what we deem important in the past and what we have information for. So we may have a lot of information about the thickness of grates of sewers but we’re only interested in finding the causality between poor sewer drainage and epidemic. So if grates come into the picture, well and good. If they don’t, get some other source. If you still get nothing, theorize the nightsoil out of the topic till you don’t need any sources at all.

Trouble is, not everyone is interested in learning the history you wish to learn. People can glean any amount of meaning out of the thickness of grates and fit it into any history they like. In other words, history is the study of the past the way the person wishes to study it. So what “we” deem important is not the sum total of what is held to be important.

Still confused. Well, while we “historians” (coming to that) debate over the minutae of the events leading to the battle of Plassey, many more people are interested in learning about whether there was a Mandir at Ayodhya.

But this argument can be placed for every “arts” subject out there. Say for instance, political science. Every person deems the political process to be of a different nature and studies different aspects. He or she may reach conclusions and form ideologies which do not agree with any known school of political philosophy. How then is history different ?

History is not different really, except that it is the one “arts” which cannot be proved while everyone wants to prove it. Being in the past, all history is a work of inference. It cannot be duplicated because creating the same exact conditions is impossible. Other arts disciplines, at least, have some component in the present. Elections can be duplicated, so can works of art. Not history, sorry, it can only be inferred. In fact, if it is duplicated, it by definition goes out of the realm of history because it is no longer in the past.

The problem arises when everyone wants to prove something in history. Such proving is often in a political or social context – a context where “proof” lends legitimacy to a claim while deligitimizing another. For instance, proving that a boundary existed at a certain point in a field can justify the land claims of one family while refuting those of another because historically the division lay here instead of there.

History, therefore, gives us identity. It tells us what we were, and that in turn defines what we want to become. It gives us direction in life, either in conformity or against the “grain” – the trend – of history.

Now everyone has an identity, and so everyone needs to understand and explain his/her own history. This history is bound up with the history of the community and the nation, just as the person is bound with his/her nation and community. In fact, beyond the narrow realms of his family and village, the person is defined by the community and the nation. Hence, the histories of the community and the nation become vitally important for everything the person considers himself/herself to be beyond the narrow confines of local geography.

Such identity develops in two ways – passing down and creation. Passing down is a passive process in that it occurs as the child grows and sees his/her elders talking, behaving, scolding and praising him/her. It develops actively in that he/she is told that he/she must be a certain person, behave in a certain fashion because his/her forefathers were this and this behoves such behaviour and so on. Everything from grandma’s tales about the ancestral village to the scolding of the father about meeting some undesirable boy/girl develop this identity.

Now comes the creation of identity. Except for the most docile and the most brain-dead, each person internalizes such passed on knowledge in a manner that suits his/her character, circumstances and ambitions. Such internalizing occurs with an active and passive interaction with what has been passed on and what the person learns on his/her own, with or without the mediation of the guardians of information – the family and the community.

In other words, each person must interact with history to forge one’s identity, deciding how much of the passed on information to retain and what modifications to bring in it. Such interaction occurs from the very day he/she begins learning history and starts to see the history of the country and community as part of his/her own formation of the historical self. In most students, this process is initially passive and becomes active when he/she begins considering possibilities of challenging the existing situations. This takes a level of intellect and maturity that typically does not arrive before one’s mid to late teens.

But when it does, the interaction can lead to questions that the professional historian is not bothered with. In absence of professional history (or lack of access to it : pricing of CUP and OUP books is ever-so-affordable isn’t it?), the person  develops his/her own ideas about history from facts or quasi-facts that are readily available to him/her.

How is this creation of ideas from facts not the writing (figuratively, not everyone has the time or luxury to hold a pen and paper) of history? For if history be the study of the past and the past the person wishes to  study, then such formation of ideas and identities involves creation of a history. This history may be as little as that of the village and as large as that of the nation. Since we’re considering the histories of the community and the nation as prime to the formation of one’s identity, such histories would involve ideas about the history of his/her community and nation. Such a history would be colored by the passed down information and the “history” created through conscious thinking. Combined together, they form a vital “version” or “type” of history in which the professional historian has had virtually no role or so indirect a one that the history actually created is vastly different from that what the historian wrote in the refereed journal.

If everyone is creating his/her own history and the vast majority of it is beyond the pale of the historian’s influence, how can the historian claim a defining role in writing history? He/she can if and only if there is a definitive strand of history that can triumph over all others.

