By now, I am sure you have seen Kobe Bryant’s miraculous game winning shot against the Miami Heat. On Saturday, in front of a raucous crowd (Yes, Laker fans are capable of becoming raucous in the last ten seconds of epic games), Kobe “Black Mamba” Bryant was locked in an epic duel with Dwayne “Flash” Wade, known in Los Angeles circles as a “poor man’s Kobe”. Said one Hollywood producer sitting court side, “Kobe is the best ever. He is better at his job than anyone else in the world is at their job. Kobe can do anything. In fact, I could have Kobe play Malcolm X and it would be great. Wade? I wouldn’t let him do a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle.” Now, it’s common knowledge that the Miami Heat won a championship a few years ago and that Wade is in no way as good as Kobe, this game was close in score only because Kobe’s supporting cast and coach are  inferior to Wade’s. That being said, anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for the last decade could have told you how it would end. Indeed, how it always ends. Kobe doin’ work. The Laker legend beat the buzzer with an off-balance 3 pointer to win the game by one point. And then he did that thing where instead of smiling or looking happy to win the game, he stood there scowling hard as hell, eyes squinting, overbite dangerously intense. Just letting you know, if you still don’t get it : “I’M  A  BADASS”. Upon my tenth replay of his gamewinner, I actually listened to the question that ESPN’S Scott Van Pelt was asking. On the highlight reel, as Bryant’s shot goes in off the glass, the news anchor asks in bewilderment and SHOUTS as if this has just happened live “IS THERE ANYTHING HE CAN’T DO!!!???”

It’s a valid question. Is there anything in this universe that he cannot do? Hyperbole aside, he is obviously the most accomplished man on this planet at this moment. So, I decided to compare this Maestro of the hardwood to previous giants of history, even though it goes without saying that Kobe would shit on them all in a game of one on one. For this, our first installment, let’s see if Mahatma Gandhi can stand up to KB24.

Kobe vs. Gandhi. 

WORLDLINESS: Gandhi went to South Africa and earned his law degree. He applied his education and the lessons he learned here to come up with a course of action to remove the hated British empire from India.

Kobe grew up in Italy and used his Italian macking skills to pick up chicks when he moved to grimy ass Philadelphia. Soon after, he would take Brandy to his high school prom. Nowadays, Kobe speaks to Pau Gasol in Italian because everyone is too scared to tell him Pau is Spanish.

EDGE: Kobe

RESUME: Gandhi, known as the father of India and synonymous with non-violent struggle, his is the story of a man who defeated an evil empire single-handedly. His face is on every Indian bill of currency. One negative is swirling rumours of being an adulterer.

Kobe, known as the father of Natalia and Gianna (Italian names of course) and  loyal husband to Vanessa, has won 4 championships, 2 scoring titles, 1 Finals M.V.P, 1 regular season M.V.P, 3 all-star game M.V.Ps and been named an All-Star 11 times. He is the face of the N.B.A, sports and America.

EDGE: Kobe

INTANGIBLES:

Kobe showed he can roll with the punches when he transitioned flawlessly from the Shaq era to The Kobe era. He never hung his head, belittled his owner or insulted his teammates – instantly becoming a beloved leader and role model.  He kept Laker fans happy by scoring 81 points against the defensive minded juggernaut Toronto Raptors in the most important game in Laker history. Gandhi, on the other hand,  rode Jawaharlal Nehru’s coat tails (yes, the Nehru suit’s)  too long and looked lost without Nehru’s sage wisdom. Basketball wise, it would have been like the Mahatma lost his big man and resorted to chucking shots up from 3-point land. Ignoring open teammates. Being a gunner. Being SELFISH.

While Gandhi refused to amend his principles of Ahimsa (non-violence) and peace, Kobe has adapted and improved his game each summer. While Gandhi fasted for weeks and walked all the way to the ocean to make his own salt, Bryant has hired Tim Grover, formerly Michael Jordan’s trainer and nutritionist. Says Grover, “Kobe doesn’t fast or take long walks because I have  him on a high protein diet that results in superior energy levels that we schedule his workout regimen around. Kobe probably burns in one hourly session with me the same number of calories Gandhi burned in his entire trek to the ocean. And I will tell you this- Kobe would have gotten to the ocean maybe twenty times as fast as Gandhi. FACT. And with a lot more left in the tank. The guy is a FREAK OF NATURE. His motor just keeps going…”

