In a Manner of Speaking

Listen to me! (Wild-eyed foreigner at the University of Chittagong.)

After a busy, gratifying week of teaching, I thought I’d return to the lobby of the Radisson Blu to celebrate the start of the weekend. I found a cushy blu(e) chair underneath an air-conditioning vent and sprawled out with a cappuccino and Pema Chödrön’s latest book, How We Live is How We Die. Neither the book nor I is a real barn-burner; I fell sound asleep to the whispers of Muzak and woke up 15 minutes later with a billion mosquito bites.

Pema Chödrön, an American Buddhist nun, would suggest I work with my sleepy posture rather than resist it. Also, I might try befriending the mosquitoes, as they have much to teach me about easing into discomfort and receiving unwelcome gifts as opportunities for wisdom.

I love Pema Chödrön. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the sense she wouldn’t judge me for seeking escape in a climate-controlled hotel lobby. I also think she’d empathize with my (continuing) realization that there is no escape, that our propensities for suffering will accompany us no matter how far we travel or how cushy our chair.

A mosquito harborage.

The quality and quantity of suffering expand and contract, though. Complaining about mosquito bites in a posh hotel lobby feels indecent when, just outside the Radisson’s metal detectors and guarded front gates, entire families live on the street. In those threshold moments the crush of, well, everything is irreconcilable: the listless babies, the mirrors-on-a-stick checking for explosives under the chassis of a Mercedes-Benz, this Westerner whose iPhone costs more than some of these people will earn in a lifetime. Meanwhile, at school, there’s the Afghan student, separated from her family by 1,500 miles and mountains of red tape. The refugees from Myanmar who have to drop the class because to stay in Bangladesh will annul their asylum in Thailand. The posters by the elevator pleading with students to stop cutting themselves when the trauma presses too hard on their nervous systems.

Witness and breathe, a simple and oddly vexing task. This seems to be one of Pema Chödrön’s gentle suggestions. Every moment holds its own birth and destruction. Suffering dissolves into joy; joy dissolves into suffering; suffering dissolves into joy. We’re crossing thresholds with every step. Resistance solidifies our illusions; our shared illusions can bind us together.

I’ll stop with the bumper-sticker sentiments. Pema Chödrön explains this better.

Signs of resilience pop up everywhere as well, some of them literal:

Good idea.

The exuberant cast of AUW’s Little Women. (We did improv; as an alumnus of Louisa May Alcott Elementary School [class of 1971], I think I didn’t disgrace the school or the author.)

5:00am football players, known to one and all as “We Brothers.”

What to do with all this? I don’t know.

On Wednesday, I read my students the riot act for cheating on the last exam. They responded with blank stares and one or two tears. For some of these women, having a university degree will spare them lives of breathtaking uncertainty and despair. For many of them, asking a friend for help makes perfect sense, especially on an exam (for the record: I reserve the last 20 minutes of every exam for class discussion about the material. I think this teaches them to ask the right questions). When I tell these students that the point of the exam is to understand the material and not just to tick off a box to get a diploma, I’m sure I sound naive. “Professor Sir! You don’t understand!”

It’s just a test. That diploma means the world.

Multiple choices, if you’re lucky. (Eyes on your own paper, please.)

Fortunately, dedicated people like M.K. Jatra exist. I’ve mentioned our collaborations in previous entries. His goal–as a theater artist who uses dramatics to alleviate suffering–is to create a mental health center at the University of Chittagong. He enlisted my help last week as the visiting (White) scholar (yikes) to co-present a 90-minute PowerPoint presentation on Expressive Psychotherapy to the university’s administration and faculty.

Words can’t capture what exactly happened. I’d say, “You had to be there,” but even then the mystery would remain. I think our presentation was a success, but a fish doesn’t know it’s wet. Judge for yourselves:

M.K. Jatra in a rehearsal room at Shilpokola Academy, Chittagong, Bangladesh.

