“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”
Phil Collins.
“A very young, sharp and energetic mind is trapped in this old body; so be careful what you do; as it will catch up with all your antics before I can physically reach you” I say by the way of introducing myself to a fresh batch of grade 11 students who had opted for English literature at the higher level. I hear a lot of sycophantic laughter, a few grunts and some nervous giggles. A mixed batch as usual, I decide, hoping no one will call my bluff.
I’ve been teaching high school students for more years than I care to count. Ironically however, each year as I face a new class batch I’m the one who feels like a teenager; there are butterflies in my stomach and a rush of excitement. I can barely wait to unravel the mystery, the angst, the paradoxes, and the subtle ironies that are at the heart of the texts we study. “This class is not for the feeble” I say “The study of novels necessitates a platform where ideas are catapulted, can ricochet and yet return unscathed. It involves a basic honesty that lets one probe into the psyche of another human however fractured it might be without getting judgemental. It also demands strength to understand human foibles and how sometimes circumstances can win over man.” My students look at me like I’ve suddenly grown horns. Too much too soon I tell myself.
“You are in this class to study life itself not just the subject” I sum up when I hear a murmur from the right corner of the class. I spot a face that stares at me vacantly. “Yes, young man…would you like to enlighten the class?” I say in my best patronizing voice. “Isn’t that your job, Miss? I was just saying you can either study life or live it…which of these two options would you like us to consider in this class?” There was silence so absolute that I could hear my own breath, erratic now. By the blank expression on his rather intelligent face I couldn’t decide whether he was being rude, cheeky or just plain honest. I was going to hazard a guess and come with an excellent repartee when the shrill noise of the bell fragmented the cloying silence of the class.
“Saved by the bell,” someone whispered, as I walked out of the class, the raillery frothing like foam in my mouth. It was going to be a long year.
Two weeks into school I knew his name (Raghav), and the names of most other students in the class. By now, I had thrown them into the deep end. We were analyzing ‘Metamorphosis’ by Franz Kafka. The philosophy of ‘absurdism’ was mostly lost to the group of teenagers who looked at me rather absurdly. They intently stared at the board where I had written the quote; “True absurdism is not less but more real than reality”, like any moment revelation would dawn on them. However, through the x-ray understanding I had developed over the years, I knew they were just hoping that they would somehow miss the trajectory of my sight and that the question wouldn’t land on them.
Since none of them commented, I made the task slightly easier. “The absurdity of this world lies in that there’s nothing certain at all, that there’s a possibility that Gregor really could change into an insect…what do you think this suggests?” A few hands went up…the responses were neither here nor there. I was going to adopt the push down principle and further break down the analysis when I spotted Raghav looking rather disenchanted. This was challenge enough. “Well, Raghav perhaps you wish to comment on this” I ventured. “Not particularly, Miss” was his sardonic response. If looks could kill! I stared at him till he reluctantly rose. He looked perplexed by my reaction. “The story’s premise may seem supernatural; however, it only helps more in dichotomizing our lives. I look everywhere and see Gregor and his family.”
“Would you care to elaborate? How does it make you feel”? I ask. The test in my tone palpable.
He looked flushed, and almost reluctantly he spoke; “It doesn’t make me feel, it makes me think. Gregor’s metamorphosis from man to cockroach I think epitomizes his defeat as a human. He cannot break the confining shackles and the sense of obligation imposed upon him by the society and his family. While Gregor is the one literally dehumanized, the psychosomatic and figurative dehumanization of his mother, father, and Grete are more profound. I think we are all cockroaches on the inside…” his words reverberated in the charged atmosphere of the classroom.
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. I cleared my throat. “Well, that’s one way to look at it…” I began.
“In what other way can we look at this, Miss?” he asked innocently. Too innocently I thought.
I walked out of the classroom with a certain degree of unrest. Occasionally, there comes this one student who turns a teacher’s world upside down. Who challenges her to teach what google cannot teach. Who pushes the boundaries of not only knowledge but life as we know it. It is not a comfortable feeling, however, it’s not altogether unpleasant.
While I was trying to understand the workings of this student, this almost verbal sparring in class continued. That it never quite became a full-blown contest was neither here nor there. There was little doubt that he was intelligent and pragmatic (excessively so), however, what I couldn’t quite fathom was his emotional reaction towards me. Most students liked me; some didn’t but I had no practice with indifference. He genuinely seemed unresponsive to me and it was a hard blow to my self-esteem. Was this his way of getting me intrigued? Was this speculative standoff of sorts not mitigating my role as a teacher and more importantly his as a student?
