Re-membering

A couple of weeks ago, I received a magazine in the mail from one of my alma maters. It is a biannual published by the College of Arts and Sciences of which I was an alumnus what feels like an eternity ago. As an undergraduate, I got a degree in the concentrations of International Studies and Romance Languages, though there are times I wonder whether that actually happened.

My alma mater, the one where I received my undergraduate degree more so than the one where I received my graduate one, never fails to locate me. I never update my information or pay dues to the alumni associations but these buggers do manage to hunt me down, nevertheless. They have now resorted to sending me everything they can to my mother, and since I happen to be here, I get to reacquaint myself with what people are talking about, or what is new at the University of Oregon. Yes, college football aficionados, I am an Oregon Duck, and even though geographically I am closer to the Boise State Broncos, I cannot see myself rooting for them, especially when they are whipping Oregon you know what (unlike my youngest brother – whoa, no surprise there).

I got to visit Eugene again, a few years ago, and while a lot is still the same, there were buildings, shops that I did not recognize. It did not feel so familiar to me anymore. The campus is just as beautiful, even more so. This is the town where the Grateful Dead loved to come and jam, and where the “Deadheads” would congregate. Tie dye and acid among other drugs are not exactly stereotypes. We students would hang out on the 13th avenue strip where the bookstore and coffee shops are, and these Deadheads would walk up to us, spread their hands out like some mendicants do and lift something from Jerry Lewis’ muscular dystrophy cause: “Can you spare some change for Jerry’s kids?” I always smiled and said no, though I was more tempted to laugh in their faces. Eugene was quite the counterculture town, perhaps not quite as counterculture as San Francisco, but on the West Coast, it was pretty damn close. The part of 13th avenue where many of the campus buildings are has been shut down to vehicles since the days of anti-Vietnam war protests. I still find it amusing that my father objected to Berkeley as a choice because it was “radical”; whereas Oregon was seen as the same by quite a few east of Eugene. He must have based that on when we were in the US in the sixties or news reports in which Berkeley was prominent. He could not have known that I already had opinions that put me left of center long before I went to college. I mean not only is the joke of me being the lush of the family ongoing, but also the “pinko” (I think his reasons were based more on financial concerns, as well as the continual overprotective attitude towards me).

It was difficult for me, who had grown up in a family and a place where politics was part of more than a few of our lives from a very early age, not to have political opinions of my own, and while I learned to silence myself in the presence of the conservative “bullies” in my family, I felt freer to express myself at the UO. It was where I first learned the term “politically correct” from a Marxist-Leninist who despite her many attempts, failed miserably at getting me to join “The Party”. I never wanted to be tied down to an ideology or a party. I would rather make political choices based on my conscience, and not dictated by party lines, than “bail out” on one or another. Yeah I learned quite a lot at the UO. I learned languages, and a bit about political ideologies and international relations. I also learned that smoking cigarettes was a tough habit to kick, and I never wanted to give up drinking unless I had no choice, health wise.

I think the hippie bastion at the UO has been reduced since I was there, but the spirit is still very much alive. And the factions in fraternities/sororities are not quite Animal House, but from what I remember the “nerd” houses were looked down upon while the cool ones to belong to were those that had those polo shirt clad, penny loafer wearing dudes, who had to have certain prerequisites that never made much sense to me. It always amused me to listen to guys in my dorm talk about why Sigma Chi was so much better than Sigma Nu. Ultimately most of the houses within the Pan-Hellenic Organization were very selective and exclusive, and living in the neighborhood of these houses, I never thought I had to be “Greek” to be cool. Much if not all of the campus scenes in Animal House were filmed at the UO (four years before I got there as a freshman). “Toga! Toga! Toga!”



