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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.

Living proof that anti-sweat iontophoresis may become the greatest medical/electrical advance of the 21st Century. I hope I don’t sweat to death before its unveiling. Also, there’s a green-and-yellow foot next to my face. At Dhaka University.

A caveat to start: Things are looking up. My students keep me on my toes. I’m getting lots (and lots) of improv work. The monsoon has arrived and, for three seconds this afternoon, I thought, “Wow. A breeze!” Oh, and this: I broke down and bought processed cheese slices. I don’t regret it. And sure, I enlisted half of Chittagong to help me find contact lens solution (it’s only sold at “optic stores”); together we overcame the traffic and language barriers and found an optician who sold me some saline solution.

Bangladesh continues revealing its beauty:

Beautiful Chittagong as seen through the rain and contact lenses.

The red sun from the Bangladesh flag, symbolizing a new day and an end to oppression. Chittagong University arboretum.

“Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.” Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet.

Where the walls aren’t succumbing to climbing vines and crumbling damp, the murals work their magic:

Challenging the mind/body split.

A student interpreted: “It’s in my blood.” (Apologies if I misremembered.)

Beauty and birds. Chittagong University.

I’ve also been having a lot of Type Two Fun. Here’s a definition from the internet, a perfectly reliable source:

Type II fun is often hot, wet, muddy, or uncomfortable. Examples of Type II Fun include hiking, trekking, camping, kayaking, or going on some other grand adventure. It’s only fun in hindsight. Type II Fun refers to the type of adventure that you “want to have had”, but don’t necessarily “want to do.”

Kids playing soccer at 5:30am in a nearby park. This is Type One Fun.

I had two days of wonderful Type Two Fun at Chittagong University this week. M.K. Jatra, an expressive psychotherapist, invited me to join him for some workshops and lectures. I agreed, only to find myself (happily) baffled by the cavernous gap between my expectations and reality. Two thoughts eclipsed everything else.

The first, and most obliterating: “What is happening?”

Secondly: “I can’t wait to write about this.”

I’m not sure I’ll be able to capture the experience, but man alive: it was Type Two times Two.

Some fragments, photos, and captions to illustrate:

We don’t know each other and I’m not sure why I was a guest at the international law lecture. I learned a lot. For instance, both Bangladesh and the United States declared a “Unilateral Declaration of Independence.” We left West Pakistan and England behind, respectively.

A sobering prelude to the Type Two experience:

After listening to this international law lecture–which explained Bangladesh’s deeply traumatizing extrication from West Pakistan–I was invited to lunch in the faculty canteen. The talk hung heavy in the air, at least for me, a relative novice to the topic. Bangladeshis take pride in the sacrifices they made to gain independence; memorials to brave martyrs grace nearly every traffic circle and public park. Universities in Bangladesh keep these wartime memories vivid with sculpture and mosaics and commemorative posters shellacked to the sides of dining halls and dormitories. This makes sense: the genocidal horrors of 1971 targeted the academic community with chilling precision. I couldn’t help but look at these current professors and their families and think about their compatriots, killed in their beds as retaliation for seeking independence just two generations ago. As a teacher I feel free to say this: academia can certainly be fusty and arcane, but sitting with these professors in the context of their recent history made me proud to be associated–however remotely–with them. The stereotype of the bumbling, ineffectual professor brings out the brute in many of our politicians (who often are the beneficiaries of the Ivy League educations they cynically disavow). They relish the role of the playground bully, stoking violence against anyone whose power isn’t physical. The students and professors in Bangladesh showed courage as their country emerged from the bloody fight for independence. For a moment, apologizing for being one such bumbler felt like an affront to these brave souls.

Lecture finished.

Nope. (The Bangla actually says, “Dear Girlfriend.”)

Bas-relief on the wall by the Catholic Church in Chittagong. Bangladeshi citizens during the Liberation War of 1971.

Life goes on, somehow. The present moment pulled me out of my rumination, as always. I’m sharing some snippets of conversation that shook me out of my pondering and into the Type Two Fun I mentioned above. Internal monologue included, as necessary:

To the gracious student server in the faculty canteen:

ME: “I’m a vegetarian, so I’ll have the rice and dal.”

GRACIOUS STUDENT SERVER: “Yes! Have the mutton, too!”

ME: “No, thanks!”

GRACIOUS STUDENT SERVER: “Okay! Then fish for you!”

With the husband-and-wife faculty members, trying to understand their soft, clipped English while standing by the generator underneath a decapitating ceiling fan:

HUSBAND: “Our son is in the United States for graduate work.”

ME: “That’s great! Where?”

WIFE: “Estrogen replacement.”

ME: (to self) “What?”

Walking into class with my laptop to give a lecture:

PROFESSOR: “Do you have your PowerPoint lecture ready?”

ME: “Yes.” (I hate PowerPoint presentations, for the record.)

PROFESSOR: “Do you have your adaptor?”

Me: “Yes.”

PROFESSOR: “There is no projector.”

Theater students, released from the tyranny of the PowerPoint presentation.

On both visits, Jatra introduced me to many illustrious faculty members (“My name is Jim. Nice to meet you!”) (“Why are you here?”), got me endless cups of tea (only once did I confuse the sugar with the salt), showed me how to eat a local pome fruit using the husk as a spoon (“Jim. You do it wrong”), and signed me up for eight more workshops, all of which were cancelled by the time we left campus.

I finally got to fire up the infernal PowerPoint. Three slides in the load-shedding began.

Headline from Al Jazeera News: “Bangladesh suffers long power cuts amid worst heatwave in decades.” Not sure my slide deck would have alleviated any of the misery. We improvised instead.

Later in the afternoon, I had an audience with the Vice-Chancellor of Chittagong University. A powerful woman with a bemused, regal presence, she chuckled as I confronted a plate of orange slices. In many Asian countries–Bangladesh included–most people eat with only their right hand. The left hand is considered unclean. I could live here until Time is Done and never figure out how to peel fruit with just one hand. As an elegant host, the Vice-Chancellor allowed me space as I threw citrus around her tasteful sitting area.

My grandmother lived a few blocks from the Parent Navel Orange Tree in my hometown of Riverside, California. My dad and grandfather sold smudge pots to keep the citrus from freezing during cold snaps. My high school colors, in honor of the orange groves, were orange and green. I let my people down.

Admittedly, these are small (fusty) moments, worthy of a chuckle I suppose. We all survived these cultural misunderstandings with good humor and tact. Bigger forces were at work, though. Before catching the bus back to the AUW faculty housing, I asked Jatra why he hadn’t joined me in my lectures and workshops. He had been interpreting for me, but with his extensive knowledge and experience in art therapy he really should have been leading the classes himself. He gave me a shrug, so I asked again:

Over tea in the faculty lounge:

Me: “Why don’t you conduct these workshops? No one knows who I am here. Really, you should be in charge.”