How can this be done? One possibility would be to prove beyond doubt that that is what happened. But because everything is in the past, this is impossible. Here, history becomes the least scientific of all arts, no matter the level of scientific methods used to study it.

Even then, the professional historian is a professional – his/her task is to find the best kind of history using the methods that he/she has been taught to use. The pickaxe is blunt, but the historian is confident that it is a pickaxe so it must be used. Better than using a lasso for the job! So he/she painstakingly creates a history. Part of this history is irrelevant to the concerns of the people and remains confined to the academic journals. Part of the questions asked by the people are not answered by scholarly work. There is a disjunction between historians and larger societal concerns of history and no one tries to bridge it. This part is taken over by those who can claim to prove answers. This veracity the historian questions but in vain because –

1. He/she does not deal with the topic itself and has no answers himself/herself
2. The minutiae of the methodology criticized by the historian are lost upon the general populace
3. The “sources” used by the other histories are not used by the historian because they’re “illegitimate”. In the eyes of the person who believes in those sources, the historian becomes illegitimate.
4. Much of the historian’s language is obscurantist for the general reader and he/she soon loses interest in the academic arguments. Instead, the “answer” is accepted over the debate over whether the answer should exist or not. Bread, my friend, is always more welcome than a floury exchange of words over the type of flour used.

The part that matches the concerns of the larger public reaches the public domain and filters down. Books are reviewed in magazines, articles are read and simplified in opinion pieces and so on. Ideally, this history should trickle down and inform the general populace so that their ideas of history – their created history – is corrected.

The problem again, is that, “scientific”, “professional” history has no advantage over other types of history that abound in the minds of men. Most people are not interested in the nuances that make it better in the eyes of the historian, and even if they are, the hesitating, confused-sounding tone of professional research cannot stand against the confidence of the histories that have traditionally coloured the minds of men. Did such and such ruler have 500 wives ?

History A : Yep, 500 definitely!

History B : Nope, 550 is the number. The Great texts say so.

History C : A number between 400 and 532 would be great.  We could take 434 based on source A but then the other sources suggest that he married another 15 times. If we add the two and assume that there were no divorces, the number comes to 449. That is still a low number considering conventional wisdom and so we must look for other women in the harem. XYZ suggests that we take a look at the concubines who were given status almost equal to that of royal wives……

Seriously, did you get to the end of the paragraph of the third history? If you’re not sitting in a library or a college drinking coffee, would you have the time to go through this or even a very simplified version of this ? If not, would you say that because I could not read history C, I would not decide. NO, you would take either history A or B and choose the one which you think is more logical based on the understanding of historical events you have. Such understanding, as we saw earlier, is shaped by family, society and school and is both passive and active. Whatever it is, such history often lies beyond the control and the influence of the professional historian.

In other words, the history the historian churns out has limited influence because, for various reasons, his is neither the easiest, surest, widely read or most legitimate history. The professional is just one of the many peddlers of history, and his version is limited in scope. The scope of history, in sum, is far beyond the province of the historian.

But you could say – the history taught in schools and in colleges is accurate: it is written history, written usually by professional historians. Correct, but where identities are forged by history (or interaction with what is seen as received history), there are many stakes involved. A person could become a communalist or a secularist based on what he/she read about the Partition. Would it not be in the interest of some to turn him/her into a secularist, and some others, into a communalist ?

Historians themselves are not free of such biases. The ideal historian is supposed to be secular, democratic and liberal. Looked at from other viewpoints, these traits themselves are biases against some religion, against strong and confident rule and against tradition. The historian does not rise above the ideological matrix, but sits within it.

Furthermore, each historian has his/her own ideological mindset. And so his/her history also differs because after all, the way he/she interacts with facts and creates history is still a function of the human mind. The human mind, all education and training considered, of the historian and of the peasant, of the peasant and the religious leader, is not that different.

So many histories are created with various stakes. Each stake conflicts with other stakes, other viewpoints of society and other petty and noble interests. Who decides what the general masses consume as history, and so forge their identities? Who becomes the custodian of history ?

The professional historians say – us! We are the most educated, trained, unbiased and scientific minded.

The religious “historians” say – us! We are the most devout, adherent to tradition and close to God.

The politicking “historians” say – us! We are those who will help you build a better understanding of what the country and the community needs to be.