The task of comparing two of the giants of the last century is by no means easy but there is a source who knows both men well. Phil Jackson has coached Bryant for ten seasons and has read the book Gandhi six times (even giving it to Lamar Odom for Christmas 2007). Phil’s take on the debate was as objective as possible, “Well, it’s always tough to compare different eras. Different rules. Different challenges. However, I will say that the things Kobe is doing right now, I would say that we haven’t seen this kind of sustained excellence since the Beatles run in the 1960s.  And think about this…The Beatles changed their sound in late 1965 because they realized that the best are always trying to imptove. They keep tinkering. They keep working at it. That’s what makes Kobe Kobe. This summer he added an array of new post up moves. Last summer, he improved his mid range game. He is relentless. Quite frankly, Mahatma should thank his lucky stars that Kobe wasn’t fighting for the British.”

EDGE: Kobe

Millenniums from now, it will be painfully obvious that Kobe Bryant was far more accomplished, successful and well-rounded than Mahatma Gandhi. For now, people will act like it’s close. Still, realists know that Gandhiji could never swagger like this.

Next week,  Albert Einstein versus Mamba.

He was born in 1951 in a house in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Soon after his arrival, his father had boarded a ship to North America. He went to Chicago where he would work in classrooms at the University of Illinois- Champagne/Urbana by day and at their gas stations on their cold, windy nights. The excitement of seeing snow must have worn off quickly. Or maybe it never did.

When his father returned, he took his young wife and son to England. They lived there for a few years and thus the son was seven years old when he came back to his South India. He lived in villages in Tamil Nadu, in coastal fishing communities in Kerala and then the family ultimately settled down in a tranquil town known for it’s agreeable climate, Bangalore.

It was early 1966. He was 14 years old.

He had been double promoted twice. As a result, he came to the end of his school days , easily the youngest in his class. And so it was that he moved out on his own to attend Christian College at the age of 15. Christian was a long way away, outside  Madras and so, away he went. He was beyond confident. Justifiably or not, it held him in good stead.

His best friend Fats and him were inseparable. Then, on a day like any other,  Fats died in a motorcycle accident. He was running out to a shop less than two minutes from his place for a snack or cigarettes, something that could have waited.

The loss was immeasurable and it left the young man with an immediate problem. He did not know how to contact Fats’ family. They were elder people from a far away village. Hardly anybody had a phone at the time.

So, he got hold of a car.  And in the baking heat of the Tamil Nadu summer, he drove all day long, his dead friend sitting shotgun.  He could smell the flesh decomposing and the body kept slipping this way and that but he got his friend home.

It was another time.

Without any humour or irony , I  say to myself quite often  “When I grow up, I’m going to ________”. I said it when I met a gentleman on a plane and I wished one day I could be like him, the kind of man who can take over a ten hour flight and make it better for each person on the plane.  I say it when I see someone  making a difference and think one day I will be like them.  When I see someone really nasty at some sport. Hell, I even say it about things as unimportant and unimpressive as whistling loudly with fingers in my mouth.  One day, when I grow up, I’m gonna whistle loud as hell! In each instance, I take the trait or characteristic I appreciate and I apply it to my future self. This future self will be the savior of the human race, you know. He would have to be! Imagine taking this superb mess I am right now, smoothing out the rough edges, putting in some new trim and polish, with a few tricks to boot! I would be downright presidential. Kennedy-esque.

However, lately, what with the aging process and all, and the fact that I am now 29 years old, I begin to think that the 35-year-old me will not be quite what I imagined when I was nine years old. When I was a kid, I distinctly remember thinking seventeen was over the hill. I really pitied the teenagers at my bus stop with their acne and weird hair growing on their faces. I thought by the time you approached thirty, you just stationed yourself in a rocking chair on the veranda. In my wisdom, I figured that all that “Life” stuff happened in your 20s and that in that decade one would:

1) Choose a career or fall into one.

In my early teens, I thought that EVERYBODY knew what they were going to do for a living by eighteen. I had overheard guys  say things like “I’m in engineering college” and I would imagine them overlooking sites while studying blueprints in their yellow hard hats. Yes, those corner shop drunks would be the architects in charge of the new millenium’s Taj Mahals and Eiffel Towers. I would lay in bed at night, gripped by fear, thinking to myself  “Wow, I can’t believe these clowns are going to build structures that people are going to walk into.”

2) Choose a wife or fall into one.