Jatra: (touches my arm) “Yes. But you’re White.”

It’s not over.

Of course.

His truthful response sent a chill up my spine. I didn’t sense any resentment, but what did I know? I’d been dense. I was grateful, too, that he trusted me enough to share this hard–and obvious–reality. We sat quietly for a minute. It would have been easy to brush off the remark, say that he was mistaken and that racism is a thing of the past. Instead, we agreed to be co-presenters next week when we return to Chittagong University to talk about art and mental health. We spent most of yesterday morning compiling a joint PowerPoint presentation to accompany our talk. This collaboration feels better, more just, although I came to find out that Jatra is a stickler for font size and has intransigent, furious beliefs about color choices.

I still hate PowerPoint.

The light breaking through at Chittagong University. The brutalist architecture tries to contain the encroaching natural world. A fascinating duel.

That’s about it. I saw a riveting production of Oedipus Rex at a local arts school. The actors spoke Bangla so I had to rely on my recollection of Sophocles from Mrs. Bishop’s English Honors class at Riverside Polytechnic High School. Our 1974 production involved standing in a straight line and shouting the chorus’ words in unison. If we redefined the play, it was by accident and not for the better. In this Bangla version the chorus moved around the stage like a wave, constantly crashing into Oedipus and threatening to drown Jocasta with each terrible revelation. Gripping.

The chorus takes a curtain call. Oedipus Rex, 2023.

And I have many more portraits ready for the next blog. Here’s a teaser.

M.K. Jatra in front of poster for Oedipus Rex. He clearly has taste; I think our PowerPoint will be all the better for it.

Here’s to all the teachers out there. Please send comments. I beg of you. In the meantime, another quote by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bard of Bengal:

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.“

Rabindranath Tagore: 1861-1941.

Just after 5:00am on Chatteswari Road.

I remember many swim practices where a song would get stuck in my head, pursuing me up and down the lane for the entire two-and-a-half hours. The more insipid the song, the fiercer the chase (“M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E,” for instance. Or some song about a three-hour tour). Despite recent postings to the contrary, I think my ear worms are getting a tiny bit more sophisticated. Lately, these lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s “Barangrill” have been tailing me:

And you want to get moving

And you want to stay still

But lost in the moment some longing gets filled…

(Thanks, Joni Mitchell)

The smile and the hand are at odds.

I can’t stay still. It’s too hot to keep walking. Joni Mitchell gets me.

Bangladesh is suffering under a persistent heat wave (91F in Dhaka at 10:30pm last Thursday night); I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier for a morning walk to beat the heat and clear my head. It’s still a (pleasant) shock to leave the cool of Thames Tower and step out into the smoke and haze of the morning. By the time I’m on the main road the crows are sifting through the piles of coconut husks, cawing at each other to set their morning boundaries. The men walking past acknowledge me with a booming, “Good morning!” The women avert their gaze. Today marked the first time a dog took offense at my presence. I tried to remember if I absolutely should or should not establish eye contact. I blinked. He wagged. We parted ways.

The monkeys in Dhaka left me alone, what with all the cables to coil.

These morning walks do fill some longing. I feel a weird sense of accomplishment just finding my way back to the apartment. Everywhere I look something catches my eye; the photographs fail, but I like the challenge of trying to capture (ha!) the proliferate world here. To echo Ms. Mitchell, getting lost in the moment takes me out of the desire to control time (six more weeks; three more exams; a month’s worth of dental floss, maybe).

Some moments for you:

Sunrise at Chok Bazaar. Dennis has been accompanying me on FaceTime. I hold up the phone and show him what I’m seeing. When he saw the sun rising he snapped the photo on his phone. So, a picture in Chittagong taken by someone in Minneapolis. What next? Flying cars?

Me, in Chok Bazaar, sloppy at 5:15 in the morning. In the mirrors of a modern bank…

Parked.

Early morning ISKCON temple in Chittagong. Haribol! (Hi, John.)

Stairs and shutters at the Chittagong ISKCON temple.

Looking at a tea warehouse through the multi-tinted windows of the Asian University for Women on Chatteswari Road.

Some Bangladeshi men have obliged me by letting me take their pictures. Public life is patriarchal here (the prime minister, however, is female); approaching a woman on the street for a photo would be intrusive. Hence:

CNG driver in Dhaka.

Henna!

Cycle rickshaw driver outside the Alliance Française.

Happy student emerging from the reading room at Dhaka University.

Entrepreneur along the fence at a nearby park in Chittagong. He offered to check my cholesterol levels.

Cycle rickshaw driver in matching lungi, shirt, and collapsible hood.

Criminology graduate student and CNG driver. Excellent impromptu tour guides, both.

Chai? Cha? Tea? This gentleman serves them all.

100 degrees Fahrenheit at Dhaka University. He’s looking at the canteen where I bought a Mountain Dew for the first time in fifty years. It’s still gross and perfect.

You’re hot? I have fur.

And finally:

A crowd gathered at Dhaka University. A consensus emerged: I should pay for a cycle rickshaw to see the campus (I walked).

Oh, and this interloper:

Sitting for lunch at the Sikh gurdwara on the campus of Dhaka University. An oasis of quiet in crazy Dhaka. “Kindness as their deity and forgiveness as their chanting beads. They are a most excellent people.” Guru Granth Sahib Ji

As you’ve guessed, I spent last weekend up in Dhaka, roaming around and trying to immerse myself. My roommate Reza (who still lives in a separate apartment; not sure when AUW will move me downstairs) kept me company on the nine-hour, double-decker bus ride last Thursday evening. We talked about movies–he’s a cinematographer–and food and our families. I asked him about adda, a Bangla word I’d learned in Kolkata. Here’s a definition, courtesy of a BBC report:

“We are not expected to produce something out of an adda,” Aditi Ghosh, head of the linguistics department at University of Calcutta, told me. “It is a kind of unplanned mental exercise where we not just talk about ourselves and our families, but we go beyond that. It is about ideas and events happening all around us.”

An adda in Kolkata.

If two people can form an adda (Is it a noun? A verb? Both?) I’d like to think Reza and I did. I commented on every passing object (“Look at that tree!”) while he incorporated these observations into discussions about art history and politics and Bengali society. We talked about load shedding and the upcoming fuel crisis. I groused about the Christo-fascism that is eroding human rights in the US. He told me about “September on Jessore Road,” Allen Ginsberg’s poetic lament for the refugees of the 1971 War of Liberation.