I knew, as teachers always know, that Raghav hadn’t made any friends yet. I thought it was strange. He was bright and not unfriendly. Although I’d never seen him smile in class, he didn’t look particularly unhappy either. He did have an air of preeminence around him. I finally put it all down to attitude. I’d been there, done that. Surely, I could do it again. Yet despite myself I was absorbed.
The first midterm test was rather testing for both Raghav and me. Usually, he wrote extremely long answers for questions that didn’t require much detail so it baffled me when in response to the question; How do Gregor’s feelings for his family change over the course of the story? he had submitted the paper blank. He saw the ☹ on his sheet, looked at me quizzically, collected the paper and was walking away when I asked, “Why didn’t you write a response? The question was easy enough”. “Easy and difficult are relative, Miss,” was all he said. He was holding on to his stomach as though he had an ache, otherwise he didn’t look perturbed in any way about the failed assessment.
I went on high alert. Something (you could call it experience) told me that the dots didn’t quite connect. I took the liberty (my reputation preceded me) of asking the school administration for his records. He had changed two schools in the last two years but apart from that nothing seemed out of the ordinary…until I reached the counselor’s report. A mild case of Alexithymia …possible cause could be an intense traumatic experience…. A mild case of Alexithymia…
There is nothing mild about Alexithymia I screamed inside. What a sad and lonely existence… not being able to understand and express emotions. How had he managed to come this far? How had he managed at all? I tried to put myself in his shoes…but they seemed too big and alien. With what courage must he have tapped into his own resilience and bravery when intuition, instinct, and emotion thus betrayed him? Something tugged at the corners of my heart and mind. How could I judge this student conceited? I hugged the reports close to my chest.
I sat at my computer and began to research. I read everything I could before my eyes drooped and shut automatically. When I could look at his reports again, I found out that he had made slow progress after he was referred to an intensive program that set about teaching him how to relate socially and how to think about his physical sensations. I knew this was not enough. I wanted him to see and experience a rainbow when the only colours he saw were black and white.
As I went back to class, I was quite collected on the outside but inside I was dispersed. My eyes automatically sought Raghav, and although it appeared like nothing had changed, I knew that was not true. If the students missed the usual arguments and banter, they did not give any indication. What I had seen as disregard earlier I knew now was emotional blindness. It bothered me that despite all my years at teaching and learning I was still susceptible to being judgemental…and how!
“Could I meet you for a few minutes?” I asked him as he was leaving the class.
“Why, Miss?”
“Just wanted to talk about the assignment you didn’t quite submit.”
His face flushed. “Sorry, Miss, but I’ll submit the response if you change the question a bit”.
“Let’s discuss it,” I said.
Since both of us lived on campus, we met for the first time during sports hour after school. Eventually, after a few such meetings, we developed a rapport of sorts. As I directly and indirectly encouraged him to verbalise his thoughts I found him opening up to me.
“This will eventually help you label your emotions and feelings associated with the thoughts.” I extrapolated. He argued that he was in no way at a loss due to his inability to feel, understand, and express emotion. “I read a lot as I was told that the expressive language used in the novels would give me ideas about how people feel and describe their thoughts. However, I came to understand that the more extreme emotion a character feels the more it colors his thinking. Since the fickle tides of emotion cannot sway me, I have a clearer head.”
He carried a notebook with him; the intriguing cover read:
I smiled. “Could I look through it?” I asked hesitatingly and was pleasantly surprised when he agreed.
The notebook opened on a page marked No. 3. “Feelings and emotions are not always absolute and can be very complicated. You understand truth because the truth is simple and direct, however, life seldom is”.
“This is not your handwriting.” The question was implicit in my statement.
“A teacher in my previous school wrote this. She also made me maintain this diary. She believed expressive writing could be helpful in stretching my ability to detect emotions. She told me to put myself in other people’s shoes and write about how they would be thinking in each situation; which could help me understand what they might feel. However, it remained an academic exercise …”
“Why”? I asked
“Next time,” he said, and vanished into the gathering darkness.
As obstinate as I was on getting an emotive reaction from him, it seemed he was equally unyielding in not giving one. However, he certainly was one of the most self-aware students I had ever met. He seemed to know himself, and his limitations, inside out. The fact that he wasn’t fazed by them drew me towards him. I felt the need to introduce him to feelings, to emotions. Was it playing sage on stage in class that made me want to play God outside of it?