While I thought the 20s would be the Golden Age of romance, by the time the 20s came, I realized that the Golden Age was actually the teens. Romantically speaking, your teens have all the good things of your 20s without any of the bad. For example, if your girlfriend accused you of being immature, her accusation would have less merit in your early teens as opposed to when you are kicking thirty’s door down. Also, all the sneaking around and secrets that you have to keep from your parents make the whole thing that much hotter.  Ironically, even with the complications of high school and what not, romance was infinitely simpler and purer in teenage years. For example, just think of Kevin Arnold’s love lockdown for Winnie Cooper. Although just another horny teen, he was adorable! During one’s 20s, one tends to overthink it…or not think through things enough. Our little baby’s all growns up!

3) Put down roots some place.

I don’t mean just to live somewhere. I mean roots as in if you were in India, you could forget your wallet at home and go eat a meal fit for a king. You eat. You drink. You get dessert.You wouldn’t be able to pay or tip and nobody would hate you for it. Next time, yaar. If you were in the States,  it’s when you walk into your diner, they know which booth you want. The little things are the big things. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name…

4) Become a MAN.

This one was my favorite. I really looked forward to this and it’s tragic in some ways that it never happened. In my teens, I was genuinely excited about the prospect. I thought I would become all those things Kipling describes in his poem “If “. And that was just for starters. After proving I could fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds run, then I would proceed to walk the tightrope between good and evil. Always being too nice to be evil and too “cool” to like the goodie-goodies, I was magnetically drawn to the male figures in my life who found the perfect balance between the two. James Bond. Cool Hand Luke. John Lennon. Bob Marley. Siddharth Chander.  Righteous, but not corny. Oh Yes. When I grow up, I am going to be _________ ! And I am going to always _______ ! I will find the perfect balance between everything and become the prototype for a new better MANKIND. I had a clear vision…

Teaching is a funny thing though. It really reminds you what stage of your life you are in. In my previous job at a middle school, my students were all born between 1994 and 1996. That used to freak me out because I clearly remember those years, them being the best time of my life, my own schooldays. I used to imagine a Korean woman telling her husband she is pregnant while at the exact same moment I am in India discovering what Rum tastes like.

NOW, in my new elementary gig, these kids are born between 1998 and 2002. Two thousand and two! That’s after 9/11! That’s after the Sydney Olympics!  That’s after Gladiator came out! I imagine a Korean woman telling her husband she is pregnant while at the exact same moment I am driving around New Jersey listening to 50 Cent on the radio. GO. GO. GO SHAWTY…

So, talking to these scamps nowadays, I’ve come to the point now where I am dangerously close to saying “When I was your age…”

When I was your age…

1) We didn’t dye our hair orange and all this other metrosexual nonsense. We got a haircut and that’s it!

2) We didn’t listen to crap music. We listened to the classics. Guns N Roses and 2pac, Madonna and Michael Jackson, Oasis and Aerosmith.

3) We would have never bought into this HARRY POTTER rubbish, the Rockys, Die Hards and Terminators were good enough for us. And they taught you how to be a man.

Which I guess I am now.

It certainly doesn’t feel like it. I haven’t done any of the things I thought men had to do. It would be interesting if there was a video game called MANHOOD and you had to pass all kinds of tests and rise to challenges and beat the bosses at the end of the levels (They would be your school bully, your jerk boss, psycho romantic interests, general barometers of life) But, having no blueprint, I guess some people find out they are men when they realize they are no longer boys. When you stop saying “When I grow up…” and start saying “When I was your age…” , you’ve probably arrived.

__________________________________________________________

The past month was fun.

My holiday was great. The highlights were spending time with my Ma, spending time in the woods near our home, lifted with my head in the clouds and lastly a great road trip to Washington D.C. It was a very quick trip and I found myself on the plane back to Korea almost in the blink of an eye. And that is where my story begins…

All my life, I have been a mess when it comes to romance. Two left feet. Foot in mouth. All thumbs. Call it what you want but I have managed to bungle my chances on many occasions. This never worried me because I never tried too hard and I could always find the humor in it. Until recently.

Through my teen years, it was probably my ego that did me in. When I was a teenager, I wholeheartedly believed that I was one of the coolest people not just in my school and town, but in the history of mankind. I’M NOT JOKING. Yes, I actually did believe that and I still think I was quite cool back then. I may not have had the panache of a Pierce Brosnan or the athletic ability of a Maradona but I did have qualities that in my mind made me quite a catch.