“Millions of fathers in rain/Millions of mothers in pain/Millions of brothers in woe/Millions of sisters with nowhere to go.” Ginsberg’s poem on display in the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka.

Reza handed me his phone so I could read the poem off the tiny screen as the bus headed toward Dhaka. How do societies recover from such horror? Where do they start? We talked about this, about how the generations that fought this war are still with us, if they survived. We talked about Ginsberg and censorship and the dangers of denying the past. The mood shifted as we stopped at the requisite roadhouse in Cumilla (everyone has to get off the bus; everyone is heartily encouraged to eat). Reza ordered dal and rice and Pepsis to share. We chatted some more and almost missed the bus.

Nothing was solved, not even this less complicated question: “Why do people take offense at other people’s vegetarianism?”

Lots of okra in the dining hall. Might just drive me back to beef.

In high school my insightful friend Sarah coined the term “houseboat person.” I think this is akin to people in an adda. Think of this as a kind of geometry proof by way of explanation:

Friends are people who sustain us.

Houseboat dwellers are people who can live easily in close quarters.

Friends who can live easily in close quarters are houseboat people.

Time will tell if Reza and I will be houseboat people, but I was very grateful for his easy, unforced, interesting company.

Waterscape, waiting for a boat. Dhaka.

As for teaching, a student of mine came to office hours and gave me good talking-to. That morning, nearly half the class had arrived late and I had pleaded with them to make a better effort at being on time. She said, “They were raised in military dictatorships. You have to be firm!” Below is videotaped evidence of my iron-fisted pedagogy:

This video raises more questions than it answers.

The students at Dhaka University were eager to tell me about their own history with certain types of dictators, how authoritarianism tore their worlds apart. If I can do them remote justice, I’ll include their observations next time. An object lesson for us in the States, for sure.

Joy Bangla. On a wall at Dhaka University.

For now, I’m ending with another glimpse of Joni Mitchell and her song “Good Friends”:

No hearts of gold

No nerves of steel

No blame for what we can and cannot feel

Good friends, you and me…

Much love, whether we’d survive on a houseboat or not. Send me comments; we’ll create a digital adda.

A picture, then a thousand (or so) words:

The modern and the primeval. A brave CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) taxi beneath the brave trees that remain. Down the road from the Asian University for Women.

In the Muslim world, Friday and Saturday make up the weekend. Here at AUW, I teach from Sunday through Thursday. A slight shift, but one that has thrown me off in some small ways. I’m at the tail end of the weekend (see title) and my friends and family in the States are just starting theirs. How can this be? Let’s see:

Yesterday, I startled my mom by FaceTiming her at 6:45am Pacific Time. I thought it had to be early evening in California, even though I had just finished my dinner of vegetarian pizza with chili sauce at Beans ‘n’ Cream, an unappetizingly named but delicious local restaurant. She wondered if I was okay; the jury’s out.

Beans ‘n’ Cream ‘n’ Crocs ‘n’ Me.

Then: Last Thursday I told my students to have a good weekend and that I’d see them on Monday. They cheered until one woman betrayed her classmates and said, “But don’t we start again on Sunday?” (“Judas!”).

No one likes a snitch. On the wall outside a local school where copyright infringement is not on the curriculum. (Am I reading this right?)

And: I thought I’d amble home last night from a movie and, in doing so, stepped into the most visceral definition of a throng imaginable. Chok Bazar was packed with thousands of people, all socializing and shopping after the Friday evening prayers. I got lost–and more than a bit panicked–amid the crammed tea stalls and cycle rickshaws and sputtering florescent tubes and the ceaseless honking horns that sound like hell-bent, furious geese on a mission to derail every single train of thought. I finally hailed a three-wheel taxi and found I was four minutes from my apartment. Oh, well.

On the way home. I wonder what this shop is peddling.

Time, time, time. Studies have shown that the abrupt changes brought about by Daylight Saving Time cause drivers to misjudge braking distances; without being aware of it, we adjust our depth perception based on lengths of shadows and subtle shifts in ambient light. When we leap ahead an hour, all that subconscious information gets mangled. We crash. And now my weekend’s a whole day earlier.

Perhaps I’m trying to over-compensate for my confusion with aggressive pedantry.

Don’t women observe Daylight Saving Time? And serve in Congress?

I also make it sound as if I casually slipped into a movie theater last night and caught a film. This is untrue. I haven’t figured out how to spend my free time here–right now the power is off and I’m sitting in my boxers, typing while trying to keep my sweaty arms from touching my sweaty sides (InstantMessage me for photos) (kidding, Mom)–so I’ve leapt at any opportunity to do anything. A colleague from last summer invited me to a Jean-Luc Godard screening-and-lecture at the Chittagong Alliance Française. I made the fifteen minute walk through Chok Bazar and, miraculously, found the building. The speaker earned enthusiastic bursts of applause along with some good laughs; he switched back and forth effortlessly between French and Bangla. I only caught the words “New Wave” and “film” because, well, they were in English, but I didn’t care. It felt good to be around people in a somewhat familiar setting. I dozed off during the double feature, giving my (sweaty) body over to the mosquitoes who were drawn to the French New Wave.

I saw this…

…at this. Didn’t know a single moviegoer, but I was so grateful for their company I kept nodding at them as if we were long-lost chums. I guess we are social creatures.

As I left the Alliance Française (whose hashtag is the unfortunate af), I took my life in my hands, fastening myself to more experienced Bangladeshis who scrummed me across the street in one cohesive unit. Once on the other side, I let out a sigh of relief, took a deep victory breath, and was immediately pummeled from above by a hard, oblong object. Paranoia took hold. I thought, “Who’s throwing rocks at me? Or potatoes? What did I do this time?” My face flushed with anger (“What the hell??”). As I reached around to rub my throbbing shoulder (it really hurt) I saw a security guard run out into traffic and retrieve the thing. “A mango!” he said, pointing to the tree above and then holding it up for me to inspect.

Jackfruit grows here in Bangladesh as well. In fact, it’s the national fruit. If one of these had fallen from on high I’m not sure I’d be typing here today.

Had this happened in a Jean-Luc Godard film my reaction would have been blasé and provocatively arbitrary. I’d have whipped out a pistol, shot the mango, grabbed the security guard by the hand, and then run laughing (why?) into the night. The soundtrack would have swelled as if to say, “We will now toy with your expectations, little fool.” The security guard would not solve my problems–nor I, his–but we would not care. We know time is passing; that is all.

We are birds, trapped by the sky. (I love this mural.)

