Goodbye, yellow brick road..

For the past three years I have been attempting to teach pubescent teenagers the intricacies of literature, smack dab in the center of some parallel reality where pimples and preening are just manifestations of a deep turmoil beneath the surface. And I have, bar a few psychotic episodes centering on misplaced hormonal surges, enjoyed every minute of it. Once the idea of being a role model and hence responsible for your actions winds into your bloodstream and settles down, it's hard not admit it is actually a lot of fun and a major learning experience to boot. In fact, I will unhesitatingly declare this has been my formative life experience. An experience so powerful and regenerative it makes school a non-entity and college a faint whisper over gale force winds that grows weaker by the minute. I should probably also tell you my only other job has been sorting mail in a post office.

But that's beside the point. I have cross checked with my colleagues, most of whom have been in this profession many many years, and while the more seasoned may not say so in words anymore it is quite obvious they know that at some level they are a part of a very special whole. And I cannot blame them for being cynical about it either; it's hard to feel positive in an environment that gives teachers little or no respect. Three years is hardly an eternity but I too am deeply disgusted with the culture that is evolving around private schools. It is a culture based on hypocrisy and ostentation, where parents vie with each other for entrance impact at PTA meetings and students gossip about each other's parent's financial difficulties. Parents allow children unrestricted access to money and cars and then blame the school when the inevitable problems surface. They want more milads in school while exposing their offspring to a more decadent reality in the relative safety of their homes. But the kids themselves are beings in flux, their personalities not fully formed, and it's a delight and a privilege to be a one fifth of one third of a stimulus that helped shape them.

Having now declared what an elevating experience it's been and how I now feel like I'm a better person (I could never figure out if saying that makes me a worse person), I've also got to admit I gave notice. Last month. And today is the first day of my last week as a teacher.

The last week before winter break was the worst. I told some of my students of my decision and got sucked right into a whirlpool of emotion created by their sense of being deserted and my own guilt. The subsequent winter break was spent in a peculiar mental limbo in which I thought of, spoke constantly about, and even dreamt of my students. But they'll forget about me in two weeks, and as for my guilt for leaving in the middle of an academic year, guilt isn't the same thing as regret. I had become so involved in my teaching my health was suffering (yes we do have orgies in modern classrooms, we feel it cultivates group compatibility) and, crucially, I found the only thing I could write with any skill was comments and a pert "do your corrections." And what about my dreams? What about my best seller about how Karachi is a giant prehistoric lizard that crawled up on the rocks to sleep and the constant eruptions in it just the poison exhalations from its pores as the sleeper awakens? What about my want, my need to share words with people since our so society so tragically precludes our sharing anything else? How could I teach people to follow their dreams when mine were gathering toxic dust on a shelf?

So right now, halfway into the first month of the fake millennium (there is an imposter in our midst, created by mass need to party) I find myself on the brink of a chasm, about to cut myself adrift from my safety cord. Will my energy carry me across it or will I tumble wildly into the swamp beneath where the monsters of failure and humiliation lurk in their corporate office leering down at their inferiors without corollas and civics? (If a banker is reading this and getting uncomfortable, it's because this is where capitalists go when they die). What do I need to do to get across the chasm? (With both feet on the ground as opposed to wrapped around somebody else). I have placed myself in the middle of one of those fantasy novels and now my confused protagonist must find the clues to unlock the secret. One of the more reputable voices in my head tells me the key lies in my soon to be ex-work. I've spent my two days there so far this year examining every word, action or staff notice with an eagle eye, searching desperately for a "take left at weekly paper, spend rest of time on monthlies, dabble in plays on the side" or even an 'this too will pass". But…nothing. Every gesture that is made in one of my classes assumes a symbolism of its own, one that I will shortly no longer be able to understand. My horizons have already shifted and I'm trying desperately to keep the picture in focus.

To make the whole thing more surreal, it is Sunday and my apartment has been taken over by a television crew who are using our bedroom as a location. Directed by Khaled Ahmed (tehrik-I-niswan), the serial is based on the Humaira story, a fact that serves as another non-coincidental opportunity to give focus to my energies. A highly talented actress from Lahore, a teacher too till recently, agrees with me that you cannot teach and do something else with anything resembling passion, in which case there isn't really any point in doing it. Then she goes back into the bedroom to enact yet another reality with my husband, who is her husband too but only on camera. My husband turns out to be a surprisingly good actor, what if he's just pretending to like me for all the hundreds accumulated in teachers salary I have spirited into my secret bank accounts? The screen is such a frightening concept; it rips souls from people's bodies and replaces them with someone else's.

There are five spotlights centering on the bed, two of them are blue, there is a camera pointed at the bed. I will never look at my bed the same way again.
As if this much atmosphere is not enough, that being who controls the rain flush has also provided an ominous shower on my one tentative foray back into 'society' in an effort to step back into the real world where you never get to see your marks and a re-test Is impossible. Then we were sent chill winds and abnormal temperatures.
In an odd way, it seems appropriate that I can mark my taking up of a challenge with freak occurrences and a daliesque reality:

"Wipe you hand across your mouth and laugh,
The world revolves like ancient women gathering fuel in vacant lots."

In what I interpreted as yet another sign from what could be He that makes the nettles bloom or even He that reeks of sulfur (yanking me down into mental stagnation) I opened a book today at a line that went "Albert Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge".

Hello again, world.