This Boy thinks he is Special

Thinking about it now, I have no idea what these qualities were.  Through my adolescence, once in a blue moon (Actually much rarer than a blue moon, more like a square moon), a girl would send me signals or give me a little sign (as Peter Andre would say) and I never responded in kind. Ever. I just didn’t. This was the most alien thing my friends could imagine. Most teenage boys look forward to these situations but I found it bothersome. I always held out. If anything I was very picky and honest. I could never settle on a girl I wasn’t into.  That’s not the case with most teenagers who are just horny as hell. And so, in my pickiness, in my honesty, I wound up spurning the few girls who had the misfortune of falling for me, leaving them scratching their heads.  One girl said to me after I informed her I wasn’t interested in her romantically “Hey, I don’t like you like that much, OKAY? I just thought ‘ This guy’s not that bad-looking, he’s sort of funny. Why not ?’”  I worried she would spend the rest of her years pining for me but my fears subsided when I saw her with her new boyfriend two weeks later.  With standards like hers, I imagine it’s not that difficult to find that ’special’ someone.  She wasn’t looking for one in a million, more like one in a trio.

So, I was never able to settle. That was the first problem. The second and bigger problem was the girls I fell for were never able to settle on me. Now, due to my delusions of grandeur, I could never comprehend  this. I wondered what I was doing wrong, what I wasn’t doing right. In the parlance of our times, every girl I fell for was ‘out of my league’.  Jules Winfield would probably say they were not only not in my league but not even in the same sport.  Popular consensus in town was that I was absolutely insane and a straitjacket would suit me quite nicely.

Reviewing the situation, I reached my mid to late teens, not being in relationships and being quite happy about it. However, by the time I reached my twenties, it became commonplace for me to be blase about everything, especially girls. Any fire in me had long been extinguished. I really could not care less.  On the Haley’s Comet-like rare occasion when girls flirted with me at bars, I remained stone-faced. They may as well have been speaking Latin because I didn’t understand them and I didn’t want to.  People began to suspect I was absolutely mental and they may have been right.

Still, I felt I was only being selective.  I had been down the path of falling for a girl only for her to fall for some ‘better looking’ guy who I would always feel couldn’t hold a candle to me.  I would often compare myself to these girls’ significant others and reassure myself that I was cooler. I would tell myself  “Man, are you joking me ? Of course you are cooler than him. So what if he dances like a Michael Jackson back up dancer while you have been leaning on that wall for what seems like three days? So what if he has a a snazzy car and the body of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger? Dude, you are at least 2 inches taller than that clown and you don’t need to worry about parking and oil changes.  God, he probably doesn’t even know which German city the Beatles moved to before they made it big. Buffoon. LOSER. “ I had an answer for everything and life was good…but as I have said before, everything changes…

Around eight years ago, I visited Spain and stayed with my friend Domingo and his younger brother Jordi. Domingo was one of the most carefree people I have ever met and he had a way with people and girls especially.  He was so charming that I don’t think anyone would ever call him a womanizer (although he was a womanizer). Living with him was an absolute joy because he was so much fun and there was never a shortage of people to meet or things to do. However, after a day or 2, it dawned on me that Jordi never came out with us. Oh, and Jordi never even speaks to us. Oh, and Jordi never smiles. Domingo, what the hell is wrong with Jordi? I asked ‘Mingo and he said that Jordi had been like that for a few months. I suspected that he had a disease of some sort because he always looked exhausted. He would just sit at the dining table, drinking his coffee and staring into space. It was so sad to see him like that, during one of the happiest times of my life. It turned out that Jordi didn’t have a disease.  His girlfriend and him had split up. I just could not believe this was the only reason he had been miserable for so long.  Domingo couldn’t either. There was being sad and then there was mourning like Jordi was. That night, neither of us could understand the extent of Jordi’s pain.

In retrospect, I know where Jordi was coming from. He wasn’t afraid to go all in.  Jordi swung for the fences. With a girl, there is always a chance you can strike out but God knows it’s better to strike out swinging. That was the mistake I had made in my younger days.  I was never passionate enough. I usually struck out looking, the dreaded reverse K on the box score. I just stood there and watched my chances go by with my bat tucked away behind my head…

My personality just isn’t one of passion and fire. I’m not Al Pacino. In temperment, I’m probably more like a St Bernard.  I come across like I don’t care even when I do.  It was fine when I was younger because usually I didn’t care. But now, I usually do. Yet my face betrays my convictions.  More than anyone I know, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am sincere to a fault. If I care about something, I am all in. If I don’t care, I say so at the outset and this can make it seem as if I’m being flippant or glib. I’m not, I’m just being transparent, I’m just being ME.