Time is passing, if a bit slowly. Am trying to set up some improv workshops and connect with people from last year; my hope is that I’ll get busy enough to stop thinking so much about home. To counter this, I’ve been getting out of bed at 5:15 every morning to take a long walk. Chittagong is quiet and cooler at this hour (it’s still hot af)(je suis désolé). The simple act of walking gets me out of my head (although yesterday the song “It’s a Jolly Holiday with Mary” from Mary Poppins wormed its way into my mind) and I can feel myself actually being here. In Bangladesh.

Bert and Mary, if they were French.

It’s the improv maxim: Get into your body; get out of your head. I’ve been having my Intro Psych class do physical activities at the midpoint of our 75 minute class to give them a break from the sitting and note-taking. Last Thursday we all hummed together and then let out our voices to find a musical chord. It may not have been pitch-perfect, but we spent the second half of the class in a much better mood. Today (it’s finally Sunday) we talked about ambidexterity and then shook out our dominant and non-dominant hands to the count of 10. At least it gets them laughing. Doing this also gives them an emotional experience upon which they can attach this (sort of) dry material. “The neural impulse will always be connected to the day Professor Robinson made us shake like chickens.”

Here are some photos from my walks. Again, Bangladesh is a beautiful, complex country. I wish my photographic eye could genuinely capture it for you:

Road leading up to the haunting War Cemetery.

Cheerful soccer players outside the AUW at 5:45 in the morning.

Obliging proprietors of one of the billions of tiny shops in Chittagong.

Weary cat outside a Kali temple near the AUW.

Inside the Kali temple. The cat did Kali’s work for her the previous evening (see crow, taking credit).

Another neighborhood cat, acting all innocent. I miss Omelet and Eisenhower.

It’s all been said before.

Handsome Bangladeshi.

Um…

Glorious.

And now, some WONDERFUL, hopeful advertising. I have to emphasize this: My Bangla is non-existent except for a few words. If I ever become more adept, I hope I infuse their language with as much optimism as the Bangla people have done with English. Snark would be unseemly here, so I offer these photos with all the good humor they brought me:

My melancholy will have a mint lemonade, unless you have a side of homesickness to go.

I wish there were a comma. Duh.

So what’s the rush?

Wicked Bean!

So, we drink it?

At last. An advertiser who dares to speak the quiet part out loud.

There are no mistakes.

Just got back from lunch in the cafeteria. I sat with a Bangladeshi journalist and a Chinese philosopher. I left humbled. There is so much about this country that I can’t see on the surface. Of course.

That’s all. Please send a comment; I’d like to hear from you, my friends.

(I’m a sucker for this stuff):

Come Saturday morning, just I and my friend

We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles

And then we’ll move on

But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone

Dory Previn/Fred Karlin

I lurked around the swank, chilly bar at the Chittagong Radisson Blu last evening, trying not to lose my mind because the internet at Thames Tower (my current housing) will not cooperate. Thames Tower, by the way, is located in the Beverly Hills Residential Society, hovering over the Sun Valley campus of the Asian University for Women. Despite the aspirational and intimidating real estate references (and the coy internet), I like my eleventh floor apartment. Here’s evidence, both high and low:

Chittagong, from my (temporary) Thames Tower perch.

Sleepy lane outside Thames Tower.

The Radisson Blu Wi-Fi proved equally elusive. I even ordered a banana smoothie from the suspicious bartender just so I could get their password to work on this blog. Has anyone created a new English word for internet insanity? “Applerage”? “Blogplexia”? I fell back on the old standards, none of which is appropriate for this blog (hi, Mom).

The graffiti on the wall near Beverly Hills, Chittagong clarified my plea:

If I could grow up again, I wouldn’t spend half my life trying to establish an internet connection.

My one success last night–and it felt significant–involved an elaborate pantomime with the three-wheel taxi driver. Somehow he figured out that my flailing arms and anguished face meant that I needed to be deposited at the Beverly Hills Residential Society. I think we’d make a formidable charades team.

You’re a goose! Wait. No. You’re a waterfall going backwards! Huh? I know! You’re Charles Nelson Reilly making a pineapple pizza! You’re a Holstein calf!

Which brings me to this AUW banner. It’s perfect. Why waste precious time screaming at a screen when the actual world exists? (Well, for one thing, my students need to access Google Classroom) (a.k.a. “hell”). I also love that the advice at the bottom leaves you hanging. Just like the internet.

The future is both unknowable and constantly being written. And, most of all,

You’ve taken time from your precious life to read these ravings, so I’ll get down to business with some photos from the last three days (but I’ve lived here forever, it seems):

I accidentally chose Arabic as the language for my movie screen on the plane and couldn’t revert to English. A trend emerges.

Landing in Doha. Incredible!

More advice, this one from the staff of the Two Spoons cafe across the street from the AUW. I’ll take it to heart.

You don’t want to hear my First World problems?

Maybe an HR seminar would boost morale. (Hi, Jen Scott!)

I went to the main AUW campus with Reza, my soon-to-be roommate, to buy stuff for my new housing situation. It seems I’m being demoted to the first floor at Thames Tower. My life in the penthouse can’t be justified by the AUW (the apartment is for visiting dignitaries; I knew nothing of this). Alas. Reza’s a photography instructor from Dhaka and promises to be good company. He bought cleaning supplies at this mini-mart on MM Ali Road; I found some British biscuits and stood under the air conditioner while Bangladesh pedaled past:

A spectator’s view of things.

The AUW banner’s advice haunted me, so I got up at 5:30 this morning and went for a walk around the neighborhood. It felt good to be out among the dripping trees and the sleepy packs of feral dogs. The incessant honking hadn’t started yet; I shared the road with a few other early risers, men with red-henna beards and women in full-length hijab over trendy white tennis shoes. By the time I got home the heat and noise had returned. I washed my shirt in the shower with Head & Shoulders. The internet was down.

Beautiful early morning Chittagong.

Not to make a meal out of this, but the digital world can drown out our inner voice (mine at the moment: “What’s the #*$&#@# password!”). Trying to cling to things–even important ones like staying in touch with loved ones at home–just amps the anxiety. I’ll make my one improv observation here…scenes only work if we give our full attention to the moment; when we make demands on the outcome we’re doomed. Bangladesh won’t cater to my digital needs. It certainly won’t bend to accommodate my desire for peace and quiet. It offers fascination and complexity. Who do I think I am?

C’est vrai. (Regarder! C’est Vicky Leandros, chanteuse gréco-française qui s’est classée quatrième dans le cadre de l’Eurovision 1967 avec cette chanson!) (Merci Google Traduction!)

Oh, yeah: Some levity to leaven the absurdity. The Muzak in the AUW Sun Valley campus elevator offers a constant loop of the 1967 Luxembourg Eurovision entry “Love is Blue.” The fifth period Mixed Chorus singers at Matthew Gage Junior High School, under the direction of Mr. Williams, also sang this song in 1971. To Mr. Williams’ credit, he allowed us to sing the lyric “Red, red, my eyes are red/Crying for you, alone in my bed” if we promised not to snicker at the implied sexual relationship. He also suggested that I end my singing career with his class.