All say to each other – you are not a proper historian!

Great,  so now we have a verbal brawl going on. Verbal brawls can turn into muscular ones. It turns out that the professional historians have some rather ineffectual weapons called pens. They don’t stand much of a chance, especially because any advantage is lost by incessant debates within themselves.

Instead, the other groups use state power, religious power, caste power, every sort of meaningful power, to win. One group wins with minimal compromises and gets to be the custodians of history. From podiums to history books, they decide what history is and therefore, what the person needs to know to create his/her identity. They become the authors – and the custodians – of history.

The professional historian has long assumed that he/she will get the microphone and the muscle power from his/her cozy office chair – along with the funds to keep that chair cozy of course. As history shows this wannabe professional historian however, the battle was never theirs to win. It would take a philosopher-king of great intellect to grant power to those who have but flimsy pens to wield it. For power does not flow from the point of the pen, but from the printing press and the loudspeaker, colouring the minds of people in a manner that forges their identity in a manner amenable to you.

But like all professionals, the historian refused to be useful to society by staking a claim to this power, by getting out of the cozy chair and into the mandi and the masjid. He/she refused to go  the extra mile required for the prachar of his/her history and opposed to the lekhan of it. He/she refused to form the political  and social apparatus that other propagators of “history” did. He/she refused to be an agent of social change or of social stability. He/she refused to be anything but a parasite giving out dates and names and publishing unreadable articles while the history and identity of the communities and the nations were held by those with more zest, more capability and less mental confusion than the dear professional historian. Finally, when the historian is being shown the total impact of his/her erudite scholarship and being told that such work does not deserve such large amounts of funds is the great slumber finally breaking.

Whether this slumber leads to a great contribution by historians – the professional, pen-toting variety – in shaping the identity and the course of the nation’s mentality, or just to another barrage of articles, time will soon tell.

It’s generally not my intention to interfere in the lives and works of others. I say “others” because I don’t have the rare privilege of studying in a Central University. My own university does, but the rules are different and the ongoing #OccupyUGC movement means nothing for me. So in a way you could say that I feel discriminated against – a movement by protesters involves something that does not pertain to me. So should I demand extension of the fellowship to other universities? Nope, I want them all scrapped and replaced by something based on meritocracy.

Why? To answer why, let’s demolish the arguments put forth by those encroaching upon and defacing the UGC premises.

1. Research is a Right – Yeah right, and so perhaps, is MBA. Both are higher degrees, pursued by people for career goals. Both are not included in the minimum qualifications for the lowest tier of employment. Both are undertaken in so-called Grad Schools. But then MBA is not a right. Anyone who claims that the government should be paying people to do MBA instead of working their arses off in their job will be laughed out of the park. Then why research?

Research is not part of one’s fundamental education. Let’s face it, fundamental education ends in Class XII, higher education ends when one passes out of one’s MA/MTech. No job requires a higher qualification than this, ergo, these are the limit to which the definition of “required” education can be extended. The welfare state is expected to provide people with such required education, not every degree you could possibly hope to achieve in order to go from one rank to another. Sorry, the welfare state is not your cash-rich father. So if you must pursue research, it must be taken as a form of education that is limited to you and will benefit you and you alone. It is a privilege, and the welfare state has no need to finance privileges.At least, not privileges of all who want to enjoy that privilege.

2. Research enhances our knowledge – True, if it is fields and on topics which improve human life. Not every research topic deserves the same respect, simply because some are so esoteric that they would never be of any use whatsoever except to the handful who are interested in it for the sake of interest. For the vast remainder, such research will yield no dividends at all. The taxes they paid to finance such research will not produce anything they can use or even understand. In a way, it is the transfer of public money from the public arena to a privileged arena where journals are so priced as to be inaccessible, JSTOR access is limited to a few and seminars become fiefs of intellectuals who theorize everything to the point where nothing is relatable to reality.

3. Research is a productive social activity – NOT! BY virtue of producing some pieces of text that no one will read or find useful, research cannot claim to provide itself justification as a productive social activity. For instance, if you wrote a piece of text and published it in some journal. Less than 10% of the readership of the journal will read it. On the other hand, if you are a teacher, you would be disseminating basic facts to at least 50 students per year. At that rate, your contribution is far higher than anything a researcher can achieve.