And so it was I found myself on Korean Air flight 086 from New York to Seoul three days ago. It’s a fourteen hour direct flight. I had hurt my foot a few days earlier and requested a better seat but they didn’t have one. My stewerdess (I think stewerdess sounds much better than flight attendant) came up to me and asked if I was alright. I told her it hurt a lot and I had to put my foot in the aisle because I was too tall to put in under the seat in front of me.  As a result, I spent four out of the first seven hours standing in the back of the plane. All I did was talk to my stewerdess. I was lucky because the only two Korean expressions I know were the first 2 things I said to her. I started with a polite and flawless ’Mul Jesoyo’ ( Can I have water?) and followed with my trademark ‘Kamsamneeda’ (Thank you.) She was duly impressed. She was a gorgeous Korean girl from Daegu (who now lived in Seoul)and we talked about travel, favorite places, food, Korea. I stood in the back and whenever she had a free minute, she would join me. She didn’t have to but we really hit it off and she would tell me to wait for her.

Soon after, I decided I had to ask her for her number, I had to hang out with this girl.  Rather than wait till the end of the flight, I decided to ask her the next time I saw her. And I did.

She smiled, clapped her hands together and said ‘Sorry!”.  When I asked her why, she said it was because she was in a long distance relationship with a man in D.C and he didn’t like her talking to guys. I respected that and said I only wanted to be friends because I thought it would be cool to go to  Seoul with a nice Korean girl who knows English. She said she could not do it cos of her man. I loved the fact she was so loyal and as I tried to think of some way to convince her, she turned the tables on me. She asked me “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” The way she said it, it felt like a punch in the nose/ knee to the stomach combo. I said “Huh?” to which she laughed and said “Huh?? HAHA WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? I HAVE HAD MY BOYFRIEND FOR TEN YEARS. He is just like you. He has a cute smile. Curly hair.  Stomach. Cute like you. ” At this point, I felt like a boxer getting pepperred, like De la Hoya must have felt when Manny Pacquiao cornered him and ate his lunch for him.  Was she saying that I was so cool that I should logically have a girl? Was she saying that her boyfriend was a mess but even he has a girl? We stood in the back of the plane in silence while she looked me in the eye with her big perfect smile and waited for an answer.  She really wanted to know.  Here I was at her mercy. Buckle up in case of turbulence, indeed.  Summoning up all my wisdom, I said “I don’t know.” She replied that I had to know.  I told her that recently I have tried hard but it didn’t work. Again, she asked me why. I told her that for a long time I didn’t want a girlfriend. I told her that now I do. I told her I have tried but it didn’t work and it took a lot out of me. I told her that when you go all in and you lose, you don’t analyze things, you just feel empty, like Jordi did. ( *It turned out that she was Jordi’s ex girlfriend…okay that would just be insane. Jokes!) My temperature was rising under these hot interrogation lights and I was wishing I had waited till the end of the flight to ask her out. I only had oh…7 hours left of this…

I went and sat down. I told her I was tired. I was.

The next time she walked the aisle, I avoided eye contact for the first time all flight long. I pretended that I was completely transfixed by the Skymap illustrating the path of our aeroplane. After another ten minutes of trying to look busy, she walked right up to me and handed me a card. I thought it would be a  menu or a customs form but it was a postcard with a Korean Air plane on it. I turned it over and she had written:

Dear Sid

Thank you for talking to me.

Sorry about what I say.

Sorry about my English T.T

Your heart is so big.

Nice to meet you ^^

M.J Kim

Obviously, now I wanted to talk to her more than ever.

So I made my triumphant return to the back of the plane… I proudly walked across the four rows behind my seat and she greeted me with a big smile and a high five.

We talked about relationships and we asked each other questions and she said to me that I should just talk to all Korean girls like I talked to her. I told her that she was different from most. Eventually, the conversation turned back to other things and it was just as well. Soon, it would be time to begin our descent towards Seoul/Incheon. I pulled out a piece of paper with my number on it and gave it to her. She smiled and put it in her pocket. I asked if she would call me or text me just to keep in touch and she just smiled and didn’t answer. Her honesty made me like her even more. We exchanged some pleasantries and I told her how great a job she did and all that. The last thing she did was, she pulled me in close, looked me dead in the eyes and said  ”Sid, soon you will have a girlfriend much better than me, much more beautiful than me.”