I peered through the pages of the magazine, and saw some interesting tidbits. The new President of the uni is multilingual, and he speaks Hindi. How cool is that! He is not “South Asian” but he studied in India, and has also been to Pakistan. He studied the ancient texts, including the Dharma Shastras. I just think it is great that we have a President in an Oregon university who can talk at length about Sanskrit and the Dharma Shastras! He does a little bit of that in connection with the death of the humanities,here

There is also a very interesting article about Pakistan, where the chair of the International Studies department, Anita Weiss talks about the current situation there. I have met Dr. Weiss. I had the pleasure of going to a talk she gave when she was being interviewed for her faculty position, or it had to do with tenure – whatever it was – I was so glad that we finally had someone in the International Studies department whose focus was South Asia. There were other departments in connection with IS who taught courses in history, or linguistics, but not someone in the department whose focus was fully on South Asia. I had just finished the program when Dr. Weiss joined. When I think about it now, if she had been part of the program earlier, I think my focus within it would have been a lot different, and possibly my career choice, but I chose not to go further with International Studies and have no regrets.

Dr. Weiss speaks fluent Urdu (she is also said to know Punjabi though I did not have the pleasure of hearing her speak it). I remember one time we had lunch together at China Blue, a favorite spot for many on campus. Another Pakistani woman was with us, whose husband was doing post-graduate work. Dr. Weiss had the floor through much of our meal, talking about her time in Pakistan, particularly in Lahore. She would ask if I had been to fulana place in the city or shulana spot, and if I could not recall, or knew I had not been there, she would mention something else. Once again, I would give a negative response until in an abrasive tone; she asked me how I could not have gone to all these places and have lived in Lahore as long as I did.

It should be easy explaining to someone that I only lived in Lahore between the ages of six and fifteen; that I lived a really sheltered life and my parents were overly protective of me because of my “condition”. Unlike some of my classmates whose parents let their children go out, or did not always know where their children were going, a few woolly accidents made my mother decide what ana’s outings would be. Outings where there is enough adult supervision and girls more responsible: good. Outings where ana goes out with friends in a jeep, almost gets into an accident somewhere around Hall Road, and adults do not know where they are: bad. Worse when I cannot tell a lie!
I went to plenty of places in the old city as well as Mall Road, Gulberg, Liberty, or as some called it, “Libty”. I went to friends’ houses in Cantonment, Shadman Colony, the Shah Jamal neighborhood, and the one place behind iron gates that I always dreamt of visiting: The Governor’s House. My father bought a house in Model Town where not only did he do his private practice, but also took his parents and sister with family out of the village, and into the city. And later there would be what felt like long rides, where I entertained myself by looking at the artwork and quotes on colorful trucks, to the colony known as Yuhannabad, and did not pay enough attention as some complained about who owned the water, and how to get it to our land. I did not always remember the names of the places, the old bazaars, and the artisan’s section that was not too far from where Khalaji lived. So it was not exactly like I did not know Lahore. Her shocked reaction was a little off-putting, but understandable. Perhaps she forgot that sometimes it really is much easier for a foreign woman to move around the city, especially when she has great guides, than it is for a Pakistani teenaged girl. Perhaps I missed something in that tone, but my friend noticed it too. I kept quiet and listened to the rest of her conversation, while in a corner of my mind that same resistance built up – the one I still felt very strongly when it came to someone from the West, by being around certain American missionaries.

The thing is, once the armor of defensiveness gradually peeled off, there was nothing really wrong, or bad in Dr. Weiss’ reaction. Of course she knew a little more than I did. She was there as a scholar from Berkeley immersing herself in a language and a culture/society she needed to be familiar with. When I was back in the city of my birth, I thought I was going to be there forever. There would be plenty of time for me to visit the places with which I was less familiar. We take our surroundings for granted at times. We stick closer to the neighborhoods in which we were raised – in my case it was the environs of “Libty” or Gulberg, in my cousins’ it was the old city, for the boys it was wherever they could go.

So when someone says how can you not have gone to Food Street, or how could you not have eaten food from an outside vendor, or how could you not have done this as a teenager, the adult cannot help but feel rattled and/or on the defensive at the thought of her (or his) Lahori identity being questioned. The beauty of Lahore was that there was so much to see, so many different and good places to eat, old neighborhoods with history, and if you got to be part of even a tiny bit of that, that could not be bad. Both of us, Anita Weiss and I, were fortunate enough to do that in different periods of our lives.

If you’re interested in reading what she has to say about the current situation in Pakistan, that is not online, but I don’t mind sharing from the magazine. In the meantime,here is a paper she wrote on something that we should never get tired of talking about in Pakistan: women’s rights.