Problems are exacerbated by the fact that may who are engaged in research are fundamentally unemployable in the education sector or are disinclined to take up productive employment. You can teach 3 days a week as a Guest Lecturer and get the money paid by the non-NET fellowship to MPhil students. I myself have done just that and am so much the better for it because of the experience and the sense of self-respect it generates. People cooped up in libraries will never gain the experience and the widening of their mindsets that comes from teaching. Hence, in every seminar on teaching history (my subject), you find these researchers saying that we need to make the syllabus more “sophisticated” and provide a more theoretical basis for students to understand topics. Try doing these in a college where the majority of students have little access to your costly publications and still less to the seminars where your high-flying opinions are voiced. Try getting them to pass their exams – the basic graduation exams – based on your Foucault and Derrida. Let’s see where your arrogance resides then.

4. What teachers “teach” is based on research – Absolutely! If no research takes place, the discipline will fossilize and die out. In fact, what we need is more research in more diverse streams to keep the subject relevant. The problem is that a lot of research seems to handle subjects that do not fall into this criteria – they rehash the same arguments again and again and/or work on topics so theoretical that even someone with a MA degree (me!) has trouble understanding them.

So while Sumit Sarkar’s work on Swadeshi is a great piece of research, some of the post-modern works coming out today are utter trash. In fact, as I understand Sumit Sarkar thinks them to be trash too. There’s just no point funding everyone who says he/she is doing research because, let’s face it, all research is not equal and not relevant.

5. Fellowships help underprivileged communities and women – Uh yeah, but so does employment. If you can employ yourself, you can be financially independent and at the same time, enjoy the privilege of research in your spare time. This applies to all – men, women, underprivileged, overprivileged, etc. So why must you pursue fellowships? Because you don’t want to work. And if you don’t want to work, you are not a productive member of society. Pressure will increase on you to do something productive – get a different job, get married, etc. That’s only logical isn’t it? Ending these fellowships, seen from this perspective, will help rationalize our workforce by pruning those who wish to get money without working.

So my solution ?

Expand the number of NET fellowships so larger number of people can avail these. If needed, create two tiers of fellowships, one for those clearing JRF and another for those getting LS only. NET is a national exam and it pits all – regardless of whether you’re working on history of caterpillar procreation or the Partition – against others to test their mettle. It is deeply flawed, that cannot be denied. But fixing the exam is better than doing away with meritocracy altogether.

Beyond NET, there could be situations where those who clear various state SET are given a certain fellowship as well by the UGC. This would substantially broaden the scope of fellowships but keep them linked to a verifiable criterion. Of course, those clearing both NET and SET would be allowed to get only one.

Finally, there could be a limited number of fellowships for those who don’t have any of these. A merit panel would decide who gets these. In fact, I believe the UGC is going in for just such a move. In itself though, it may not be enough and would need to be coupled with the points mentioned above.

Final Thoughts

Research is a privilege, not a right. The extent of its social productivity is a direct function of its applicability to society and its ability to broaden society’s understanding of various topics relevant to it. There should be secular criteria to decide which fits these and which does not. NET/ SET is one criterion, expert panel is another. Those deemed unworthy by both these criteria can pursue their privilege, but at their own cost. Alternatively, they can take up employment and pay their way through research the way many MBA students do. In the light of these, UGC’s moves are to be welcomed by civil society at large, even if they are unpalatable to some who wish to hide behind piles of books instead of doing something productive in society.

 

 

It is often argued that socialism has something called dogma. What’s dogma? A set of rules and ideas that you HAVE to believe in. Just ask anyone in 1934 USSR, or 1953 PRC or today’s PRK (People’s Republic of Korea). Those who argue this argue correctly – blood has been spilt over it, much more blood than should have been over what Buddha would have called needless hair-splitting. Just ask anyone in modern Russia, China or South Korea (you wouldn’t have access to those in the North unfortunately).

There are – and were – various aspects of this dogma. It is not my intention to fill my blog with a study of socialism – there are a good number of studies on that, none of which I can recall right now because it has been such a long time since I studied that topic in detail. Anyways….

What I wish to talk about today is a certain aspect of this dogma that defined what man should be. You could not be just anyone in USSR. If you were, you could be branded a capitalist, a kulak, a petty trader or randomly anyone who was against the revolution. So how do you avoid being called any of these derogatory and dangerous names? You try and pretend – or indeed become – someone whom the Party believes is the “ideal” man.