I didn’t know what to say so I just said “Kamsamneeda” and went back to my seat.

I met her in the city

Now

shes not what

you’d call pretty

In fact

shes a cut above it

She

makes you say

take this job and shove it

Her eyes are on fire

Her cheeks are on up high

Have you seen her?

Her laugh is a treasure

but it doesn’t come easy

A rare pleasure

you have to earn

but when it comes

it s so hot it burns

She walks in beauty

like the night

She basks in new promise

like the day

She’s something

hard to believe

When she’s gone

you want to leave

cos nothing else compares

She’s rare air.

You wanna run away with her

if only for a day

If not for a day

then how about a minute

She is all you ever see

She’s infinite

Possibilities

are endless

A Topsy Turvy month by any standards, this last one was a doozy. When last I wrote, I had decided to not continue at my school. After that, I changed my mind and decided to continue at my school having spoken to my co-teachers and being assured that the future would not suck. But it did. The very near-future sucked in fact and so the mistake the establishment made was to double cross me too early in the game, in fact leaving me time to pull off a dastardly backstabbing of my own. And so six days after changing my mind for a 4th time, having signed a contract to stay, then voided it and now signed it again…I was about to change my mind again. 

I couldn’t even keep track of my own decision anymore.

My school was understandably upset and confused by my lackadaisacal approach to contracts. As they dangled my contract in front of me, pointing out exasperatedly that I had just signed it a few days earlier, I only watched absentmindedly, repeating my time proven mantra of 

 ”It’s my fault. “

And it was. But either way, at the very last hour, using connections made at a Open Teacher Class or some pageant of a class, I had a connect who gave me a 2 week extension. Which I used fully to finally make a decision to teach elementary school next year. It will be in Korea, in the same town of Incheon, just another ‘hood. Hoping it goes well…It starts september 1st and until then I am just gonna enjoy my summer holidays and last days at Dongam Middle School and Gangseogogori. In the end, I really love Dongam school and some of the students are just amazing but the administration and system have just become so difficult for me to stomach that it would have been impossible for me to go through the same process for a second straight year. It’s not been a bad process, it’s been rewarding but trying as well. In all honesty, the prime difference is that a TON of colleagues I loved left the school between the first and second term and that’s left me feeling that the experience at Dongam is not getting any better.

I just feel like a change.

Fourteen days ago, I extended my contract to stay in Korea.

Eight days later, I changed my mind and voided that contract.

By doing so, I won’t have a job as of September 1st.  I usually would think nothing of not having prospective options but for some reason, I am annoyed about this. I am not worried but I feel that at this point of my life, I should have a more concrete idea of what the hell I want.

Like always,  I have no idea. This infinite process of trial and error continues…

I am now certain that I don’t want to be a teacher. I reached this conclusion because I have the same problem now in Month Ten of this job that I had in Week One. I constantly take out my frustrations about the staff and administration on my students and it’s grossly unfair to them. It’s not a conscious decision but I am often frustrated with the system and I then wind up snapping on some fifteen year old kid.

This happened again last week. I was tested and angered by my co-teachers and some students from 9am till 2pm and shortly thereafter I flipped out on some poor kid who wasn’t even misbehaving or being noisy, but couldn’t understand me.  He was  sitting there quietly and not tearing his paper in half like I had asked about ten times and demonstrated twice.  I told him to look around. He didn’t understand me. I told him to look at everyone’s papers half the size of his. I shouted and shook my paper frantically. He stared at me, completely bereft of emotion or understanding. I ran to his desk, picked up his paper, crumpled it into a ball, threw it in his face and threw him out of class. I still cannot believe I did this. His only mistake was not understanding me. Which isn’t a mistake. He didn’t do anything wrong. Two minutes later, I went outside and he was facing the wall and visibly upset and confused. I told him to join the class again. When I brought him in, I couldn’t even look at him and I had to leave class, disgusted with myself. It turned out he is one of the most quiet boys in school and I still can’t get him to say a word to me.  I apologized to him after class and told my co-teacher to tell him in Korean that it was my mistake and I had a bad day. But really, who cares? People have bad days. That doesn’t give them the right to displace their anger and humiliate others. That kid probably thinks I’m a total asshole and he is right. Cos to him, I have to be. How could I not?  If you think about it, the only thing I taught him that day is that it’s okay for adults to become angry and throw things at children. Not my finest hour.

