Skip to main content

Square Jammin'

Okay, so I'm still a tourist here in Cambridge (Massachusetts, not UK). Or maybe we all are, or should be, at some level. If this means walking about with a sense of wonder, with a willingness to risk direct experience rather than busily building bubbles around ourselves, then it's a good way to be. It means never allowing the familiar to become boring; it means seeing things from new angles each time, allowing different shafts of light to illuminate a well-known object so that new angles, new curves, new hollows and depths, are revealed.

The objects in my current environment are far from having acquired the familiarity of home. And I suspect I will leave at that point when they begin to settle into lines that are strange no longer. Practically every day, I run into things that delight, intrigue, and make me stop--sometimes to look more closely, or to ask questions about, or to simply watch and take it all in.

The lunch hour on the margins of Harvard Yard on Shabbat eve had six young people playing Latin music while breaking students and faculty and visitors like myself made long lines at the food truck of their choice: on offer were Gourmet Vegetarian, Bon Me (sandwiches) and Asian Fusion. An oversized chessboard stood waiting and tweedy professors munched on jalapeño chips and listened to the almost operatic singers. Others make their way, more seriously, to pay the traditional obeisance to the statue of John Harvard and--not to forget--record it on their cellphone cameras. This involves a surprisingly Eastern-seeming custom of touching the left foot of Harvard (and hoping that some of the ivy splendor will rub off on to their hands). A little boy stands on the steps of the Widener Library holding a crayon-inscribed placard that reads "Class of 2030" and his mother quips: "We can dream, right?"

Late on a Friday evening a masked band plays a vibrant beat on Davis Square as young parents watch their younger children jump and clap, happily out of tune. Stooped men and women on a walk from the nearby Elder Care facility sit quietly enjoying their ice cream, remembering a time when they, too, skipped to a faster beat.

As I take the subway escalator up to the street, homeward bound myself, a street dweller holds out the free weekend paper, asking for spare change and, in an inexplicably cheery voice, wishes the commuters a good weekend.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A house called Ayodhya

How do words get taken away from you? How do they mutate and reconfigure around entirely new meanings, only weakly related to those that they held when you owned them? And then, through repetition and constant association, they solidify into these new forms, their other histories hidden behind impenetrable layers, where they have not been erased altogether.   I live in a house whose name often elicits a curious look, raised eyebrow, a muffled cough, a judging eye, or even a vigorous nod of approval. But for even the least politically minded, the name is evocative of something. For some of us, it is the wave of negativity, divisiveness, and violence unleashed by the events of a December three decades ago. For others, it may represent the righteous assertion of identity.   But the name etched into the gate pillar, now fading and diminished when compared to the glitzy lettering on neighbouring walls, has nothing to do with the politics of place and claimed heritage. It is a simple, gentle

Origin Story

You can know someone all your life and only begin to discover who they are more fully after they are gone. The stories seem to flow more easily, less self-consciously, without the moderating physical presence, perhaps more detailed in the awareness that they cannot be challenged and the memory can retain its sanctity. Today is my parents’ anniversary, 62 years since their marriage that rainy day in Secunderabad when the monsoon used to arrive without fail on the 10th day of June. The family legend has it that it poured so heavily on the 9th (the evening of the nichyathartham or engagement ceremony) that water entered the storage room, soaking the provisions for the next day’s big meal, causing my maternal grandmother to faint. That turbulence however did not seem to affect the tenor of the marriage which, by all accounts and my own experience, was characterized by a calmness that suggested a harmony of purpose and personality.   Not that my parents are/were alike in all ways. T

taking measure of 21 years

How does one measure the usefulness of anything? Does it lie in its quantum of influence--spatially, numerically, intellectually, materially? Does it lie in its ability to survive over time? Or (as some in this age would have it) in the number of mentions it generates on social media? An idea that was born just over 21 years ago is now in the process of being put to rest. Not quite given up on as an idea, but in its material form, designated "unsustainable". Teacher Plus was mooted in the second half of 1988, and given shape to in the first half of 1989, in the offices of Orient Longman Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad. The ELT team in the publishing house, of whom Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao (Buchamma), Usha Aroor and Rema Gnanadickam were a part, originated the idea of a professional magazine for school teachers that would serve as a forum for the sharing of teaching ideas and experiences, and perhaps motivate teachers to play a catalyzing role in reforming classroom practice. I was recru