During a particularly charged discussion in class a student called Raghav an android. The remark went like a knife through me. When he came to me that evening, he began writing in his notebook immediately.
“What are you writing?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“Did you feel hurt Raghav? Do you understand hurt?”
“I felt a tension, like my heart was racing, but as soon as my mind was distracted I completely forgot about the whole situation,” he said.
“I think you should write the sensations down and term them as hurt. Next time you feel similar sensations, you’ll know you are feeling hurt”
“What is the point of putting words to hurt”? He asked.
That night I dreamt Raghav was murdered by the student who called him an android. Even as dreams go this one was particularly bizarre. Raghav’s body was lying on the floor and some students circled his body shouting “Robot! Robot!” I was surrounded by the reporters. “I wish I’d been there earlier. It might have made all the difference. So, all I can tell you is why he was murdered…” I choked on the words, but they were muffled by the crescendo. As I walked towards the body, Raghav’s face suddenly metamorphosed into mine. I woke up with a jolt, shivering despite the balmy night. Was it foreshadowing, anger, guilt or did my psyche have a hairline fracture? Probably all of the above.
That evening when I met him, I shared my concern with him. “Miss, don’t worry about me. I can put up with an awful lot of pain or unpleasant experiences because I know very shortly I won’t have an emotional memory associated with it,” he said.
“But it means that positive memories get washed away too,” I replied.
He shrugged and was gone before I could say goodbye.
The very next day the Vice Principal of the school called me. “Ms. Uma,” she said without a preamble, “It has come to my notice that Raghav has been missing sports hour and remedial classes to be with you. You are aware that it is not permitted”
“Yes, I am aware, however I feel, given more time, I can help this student. The school should consider a cognitive behavioral therapist to help with his social understanding, and through conscious effort he will be able to analyze the physical feelings and equate it with emotions that other people may feel.”
“This does not fall under your jurisdiction. The school counselor is on the job. Kindly refrain from meeting him during unsolicited hours,” he warned.
“Pompous ass,” I said under my breath. How could a student’s welfare not fall under a teacher’s jurisdiction? What had the therapist done until now anyway?
I met Raghav again that evening. Since he had spent most of his life looking within, striving to feel and understand sensations, he was acutely observant.
“You are different today,” he said.
“How?” I asked happy to have a lead.
“I’m not sure but you are sitting on the edge of the seat and talking to yourself.”
I smiled.
“Miss, a person can be cut off from emotions without being heartless, or a psychopath.”
I smiled some more.
Next time we met, he asked me to write something in his diary.
I couldn’t think of anything to write. Here we were an odd twosome: a woman who felt too strongly and a teenager who felt too little under a chestnut tree in the fading light of the autumn sunset.
Finally, I wrote: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’
In two weeks, I was called by the Principal of the school.
“Ms. Uma, you cannot disregard the advice of the Vice Principal. Please consider protocol. You are a very valued member of our teaching community; however, an institution is more important than an individual”.
If there ever was a veiled threat, this was one.
I considered it. I had great respect for the Principal of the school. Then Raghav’s blank face swam before my eyes. Despite his claiming otherwise, I judged his life diluted, deprived as it was of sentiments and felt compelled to change that. The how… consumed me.
I became a horse with blinkers. I read of strategies before I collapsed into a fitful sleep. I tried to put some of those strategies into practice. I deceived myself things were improving. Wasn’t it just last week that I thought he smiled when I praised his response in class?
My work suffered. My health suffered. My meticulous habits suffered. My mind crumbled. My colleagues walked past me without saying hello. I was summoned to the Principal’s office twice in the next two weeks. Despite it all, call it delusion, passion, empathy I just could not stop working on fixing what I thought was broken.
Morning shows the day. It was drizzling that morning, the kind that doesn’t quite soak you but leaves you somewhere in between. I was beckoned to the Principal’s office yet again.
He extended an envelope towards me. “Nothing personal, Ms. Uma.” It was the tone in which he spoke and the fact that he moved towards the window soon after that told me; inside the white envelope was the pink slip.
Something snapped. All the restless days and nights came charging towards me. Someone screamed. It was probably me. Security was called. A few teachers and students came out of the classes to see the commotion and my utter humiliation.
I was incoherent as I was escorted out of the office. Raghav walked towards me, his eyes on my ashen face. “Emotions color thoughts, Miss,” he whispered.
He opened his notebook to the page where one day I had written ‘truth is stranger than fiction’. And as I watched him incredulously, he took out a marker; and very deliberately on top of the same page he wrote in bold – No. 4.