If  I can’t control myself then I am no better than a child and probably worse than half of them. Two weeks ago, I felt that leaving school was quitting on my students but I am now absolutely convinced that they will be better off with a new teacher, some one who will almost certainly be more patient, committed and able to make a difference.  Since I told my school I am leaving, the teachers have all been complimenting me a lot. The staff asks me to stay and the word they all use to describe me as a teacher is “sincere”. That means a lot to me because I think sincere is one of the best things anyone can be in this life. Although I am nowhere as efficient as I wish, for the school to recognize that I have given my sincere best everyday is very gratifying. Still,  I realize that sincerity is not enough. Far from it.

Teaching is great. The joy of getting something through to someone is very rewarding and trumps any “success” I have had at any other job. This job has left me looking forward to having my own children because  I would love to teach them, but while doing something else for a career.

It’s strange knowing I will probably never see any of these boys again. I wonder if they will achieve their dreams and what they will be like when they  grow up and have girlfriends and things like that.

I wind up missing everyone . I miss everybody. Leaving all these boys behind is going to be difficult. I imagine I will wonder about them the rest of my life.

I suppose being a teacher is about giving it all and then letting go.

It’s a tough business. Maybe the toughest there is. Too tough for me.

It’s been 7 weeks. 7 weeks of mostly good times. My life is like a pinata, its full of good stuff but there is some crap surrounding it as well. I am constantly winding up with my Louisville Slugger…

5 weeks ago, I went to Japan-  Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo.

Japan was easily the most Japanese place I’ve ever been.

Osaka.

Munchies. Octopus and Cheese.

Yes.

I remember when I was nine years old, I was watching ‘The World this Week’ (the best news show of all time and the only English one in India circa 1989) and there was a story about how gates in Japanese schools shut automatically at precisely the same time each morning. So, if you were supposed to be in school at 8am, you better be there by 7:59 because at 8am those gates would close in. One morning, a young girl tried to beat the gates and they closed on her. Killed her. I decided there and then that I would never go to Japan or any place that kills you for being late. In my mind, it became symbolic of a robotic society where individuality and personality were squashed and machines and numbers ruled. It’s odd but so often, my point of view is dictated by something from my childhood. And even more so, it is influenced by a third party. I decided Japan was the pits because of an isolated incident as reported by Prannoy Roy.

Prannoy Roy

It took the movies to change my mind. If you know me, you know that I am loopy enough to be convinced of something by a news source and then completely unconvinced by a movie. Yes, ladies and gentleman, my own research rarely enters the equation. State your case well and you’ll have me on board. Of course, for how long is uncertain…

Around five years ago, I saw Lost in Translation and Kill Bill and that was enough. Japan looked vibrant and fun and I imagined pink-haired girls sashaying into school late and sticking their Hatari Hanso swords into the electronic gates, full on fashionistas lovin life and leavin a trail of dead, decapitated bodies in snowy rock garden after snowy rock garden. I have problems compartmentalizing.

Kill Bill snow garden fight

The Japan I would eventually visit could never live up to the Japan I imagined. But it did. That’s what surprises me. I have a stylized dream scenario of every place I go to and most times the place doesn’t live up to it. It’s great. It’s nice. It’s just not the  Shangri-la I dreamed about. But Japan was nice. Somewhat different from what I expected but it surpassed my hopes which were implausibly high. If I were to describe it, I wouldn’t do it justice. It’s intangibles that I can’t express. Besides, I would rather you go with a blank canvas than with mine. You will get more out of it that way. However, I will say this much – the country is probably not as expensive as you think and the Japanese are nicer than you could ever imagine. Simply an amazing people.

Typical Japanese Gentleman

Japan ended and I found myself back in the K. Although I missed Japan, the weather in Korea has been good and I have been enjoying myself. The biggest news was the arrival of my old school friend / victim from younger days-  Rap came over from Germany for 2 weeks and it was great. She read a book about Korea and constantly filled me in on the country I have been living in for 9 months now. For instance, when we went to Gyeongju (the ancient capital of Korea) she told me all about a famous bell there. As the bell gonged, Rap said to me “Ooh that’s the bell. Legend has it that when this bell was made during the days of the Silla dynasty, they killed a girl and put her blood into the metal they used for the bell. Now, when you hear it ring, if you listen closely you can also hear her blood curdling scream.” She said this in the most dramatic way possible. I got chills. It made me thank the Lord that Rap had never told any ghost stories when I was a boy. Anyway, you can imagine how awesome it was to have  nuggets like this coming at me constantly.