A driver picked me up outside the Asian University for Women immediately after my psychology class on Wednesday. It takes nearly an hour to get across town to the University of Chittagong; I was enjoying the air conditioner and the reassuring restraint of a seat belt. I couldn’t hear Jatra in the back seat due to the endless horn-honking, but we seemed to have found an amiable silence that suits his temperament and my language deficits. About ten minutes into the trip I noticed a siren on our tail.

“That’s weird,” I said to Jatra.

“No,” he replied.

Jatra didn’t seem concerned that we were scheduled to begin in 30 minutes and that the car, wedged between two screaming three-wheel taxis, had been at an impasse for at least ten. The siren blared even louder, to no real effect. We finally broke free and passed a student demonstration celebrating technology (oh?) before creeping through one of the few traffic lights in a town of eight million (at a railroad crossing) (thank god).

The siren pursued us. That’s an understatement: it felt as if we had become the siren. Like one of those European ambulance sirens that sounds like Hell’s on fire.

You’re going to be late!

After nearly 45 minutes of full-volume, pulsating alarm I wondered why the driver hadn’t pulled over. I undid my seat belt and turned around to see if I could lay eyes on this persistent traffic cop. Nothing unusual appeared in the rear view mirror. I whispered to myself (although no one would have heard me if I’d shouted at the top of my lungs), “Where is this a–hole?”

Jatra picked up on my confusion. I pointed at my ear and said, “Siren?”

He, in turn, pointed to the roof of our car and twirled his index finger. He moved his head in tandem.

“Really?”

He nodded.

The sound was coming from our car. Our car had a siren on its roof. We were the siren.

“Why?” I asked.

“You are an important person and we have to get you to school on time,” he said. And then he laughed, even louder than the siren itself.

We got there.

People stand on ceremony in Bangladesh. Before Jatra and I spoke, the Vice-Chancellor and four other administrators addressed the audience for nearly an hour. I had already blurted out my resumé in 90 repetitive seconds, so I stared out at the crowd from our red leather chairs and occasionally asked the Vice-Chancellor to explain what was happening (“They are speaking”). By the time Jatra and I had moved down to the floor to do our PowerPoint, the administrators had left and we had 15 minutes to talk about mental health and the need for sympathetic and systemic responses to crises.

Jatra introduces our presentation.

I jumped in, explaining how mental health centers have begun to expand at universities in the States to address anxiety and depression and addiction and suicides. Serious stuff, worthy of many more minutes. I flipped to Jartra’s Expressive Psychotherapy slide and, as planned, said, “And now Professor Jatra will talk about his area of expertise.”

“No,” he said. “You do it.”

The remaining seven minutes were a blur. I voiced every thought I’d ever had, some of them germane, some of them just multi-syllabic. When I finished we got a hearty round of applause followed by Jatra’s deft handling of the question-and-answer session. Then we had lunch.

“Are you happy?” I asked on the drive home.

“Oh, yes,” he said. Apparently our talking points would be featured in the the student newspaper the following morning. Apparently there may be a mental health center at the school in the near-enough future.

M.K. Jatra. A man of few words and much influence.

All in all, it was a peculiar but glorious day. Jatra has been a good companion here in Chittagong. Last night he and his wife took me to a Bangla production of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. I had a great time; amazing how relaxing it can be to let go of language and just focus on faces.

Speaking of, here are some more photos from my early morning walks and various rambles. I asked permission, of course:

Security guard guarding himself from the sun outside AUW.

Early morning Chatteswari Road.

Some step forward.

Rickshaw driver, stopping for tea.

Brooklyn comes to Chittagong at GEC Circle.

Audio tech at University of Chittagong.

No smile, but free tea. Very gracious.

Chok Bazaar. 5:00am.

I took part in this:

Kudos to the brave faculty and students who arranged this evening. Not an easy place.

Finally: I love South Asian windows.

Thanks to Pema Chödrön for the guidance.

Leave a comment, please. I’d be much obliged.