And how do you define the ideal man ? An ideal man does this, doesn’t do that, looks like this and above all, thinks this. What’s this ? “This” varies in space and time but because we’re speaking of socialists, it generally means something that has been eulogized as ideal to socialist doctrine. So if you’re living in any of these countries, you behave in a certain manner, buy certain goods and do certain things, spend your free time in a certain manner, send your children to certain schools and heck, perhaps even have sex with your wife (socialist regimes typically didn’t tolerate live-ins for some strange reason!) in a certain position. Okay, maybe you had the freedom to have sex any which way you liked as long as the children born of such acts grew up to be ideal citizens who, again, believed in whatever was haute in the ideology books of the time.

(Did you notice I’ve used three words – doctrine, dogma and ideology? What’s the difference between them mate? Tell me?)

To sum up, you became a living breathing mannequin of the party’s ideals.

And if you didn’t want to be that way ? You could protest and be shot (or sent to a gulag) or escape to the West. What did you get in the West ? Freedom to think, freedom to do as you like and freedom, above all, to pursue your ambitions and become, as Mirandola had said, whatever you want to be.

If you did, you were probably soon convinced that you were right. There was no state to tell you what you should do in the minutest detail, inspection squads did not look for minute details and it was fine to protest about anything and everything in the world. Including your dear old country.

But what of the capitalism that you’ve embraced? Does it not create its own dogma? Let’s look at the question in very practical terms.

Say you go to a shop. You’re immediately bombarded with ideas of what you should buy and why you should buy them. Why? Because all the media you’ve been consuming over the past year has told you that to have social status and “be” the person people admire and look up to, you must have a certain set of products. The advertisements and the salespersons only reinforce it.

But haven’t you escaped from a society where such things were enforced? Here it can’t be enforced so you willingly, self-consciously and deliberately reject this idea. You refuse to buy what you are told you should buy. Take that socialism!

Okay, so you come out of the store. Now you’re in the street and you see people wearing and doing just what has been advertised all along. But you have rejected this path right ? Very good, so you are different. But are you? You must get new clothes as the old ones wear off, new food as the older stocks run out and new implements with which to do whatever you wish to do. SO you must buy. And you must buy in a manner that sustains your individuality and your rebellion against coerced or persuaded homogeneity.

You go to a store. It’s not the one that has been advertised the most and it isn’t the one that has what you said you wouldn’t buy. What does it have? Clothes, food, implements. Yes, all that you need. You buy happily, ignoring the calls of the salespersons to check out this or that product that is currently selling like hot cakes (or supposedly selling like hot cakes).

You come out of the store. You come out and realize that what you’ve bought is indeed different, because

1. It is made by smaller brands who may sometimes produce inferior goods.
2. It is part of last year’s stock (not food though, here you don’t have so much leeway).

You get the distinct feeling that whatever you’re using is of poorer quality or worse, outdated. Mind you, we don’t mean that it’s out of fashion. We mean that you feel that it is not as advanced as the products you could have bought.

Now say you go to your workplace. You’re immediately made aware of the fact that what you’re wearing or using is outdated and out of fashion. Does it suggest that you’re in hard financial straits ? Back in the socialist economy, there was no such problem. Everybody earned the same (supposedly) for the same work and got the same tools because the state produced only one or two variants.

SO now you’re acutely aware that what you use not only expresses your taste, but also your status. And in capitalistic society, because you can rise as high as you can (supposedly), status means a lot. It defines where you are on the ladder, how far you have to go, how fast are you moving? And when you come home, your wife, who’s been going around to the homes of all the other wives, reinforces this idea.

But wait, there’s more. Aren’t you that guy who came from that socialist country? Are you trying to tinker with the cherished ideals of the nation, trying to corrupt them? Why else would you want to do what you just did – something nobody else did (apparently). In defence, you fall back on the first justification – you’re probably poor. But you know, inside, that you aren’t. You need to get out of this poor or traitor problem, and fast!

Now you’re in a dilemma. You’ve spent the money you had allocated for the goods and find yourself stuck with stuff that nobody appreciates. What do you do? You do aspire for social respect right? Would you like to live out a whole year or even longer in such a socially depressed status ? Nope. Would your wife be happy if you took money meant for something else just so you could get the “right” stuff ? Nope.