Enough levity. This is Alan Turing, the man whose computational gifts helped Britain intercept the Axis powers’ encoded messages. Some argue the Allies defeated fascism due to Turing’s unparalleled contribution. He was also chemically castrated by the British government for being gay. Teachers in Florida can’t talk about his fate and his sexuality, how the people whose lives he saved betrayed him.

Would Mr. Williams be fired, now, if he worked in Florida? Or Texas? Or any of the 20 other states that are riding roughshod over education? Because he acknowledged sexuality in a melodramatic pop song? Quite possibly.

My students are adults, but I hope I can trust them like Mr. Williams trusted us. Class started yesterday and already there’s a revolt underway. They asked to give presentations on mindfulness and the Stockholm Syndrome instead of focusing on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and anxiety disorders (my suggestions). This morning, before the revolt, I talked about the power of intrinsic motivation, how following one’s interest is, often, reward enough. I suppose I have to walk the talk. Listen. Try to understand what compels them, not try to control their minds (ha!).

I look forward to my students’ presentations on Jon Kabat-Zinn and Patty Hearst.

Stockholm.

Important: There will be questions on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and anxiety disorders on the exam, however. And there will be extra credit.

Poster featuring nihilist quote by mathematician and poet Omar Khayyám. On the fifth floor of the Asian University for Women.

Obviously, I got the internet to work (or, really, I followed the internet signal to school where I have been since 7:30 this morning). The Omar Khayyám quote on the poster above moved me, partially because I’ve been rolling impotently along ever since I arrived. In a week I’ll have a very different view of Bangladesh and the Asian University for Women. If the past is any predictor, I’ll have found my footing, at least a bit. Or I’ll know that it will take another week. Or two. Or more.

Khayyám’s words also move me because they’re so bracing: “Lift not thy hands to [the sky] for help.” Maybe the staff at the AUW is emphasizing that we need to learn to take care of ourselves and each other, not rely on that big bowl in the sky. True and kind of treacly.

Speaking of treacle:

Blue, blue, my world is blue,
Blue is my world now I’m without you,
Gray, gray, my life is gray,
Cold is my heart since you went away.

Red, red, my eyes are red,
Crying for you alone in my bed.
Green, green my jealous heart,
I doubted you, and now we’re apart.

When we met, how the bright sun shone,
Then love died, now the rainbow is gone.

Black, black, the nights I’ve known,
Longing for you so lost and alone.
Gone, gone, the love we knew,
Blue is my world now I’m without you.

(lyrics by Pierre Cour)

Does this still work?

A door in Lucknow. Years ago. Is this a liminal space?

I’m sitting at SK Coffee in Saint Paul, shaking my right foot and holding my breath while I worry my new dental implant with my tongue. In 48 hours I’ll be boarding the plane in Seattle bound for Doha; from there, I’ll fly to Dhaka before landing in Chittagong to teach for eight weeks at the Asian University for Women. A handful of AUW students will be completing the soon-to-be-defunct psychology minor. I, like the dodo, will waddle these soft-scientists to extinction before flying home in mid-July.

I’m sorry for the tortured simile.

I’m nervous, mostly because I’m neither here nor there. Summer has finally arrived in the upper midwest. We can sleep with the windows open. Cherries threaten to shrivel in the refrigerator before we can finish them off. The humid air smells of asphalt; the potholes admit defeat. Friends have big plans. I think I’m having anticipatory homesickness.

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota/Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. James Wright

And, of course, I’m so lucky to go. My friend Carol (hi, Carol!) pointed out that humans wrestle with transitions. We live in a constant liminal space, always transitioning from one moment to the next, never really sitting still, always yearning for security. Since this blog is about improv, I’ll point out that improvisers seek out the changing moment for inspiration, for energy. We try to let go of our stories and our plans and our illusions of safety. We jump.

Still, I love being at home.

Ruminating on the couch in front of the TV.

We can’t be in two places at the same time, but we can hold two contradictory ideas in one moment. Duh, I suppose. Here’s to the privilege of travel, the yearning for stability, to Dennis and the cats and the chance to return to Bangladesh.

Improvisation is based on the principle of “Yes, and…” Acknowledge the moment, then proceed with curiosity. Leave me a comment; I miss you, each and every one.

More soon.

…and I’m not quite ready to go. The AUW shuttle will pick me up in 90 minutes to take me to the airport. My stuff seems to have multiplied in the dark while I slept. How will all of it fit in my one suitcase?

I’ll leave that disaster until the last minute. At least it’s a choice.

Random photos with pithy captions (or not). Goodbye, Bangladesh. I hope to come back.

POST SCRIPT:

I’m home, exhausted. Are humans meant to travel half-way around the world in 36 (and then some) hours? How can we make sense of the barrage of impressions?

Glad to have ice cubes in my potable water; miss the sounds from the loudspeakers outside the mosque near my apartment in Chittagong.

Sat next to Christian missionaries on the flight from Doha to Seattle who are helping to feed the war-torn, dispossessed people of Ukraine; they refused to wear masks on the plane despite the constant, gentle reminders of the flight attendants.

Grateful for my home and for Dennis and the ungrateful, mysterious cats.

Thanks for listening.

“Why don’t you be an anthropologist about it?”

I got this wise suggestion from Carol, one of a group of high school friends who have been Zooming together since the beginning of the pandemic. We are all proud graduates of Riverside Polytechnic High School (Class of ’77 rules), and I’ve known some of them (hi, Laurie) as long as I’ve known my brothers and sister. Last Saturday night, after two days in Dhaka, I’d been on Zoom expressing my misgivings about being here during Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice. I was freaking out a bit about witnessing the slaughter of cattle and goats on the streets of this city. In fact, just before the Zoom call I’d read this quote from the Dhaka Tribune:

On the first day of Eid-ul-Adha, the roads in Dhaka look to be painted red because there is so much blood; bones, horns, heads, and the blood-soaked mats are thrown on the roads or in the drains.

So. Much. Blood. I wouldn’t say I was dithering–although of course I was–but I will say I needed some good advice on how to proceed from people who have known me long and well.

“Just be curious,” my friend Sarah added. When I balked, she said, “Or you can also just stay in your room.”

In improv we aspire to practice radical non-judgment, so I’ll try to be an improviser. I’ll simply observe my days here in Dhaka and throw in some pictures to do the heavy lifting. Four days in a row, beginning on Thursday and ending on Sunday’s Eid festival.