Ridin Dirty in Gyeongju

Anyway, so I am now 9 months in, it feels like a short time but I guess it’s been a while.  I feel like I officially live here, this is longer than any vacation. I still enjoy it out here. I keep thinking about whether to move out of the K  but I don’t know why I would or where I would like it better. For the time being , this feels like home.

If I was a blues guitar player, I would play on the streets in N’awlins. I would band some hard drinkin’ friends and we’d jam nights. Not a whole lotta talk. Lotta music. But, then if you took us and put us in a cutting edge studio, I’d feel like shit. I’d sit at the mixer with the knobs and the sheet music and I would want to kill myself. It would all be a little too clean for me, a little too bland. Too organized, polished and clinical. I am not a fan of places like that. Or people like that.

I just wanna riff.

The hot breeze.

The strange smells.

I like it dirty.

Gettin hairy

Gettin weary

Gettin bolder

Gettin older

Gettin fancy

Gettin antsy

Gettin strange

Things have changed.

Kinder, Taller, Hairier,

Smarter, Angrier, Scarier

From the minute of our birth

Till our last moment on Earth

As surely as we keep aging

We are always changing

For the good

and for the bad

Change makes you happy

and it makes you sad

Change can be a slow and long road

like an old man watching the soil erode

or Change can come in a blink

and still  make you think

Some change their style

Some change their minds

Some change once in a while

Some change all the time

Your body used to be another

one that you were used to

Now, it’s slightly different

You notice if you choose to

Your teeth aren’t as white

You know that I’m right

Your hairline is receding

Glory is fleeting

Your memory is in total discord

You forget all of your passwords

You forget things you used to remember

I think mom’s birthday is in December…

Isn’t it?

Changes are consistent as the sun coming up

every morning

As persistent as getting sleepy every night

and yawning.

Some people hate change

while some people love it

Some get trampled underfoot

and some rise above it

for

When you are through changing

then you are through.

You’ve become antiquated

overcome by things anew

Change will overtake you

while you are idle

Fighting change

is simply suicidal

Like black and white TV

put to sleep by Technicolor

you stayed the same but

now you’ve become duller

You could be in a vacuum

and never ever change

but those around you would

and say that you’ve become strange.

It’s that simple.

Everything changes.

Everything changes.

Trends change.

Friends change.

Cars change.

Stars change.

Eyes change.

Lies change.

Seasons change.

Reasons change.

Stuff changes.

Love changes.

Hate changes.

Fate changes.

Change changes.

Strange changes.

The world changes.

Your girl changes.

Never changes.

Forever changes.

Your plan changes.

Your fam changes.

The land changes.

A man changes.

_________________________________________________________

Sunday night, can’t sleep

Mind in a well so deep

Weird dreams, crazy scenes

Things good, bad and in between

Sounds bouncing off the walls

Chants, prayers, catcalls

Korean, Hindi, basketballs

Kids, rappers, street food stalls

Dropped my memory in a blender

Took some medicine and went on a bender

Voices talking, this is serious

Nonstop chatter, I’m walking delirious

Insomniac across from flashing lights

Too many roads, too many fights

Too many wrongs to right

Too many rights left

and

Too much left to write

Too many words to choose from

Too much dumb

or

too much wisdom?

The words escape me

And fly away

The ideas chase me

And I walk away

Ying and Yang playing tag

I put my hand in a velvet bag

Writing is like the Scrabble sack

reach for something

see what comes back

Meanwhile

I Grab hold of the tiles

writing is chance

you need some luck

sometimes you dance

sometimes you’re stuck.

____________________________________________________________

I am trying to write something longer. It is daunting but I really want to “finish”. I am continually surprised by what a long and arduous process it is. For this reason I am more amazed than ever by writers of anything, be it ridiculously bad movies to songs of any nature. I think we all underestimate how difficult the writing process is. Coming to the title…For whatever reason, no matter what, I NEVER sleep on Sunday nights and I lay awake or walk around thinking of ideas or trying to write. I always pay for it on Monday at school. Also, one last thought, I sit here and struggle to write with all my senses and a laptop in a comfortable apartment. How the hell does Stevie Wonder write all these beautiful songs (lyrics PLUS music) without even being able to see? He is a reminder that anything can be done.