You look for a cheap deal. Something that you can bring home and say – “Honey, I got it at 80% off so I didn’t need to withdraw any money from the bank”. The good news is, there is always a deal.

Not just one, many in fact. They’re advertised in stores, in TV shows, everywhere. In fact, you’d probably found a deal when you decided not to buy what everybody else was buying. Now you need a deal that’s even better than those deals.

Problem is, the deal that’s better than those deals has two pitfalls –

1. It sells goods that are defective or are “Refurbished” ie essentially second-hand
2. It sells goods of only a particular size and type.

You’d think that the second category would include products that are of rare or unusual types and so if you have a larger shoe size, a bigger waistline or something similar, you could avail yourself of it.

The bad news is, though the sale may deal with products that are a little less than popular (in terms of size, design, etc.) they still fall within a median that eliminates the other sizes and designs as outlier points. Why ? Because the manufacturer probably knew that those special types wouldn’t sell well and didn’t produce them in the first place.

What do you do? Simple – you adjust your body and your tastes to fit that median. A median, probably, that is narrower than the median which you were initially offered when you rejected those very goods because you’re now looking for a better price. You have little choice now – you buy the goods, adjust yourself and become the mean of the median of society. The conformist….

….you’d sworn you wouldn’t be.

So you see, capitalism has its own way of creating the “perfect” man, one who fits into everything and in doing so, can save the maximum amount of money. The farther away you are from this median, the more you spend and the more you stick out in society. And when you stick out, you appear to be falling behind in the race to achieve the perfect status and position in society.

In other words, what socialism makes you do through state fiat, capitalism forces you to do by manipulating your ambitions and dreams.

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.

 

All our lives we’ve been taught to tone down our exuberance and our anguish so everything seems normal. So everyone else can pretend everything is as it was before, that nothing has changed and that nothing perhaps will change.

But change is a way of life eh ? Poetic analogies of metamorphosis aside, there’s no denying that life constantly throws up new stuff for those on the lookout (and even for those who aren’t!). As a fresh post-grad, I’m always on the lookout. For change ? For opportunities for change ? Yeah, that sounds good, something I can include in my CV.

But change also creates memories. Memories that teach, that haunt and that make us celebrate and regret our decisions in life. But memories also tell us who we were. Before teaching or haunting us, they give us an identity. And thinking of these memories later articulates this identity the way milk becomes curd (or cheese if you like).

But for all this, memories have to become memories. Lest we forget……

Forget what ? Mostly the mundane that leaves little trace on our overall existence beyond the coffee stains and the grimy collars…..but also those that happen really fast. Yep, when life grabs you by the collar and swings you like a mighty Hulk to new shores. Not literally, not yet, not in my case – yet. But allegories make life interesting don’t they ?

Five paragraphs down, let’s cut to the chase. I’m speaking of a particular phase of life, a month, 30 days – days where everything seemed to speed up. And when it did, I had to make split second decisions that decided where I ended up. Where I am now.

The wheel began turning in late June, when a certain college (check my profile for the name, if you haven’t you don’t deserve to know!) advertised positions. With my Guest Lecturership in abeyance due to the holidays, I decided to take a shot.

Then I got a call. Le’ts call her a friend of mine. A workshop was coming up. Good institute, great speakers. Add it to the CV, she said, you won’t regret it. Perhaps workshops are meant for this one purpose only – but I’m a fresh post-grad right, who am I to know ?

Anyhow, I applied. Ran to the University to get the signatures. Got them and ran to the institute again. Submitted. The college ? Oh yeah, I submitted my CV there too!

So July dawned and I was calmly contemplating an interview along the lines of my first job interview (aka the Guest Lecturership). Then on 3 July, I was found that I hadn’t been selected for one of the two workshops I’d applied for. Oh, I didn’t tell you there were two ? My bad!

I was disappointed, quite disappointed, since I had expected the SOP for this one to be stronger than that of the second one. It felt as if you had to know about the subject to be selected to study the subject. Twisted logic eh ?

Then came 7 July.

First I had the interview. I’d prepared a presentation and gave a short demo class. Then answered questions. Then left. I was quite happy with myself for an interview decently done.

Then came the email. Turned out I’d been selected for the workshop where I thought I had less chance.

Then I checked a site to see if I’d been shortlisted for a certain PhD interview. I had been.

Finally, I checked a certain website to see if I’d been shortlisted for a certain interview I’d applied months earlier. I had been.