I’ll start by immediately violating my declaration of non-judgment by saying I loved every minute of the train trip from Chittagong. True, I had a backward-facing seat that lead to some woozy moments as the scenery rolled past. We crossed rivers and barreled through villages and rattled past stations with clusters of men sound asleep on the platform. My eyes would try to capture an image while my stomach raced along with the locomotion. Several times I had to close my eyes and breathe through my mouth. I was thrilled when my seat mate turned on the overhead fan. Still, I couldn’t get enough of the unspooling view. Here’s one static frame:

I made it to the hotel, settled into my room, and took a walk around the neighborhood.

Twenty-one million people live in Dhaka. The traffic is obscene. The pollution and the heat and the insidious gray mold press against every surface, including human skin. The dust settles like talcum powder. And yet, just off the main streets, tiny parks with even tinier ponds fend off the pandemonium. Dozens of turtles break the surface of the water, nipping at bugs and creating endless overlapping circles. In these moments, Dhaka is beautiful. I strolled, happy to be in Bangladesh. I didn’t even try to keep up with the power-walkers (one very friendly gentleman noted that I was moving slowly but, in his words, was “not fatty”). By the time I got back to my room I was drenched, despite my snail’s pace. It’s a three-shower day here in the capital.

I slept soundly, took another early morning walk, and returned to the hotel to eat my weight at the complimentary breakfast buffet (Congee! Sour Yogurt! Figs and pomegranate seeds! Yellow watermelon, like from the streets of Yangon! Eggs and dal and garlic mushrooms!) Since it was the Eid holiday and museums were closed, I had signed up for a tour of several archeological sites in the area. I splurged. The driver would pick me up at 8:00 in the lobby and we’d be back by 5:00. Lunch would be provided. The Eid festivities were two days away, so there might be traffic.

The tour lasted twelve hours, nine-and-a-half of which were spent sitting in (brutal) traffic. The driver and the guide were perfect companions for this situation. After telling me about Rupban Mura, the eighth century Buddhist monastery we were going to visit, the guide–who has a name, one I said 85 times and can’t remember for the life of me–and I sat in silence while the driver (not nameless, of course) would seize any opportunity to lunge into a momentary break in the gridlock. It was like a really, really, really slow game of checkers. Five hours later we reached our first destination:

We were all numb by the time we wandered around the remains of the stupa. I have to say I’m not a good tourist; my head was pounding from the heat while lethargy had dulled my vision about three hours prior. I had a hard time taking in the fact that these structures were built 1300 years ago. That’s remarkable, but at the moment all I could think about was finding some water and a bathroom (in either order).

This woke me up:

Across the street from the archeological remains was a Thai-funded temple, dedicated to the people of Bangladesh in 1995. I spent a summer in 1977 as a foreign exchange student in Bangkok; seeing the gleaming white temple and the lithe, golden Buddha took me back to my almost-18-year-old self. I thought about explaining my burst of enthusiasm to the guide (“You see, I thought if I went somewhere else I’d become someone else…”) but instead we both nodded and pointed and agreed that Thai temples are “very beautiful.”

I also met this helpful officer who gave me his business card, saying “I have a YouTube channel! Please watch!” I did! Really impressive.

The only thing more tedious than traffic is writing (and reading) about it. I’ll just say this: by the time we got to Panam City, an ancient Hindu-then-Mughal-then-Colonial European city, I had forgotten why we were doing anything. Four hours after the Thai temple we were approaching Panam City, but it would take another half-hour to make the left turn into the parking area. The Eid traffic was pouring into Dhaka, honking flatbeds crammed with furious goats and wild-eyed, loose-boweled cattle. I’ll remember their faces for a long time.

Panam City:

Panam City was stunning. In time I’ll know it was worth the drive.

We made it back to the hotel. I slept face-first on the mattress until 5:30 the next morning. Took another long walk. Ate breakfast.

I know it’s unseemly to complain about these opportunities. It is. I’m lucky to be here. And, since this blog is purportedly about improvisation, I need to remember an aspiration we–as improvisers– strive to implement: Each moment is the best possible moment (it’s also the only possible moment–given how moments tend to be singular by nature–and so we do have some choice in how we respond).

I tested this premise when, in a moment of tourist-panic (WHAT NOW???), I made the questionable choice to go on a complimentary “shopping excursion” offered by the hotel.

I hate shopping.

That’s my declaration. I tend to let every choice become an existential crisis (“Will this shirt widen my carbon footprint?”; “What does this belt say about me? Is it authentic, or am I giving the belt too much power?”; “Why do I have disposable income when so many don’t?”) (a good question, actually) (“Back to the belt. It’s made of leather. And where does that come from, Jim?”) (“Performative guilt, much?”).

Still, I went.

I told myself I was on an excursion, good grief, that I needed to look beyond the fact that I was spending my precious time trudging around an air-conditioned mall in Bangladesh. Perhaps I could practice some ethnography; I could learn as much about present-day Bangladesh by eating at a food court as I would by roaming the streets.

I tried.

After an afternoon of over-thinking at the mall I went back to the hotel. These creatures greeted me:

The soon-to-be reality of animal sacrifice in the streets shook me. And yet, slaughter is the fate of most domesticated animals. For better or for worse, we hide this fact. With Eid, there is no way to deny this reality, no way to make it casual or inconvenient. People witness the ritual and they witness the sacrifice. The meat is given to the family, friends, and the poor, not commodified. Muslims are asked to remember, in a visceral way, the requirements of their beliefs, the celebration of community, the call to generosity.

Dinner (vegetarian, always, for what it’s worth). Sleep.

I got up early (again) and walked back to the park, threading my way through the faithful while the call-to-prayer echoed off the buildings in the neighborhood. The goats and cattle were still on the street. I decided to go into old Dhaka that day rather than hiding out in the air-conditioned room; the cool air and the (wonderful) food were starting to atrophy my resolve to be present. With the help of the entire hotel staff I got a CNG taxi (see above) and we headed down to the river.

On the way we passed along roads “painted red” with blood. We saw bulls sitting placidly next to carcasses being skinned, the severed heads dangling onto the pavement while the offal was being cut and piled on enormous gray platters. Three-foot bundles of new hides were stacked next to hooves and horns and tailbones; shopkeepers hosed down their storefronts where the blood had pooled. I had to turn away when we’d come upon a group of men holding down a bull as the knife was lifted above his neck. The sound that followed was ghastly.

I couldn’t take photos. It all seemed too intimate, my presence too intrusive.

By the time we reached the river lines of people had formed to collect or distribute the meat. Some were dressed for the holiday, the women in pastel shalwar kameezes and the men in charcoal panjabis; others wore tee-shirts and worn out jeans. The atmosphere was somber. The parties that evening, according to the men at the hotel front desk, would be festive, focused on family and gratitude.

“Glad” isn’t the right word, but I am glad I saw this. I think I would have regretted doing otherwise.

Moving on, if possible.

For the rest of the day we drove around Dhaka. Here’s what I saw:

And, this:

The Ibrahim/Ishmael story mirrors Abraham/Isaac. All day these lyrics–co-written by Joan Baez–have been playing in my head:

Hard times, hard times in Canaan land
Trouble in the mind of a man
A voice came whispering softly to him
Go offer, offer up the lamb

Abraham took his only son
High up on a hill
His test of faith had finally come
As the wind, the wind begin to chill

Cold steel, cold steel in the father’s hand
Tears falling from the sky
The angels, the angels did not understand
Why the righteous, the righteous boy should die

Abraham most mysteriously
Laid down that deadly knife
Said, “My darlin’ son, I wish I was the one
Who spared you, spared your precious life”

Oh Isaac, the light of all your days
Will shine upon this mountain high
And never, never fade away
And never fade away

Here’s a link to the song itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU5h02mWipk.

When the Bengali movie “The Home and the World” was released in 1985 I dragged my friend Kathy to the Beverly Center in Los Angeles to see a weekday matinee. South Asia had begun to fascinate me and Kathy was a good sport. I still remember wandering around the food court afterward; it was too early for dinner and so we rode the escalators and waited for rush hour traffic to die down. The movie spawned a million jokes that afternoon, mostly because we were too young to be sensitive to the movie’s themes (the perils of staying close to home; the perils of leaving; the perils of passionate devotion to a cult leader) and too in love with our own banter. We cracked each other up.

A few days ago, after using the ATM at the Radisson Blu in Chittagong, I sat in the air-conditioned bar and, again, waited for the traffic to ease up (it never does). To pass some time I went over to a bookcase that stood just to the left of the bar (not sure which is weirder: a bookcase in a bar or a bar in dry Bangladesh). I scanned the English-language paper, flipped through a spy novel to see if there were any racy scenes, and then picked up a compendium of Rabindranath Tagore stories. And there it was: The Home and the World.

I suppose I could have paid for a full night at the Radisson to finish the story, but I do have housing through the AUW and I’m not wild about traveling in a three-wheel taxi after dark, so I left after the first chapter with only a vague recollection of what happens to Bimala, the story’s heroine. In that first chapter, Tagore writes of Bimala’s desire to revere her husband and of her husband’s desire for her to be emancipated. These competing views of the world unsettle Bimala, making her open to the demands of a third character, a charismatic political figure whose desires for Bimala prove to be dangerous and self-serving.

Bimala, of course, has her own life, one that neither man takes into account. For reasons honorable and nefarious, these men want to define this woman’s experience. They want to control her, make her fit into their view of the world. They’re willing, too, to let her pay the price for their desires.

Tagore wrote The Home and the World in 1916; would this book be banned in Florida or Texas in 2022 because it questions gender roles? Because it is anti-authoritarian at heart? The story is also an allegory about the ravages of colonialism. Won’t some people feel bad about that, particularly if they weren’t colonialists themselves?

And what about the children?

I was served bitter gourd at dinner last night. It was a bracing side dish, but I wouldn’t want to make a meal of it.

The world is too much with us, at least in this digital age (apologies to Wm. Wordsworth). Am awash in news from the States, most of it disheartening, while trying to be here in this very temporary home. Weird to fall asleep and wake up in Bangladesh after dreaming about home. Hard to recognize either place.

Teaching continues. I was invited to Cox’s Bazar, the longest beach in the world, to lead a class and conduct an improv workshop at Cox’s Bazar International University. I loved it. Some photos to capture the strangeness:

I took the bus from Chittagong to Cox’s Bazar; the 90-mile trip took nearly five hours. The windshield did not lie: it was harrowing (and beautiful and exciting).

Rainy, dreary, muddy when we arrived. I walked down to the shore before lunch, making up my mind that not only was Cox’s Bazar the world’s longest beach, but also the most depressing. Then I saw this:

And this:

And this:

By the time I made it to the university my mind was changed (or opened). Cox’s Bazar, long as it is, may even be the world’s most bizarre beach, and that’s fine with me:

M.K. Jatra, my host, took me on a tour of the school. Climate change is affecting low-lying, alluvial countries like Bangladesh at a terrifying rate. The recent monsoon rain had drenched the school–mostly through the ceiling and windows–and the wreckage was immediately visible:

We began the workshop with formal speeches from the dais. My biggest hope is that M.K. Jatra’s Bangla translation enhanced my introductory talk. In my limited defense, I didn’t realize I’d be speaking until he handed me the microphone and said, “You go.” Thank goodness I’m an improviser:

The students–all taking a certificate course in “Expressive Psychotherapy”–showed no signs of despair over the ravaged building. With the translating help of M.K. Jatra, they joined in the exercises with enthusiasm and laughter. In the debriefs they made connections between being in-the-moment and being free from the dread of anxiety. More than anything, they supported each other. At times three or four would cluster around a classmate, confer wildly, and then find the right English word to express their thoughts. When I tried to conduct a warm up using Bangla numbers (my Bangla language learning has stalled) they leaned in to help me, cheering at my rudimentary skills.

They were improvisers! Collaborative, curious, committed. It was a great afternoon.

As mentioned, the students above are getting certified through the Expressive Psychotherapy program; they’re exploring artistic processes–theater, painting, music–as a way to conduct therapy with traumatized clients. Due to this training, a culture of self-disclosure has taken root among the students. They share a lot. After a vigorous game of Zip-Zap-Zop, I asked if anyone had any questions. One woman did:

“What do you do when everyone betrays you? How do you trust again?”

Um…

Her classmates joined in, excoriating some guy who had promised love and then changed his mind. After submitting the evidence, which was vague but expressive, the students looked at me with high hopes. Surely the visiting professor must have an answer.

I said I was sorry this had happened to her. I reminded her that this was an improv class, so I was going to frame my response in improv terms. I talked about how improv is always about honoring the moment, not ignoring what was happening, and then starting from that point. She had been hurt. Betrayed. As an improviser, she needed to recognize the pain and begin to find inspiration there.

She and her cohort shook their heads and murmured, “No, no.”

I (sort of) stand by my answer. In retrospect (improv essentials: don’t look back!) I wish I’d said, “You seem disgusted by his behavior. Good! You know you deserve better. Start from there.”

I also could have said, “I love your openness, your unwillingness to shut down. I think that will serve you, even if it leaves you open to another betrayal. It’s not easy being a human being.”

Or, even better: “That’s a great question. What do you think?”