Have you ever felt the need to shift from first to fourth gear ? Like pull the gear lever forward, sideways and then forward again ? Not likely – you’d have to go through gears 2 and 3 for that. Life isn’t like that. I had a PhD interview and a job interview coming up. On successive days – 13 and 14 July.

One of the common fallacies among intellectuals is that they know something of everything. Put them before an interview board and their something turns out to be little more than nothing. I consider myself an intellectual. I had an idea about the whole of human history. To be on the safe side, I buried myself in Sekhar Bandhopadhyay.

13 dawned and I turned up late to the venue. After verification of documents and a VERY long wait (for someone giving the first such interview) the interview began a little before 2PM. Turns out my knowledge of modern history wouldn’t be tested, not for the most part. I gave a demo on medieval history, then answered questions on medieval history and then moved to other questions. Why had I tumbled through the venerable Plassey to Partition ? I don’t know.

14 dawned in quite a different style. I was already familiar with the institution so navigation took place sans Google Maps. A friend of mine had also been shortlisted. I was called first and realized there’d be no one to guide me there. My friend had a similar experience. Ah well.

For two days I had peace. Almost. Dad left for Chandigarh – he’d been transferred. A routine transfer, but in the midst of this maelstrom ? When it rains, it pours right ?

Then I was called to the college. I’d been selected. Whole-time work in an AC environment and a choice of designations (though they all meant the same, within broad limits of ambiguity) to choose from. How could I refuse? I joined.

I’d have loved to sing off here. But as the reader remembers, I had gotten through to a workshop. Paid for it as well. So I attended it. Turned out the methods weren’t for me at all – I was in the wrong workshop. I sat through long math and stats classes. Instructors asked me why they had spent their whole lives staring at numbers – they missed being able to stare at the sky. Very funny. Ha ha ha.

But in a haze of coffee, clouded skies, complex greek alphabets and STATA, it was over. I got the certificate, treated myself to KFC and moved on.

Then I got a call from my old college, where I taught as a GL. When could I join ? I couldn’t join. When could I resign? Does one have to resign when shifting jobs ? Common sense says yeah, definitely. Yet it never occurred to me anytime before that I’d be submitting a resignation in 2015. Much less to a college that had pretty much taught me everything I knew about teaching. My departmental colleagues were the ones who’d helped me become a teacher, and think of myself as one. In my last class in May I’d told the first years I’d continue in July. Or August maybe.

Hardly able to believe myself, I drafted the letter and took it with me. With a letter certifying my new position in the new college. I was leaving for greener pastures, yet I could hardly believe myself. I sat in the same chair where I’d given my interview and was wished good luck for the future. Would I get an experience letter ? Of course! Then I had exited the college – without meeting the students whom I’d promised to teach again in July.

 

July was over.

I settled down to my new role in the college, resumed my horribly interrupted MPhil classes and learned that I hadn’t gotten through to the PhD. The other interview’s result is awaited. Chances are slim and it’s not on my mind to be very honest. Life is moving on.

But before I end this narrative, let me add one last thing – rain. July is a month of rain, heavy rain. Rain that pauses traffic, slows you down, seeps into your sandals and makes you slip and slide, makes you slosh in muddy puddles and generally, makes you realize you are sitting in Charnock’s swamp.

But when life isn’t mundane, the mundane rain becomes beautiful. It gives you a strange rhythm when many certainties are being questioned. It accompanies you as you run between Sadan and Sarobar, College Street and Camac Street. As the axes of your pursuits change and the vertices of your life enter new dimensions, it somehow seems familiar.

And then, when you’re weary and tired and returning home after a long day of work….You’re in College Street, the same place where you’ve studied 3 years and spent so much time you pretty much know every nook and cranny. But then, it’s the evening. It has been raining. The streets are wet, reflecting the lights of cars too busy to realize the patterns they are creating. Patterns of liquid, patterns of light. All on the wet street. It was beautiful.

But where was my Presidency ? I don’t know, I never looked. It was – dark. Life lay elsewhere.

And then life moved on again. Details are coming up and melting away. Facts, figures, etc etc. Life is settling down, touchwood. The vertices are becoming stable, the lines are becoming rigid, the mundane is dominant again.

And the rain ? They say it has been raining on and off, like it does in July and August every year. July AND August ? I beg to differ……