After class M.K. Jatra and I had tea and samosas and then walked for two hours along the beach. It was glorious, peaceful, quiet. The tide was high, leaving pools of water on the sand. It was like walking on a mirror.

Now I’m back in Chittagong, working with my students at the Asian University for Women and conducting a workshop for the Bangladesh Therapeutic Theater Institute (BTTI). Everyone has been welcoming; it amazes me that they’re willing to let some bossy stranger into their midst and then wholeheartedly jump into these crazy exercises (“pretend you’re a lumberjack”; “now be a clam”). I’m a lucky man; I should be smiling on the BTTI banner:

I leave in a little over a week. I’ll miss these students. I’ll miss this place. The other day I went with another faculty member to the site of the future Asian University for Women, just outside of Chittagong in a beautiful, green valley. I felt a little sad that I’ll most likely never see the new school. Ground had been broken eleven years ago for the new campus, but very little construction had begun (money woes), and at this rate of progress it could be a while before students arrive.

And yet: tucked into the brick-and-mortar entrance to this imagined school was a marble plate with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, writing about home and the world. The elements have already worn down his lofty sentiments, but the words still inspire:

Tagore wrote this poem for India, before it was broken into East Pakistan and, later, Bangladesh. Still, it fits for this strange, troubled time we’re living now. We seem to be fragmenting, cut off from one another by “narrow domestic walls.” Here’s hoping the new AUW campus expands and does the poet proud.

This is for Kathy. What I wouldn’t give to wander the mall just one more time.

I abandoned the entry I started last night. With each sentence my ideas became more listless (“people change”; “time passes”). I wasn’t invested in what I was writing. What I really wanted to do is rant.

In improv, we often begin a class with a rant. The students line up against the back wall, get a topic (“traffic!”; “weather!”; “democracy!”), and then purge their streams-of-consciousness onto the stage (we used to start shows with rants; I’m not sure this bolstered ticket sales). The goal is to increase our energy while letting our minds run free. The emotional contagion we create from yelling in unison helps us forge a group mind; ideally, when we begin our scene work we now have an unconscious pool of images and emotions from which to draw.

Or not.

I don’t like rants. No one listens. We talk over each other. Everyone gets hot and bothered. More than anything, the scenes that emerge from the rant are just a relief after all that aggression: “Thank god they stopped that hollering. What does a talking turtle have to do with democracy? Please let there be an intermission.”

So I won’t rant.

Much.

Just a bit about news from home.

Okay. Imagine this at full volume from the back wall of an airless theater:

(Lights up. Yelling)

I’m sick and angry about US politics, about the anti-democratic behavior of a marauding minority whose only objective is to dominate and diminish others.

I’m disgusted by the racism, the White supremacy, the winking apologies.

I’m weary of watching prominent men who physically and sexually abuse women get rewarded, like they’re the victims because “people can’t take a joke.”

I’m dumbfounded that you expect me to live by the rules of your religion.

I’m not really dumbfounded. I’m used to it, but I thought we’d made some progress.

I’m furious that ONCE AGAIN gay people are being accused of “grooming” children when, week after week after week after week, sanctimonious men in America’s houses of worship expect their wives and parishioners to forgive them for their actual pedophilia.

I’m tired of feeling helpless, because this helplessness is a lie. We are still, tenuously, a democracy. This is not the time to give up.

I know we’re technically a republic. Point taken.

Whew.

(What I really want to do is swear.)

(Piano gliss; lights change; begin scene; go for laughs; regret becoming a turtle because, at my age, it takes forever to stand up and so I’m doomed to be on all-fours for most of the show. Blackout.)

Speaking of righteous rants, it’s the fifth-third anniversary of the Stonewall Riots today.

While I don’t particularly believe in ranting, I do believe in boundaries, a fundamental part of healthy improv scenes and human relations. In light of that, I’m going to curtail my diatribe and look at borderlines, healthy and otherwise.

Before shows we will often go around the circle and voice our physical boundaries (“my back is killing me, so please be careful”) and, occasionally, our emotional ones (“I’m not up for too many divorce scenes tonight”) (although this can backfire; divorce will be the first word on everyone’s lips).

At first I was skeptical of this practice. It seemed too precious. Performing requires some bravery; we really don’t want the audience to have to take care of us (talk about a boundary violation). The words of my first improv teacher, a remarkable woman named Cynthia Szygeti, have stuck with me for over thirty years. When we were tentative or self-conscious she would lean back in her chair, throw her arms above her head, and bellow, “There are no extra points for fear! JUMP!”

I really needed to hear that.

Now, however, taking about boundaries before we go on stage makes good sense to me. In fact, it’s a way of practicing the “yes, and…” principle that is at the heart of improvisation. We aspire to make our scene partners look as good as possible, and to do that we have to respect them. We honor their gifts; explore their declarations; try, with real commitment, to listen to them and respond. We don’t jump on their backs in a heedless scene about a messy divorce. We help each other get back on our feet when, after five scenes, an aging improviser’s been a turtle and then an ottoman and then a toadstool and then a beetle and, finally, a scone.

We try to recognize each other’s sovereignty while knowing the limits of our own. And when we violate a boundary–something that will surely happen–we listen and apologize. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort.

I think about my students here at AUW. They come from Bangladesh, of course, but also from Afghanistan and Myanmar and Syria, among other places. I don’t know what they’ve been through to get here–I hope if they share that with me I’ll have the good sense to shut up and listen–but I do know most of them have lived intimately with fundamentalism of the religious and political variety. Some, because they’re women or an ethnic minority, have been driven from their homes. Talk about a boundary violation. Where do we humans get off deciding some groups of people are worthwhile while others are not?

I should paste that on my bathroom mirror. Read it every day.

Seriously, when I think of the trauma inflicted by religious and political authoritarianism (often disguised as Patriotism and Love of Country and–god help us–God’s Plan) and the wastefulness of it all, I feel enraged. My students here don’t show that fury. They are going into careers in sustainability and environmentalism and management. Even if they struggled a bit with the first exam they can’t blame their grades on cynicism. They are, at least in class, resolutely positive. I love being around them. And there will be extra credit.

Let’s look at Bangladesh:

Just to the left of the photo above is a building that, apparently, has been under construction for over five years. The concrete shell is finished, but none of the interior work has been done. While I was waiting for the shuttle with another faculty member we heard a very distinct “Moo.” “Cows,” my colleague said to me, and then explained that a herd of 20 cattle is living in the building until next weekend when they will be slaughtered for Eid al-Adha, the Islamic holiday honoring Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s command.

Later this afternoon a student brought me a rainbow heart pin in honor of LGBT Pride here at AUW. The world is complex and barely knowable. Another good thing for me to keep in mind.