With the Punters

A day at the races: horses cross the finish line at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club.

When I met Sanjay at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, he was playing hooky. Sort of.

Sanjay is an assumed name. He would not want me using his real name, lest his parents find out what he really does when he tells them he’s ‘going out with friends’. That is, come to India’s premier horse track and bet on the ponies.

“Gambling in India is very looked down upon,” he told me after sidling up to me and offering his hand. “I come here secretly. Gambling is considered even worse than drinking in India. My parents would kill me if they knew I was here."

Despite the fact that I met him in the middle of the afternoon on a workday at a racetrack, Sanjay did not strike me as the typical punter. He was young and stylishly dressed in T-shirt and dark blue jeans. He had close-cropped hair and a glimmering diamond stud in his left ear. Every so often during our short conversation he would glance at his cell phone and tap away at the keypad, sending a text.

Most of the men—and it was nearly all men—at the racetrack looked to be in retirement, wearing tattered slacks and wrinkled button-up shirts. The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air like a mist.

I pointed out to Sanjay that he did not really seem to fit in here.

“Most of these guys live off pensions, which don’t pay that much—maybe 5,000 rupees a month. That’s what? Maybe $150? So, they come here to try and make a little extra cash.”

He smiled sardonically. “But we know that doesn’t happen, right? Nobody here makes money but the trainers and horse owners.”

He self-confidence and obvious worldliness endeared him to me. I hoped silently he was not a gambling addict. I asked him what he did when he was not at the racetrack.

“I don’t come here everyday,” he said laughing. “But I just finished my MBA in October. I got an internship with Exide Batteries. Today’s an off-day.”

“Your internship must not pay well if you’re here,” I said.

“It's okay. I’m hoping to make it into a real job there. I mean, that’s why I went to school, right?”

As we talk, an authoritative voice announced over the PA system the lineup for the next race. Television monitors in the grandstand showed the horses being led into their paddocks. We looked out from our vantage in the stands over the elongated green field of the racetrack. The white dome of the Victoria Memorial jutted up to our right. The modern angular form of the Howrah Bridge dwarfed the scene to our left.

“Do you have a bet for this one?” I asked idly. I noticed a buzz begin to build in the stands as men came in from the betting stalls and tote boards with chits in their hands, cigarettes hanging limply from their lips.

“Yeah, number eight: Fit For Fray. Paying nearly two to one. I only bet underdogs,” Sanjay said.

“How much you put down?”

“One-hundred rupees.”

“Is that typical?” I asked.

“Yeah, usually. One hundred. One-fifty. Sometimes, two-hundred.”

“What is the most you ever won on a single bet?”

Sanjay smiled wistfully. “Ah yes. That is easy: 21,000.”

“Twenty-one thousand?” I asked incredulously.

“Yep. Twenty-one thousand rupees, off a bet of 100 rupees. I had to open up a separate bank account so my parents would not get suspicious.”

I continued to consider this as the announcer called out the horses. A tone buzzed, then a bell rand and the horses were off. They began their run at a point on the racetrack nearly opposite the grandstand, their sprinting forms mere blurs on the horizon a half-mile away. The bright jockey uniforms appeared candy-colored against the gray skyline of Calcutta.

Spectators half-stood on their benches. Several dozen men appeared from the concession area or the tote boards and surged out onto the small grassy plain in front of the grandstand to get a better look. As the horses rounded the turn and entered the straightaway, shouts of encouragement could be heard all around us.

“Go!”

“C’mon!”

“Achcha!”

The rumble of the horses’ hooves against the grassy turf started to thud in my chest as the pack got closer. Suddenly, one rider veered into another and an agitated groan arose from the crowd. The two horses tussled for several dozen meters, driving each other away from the leader, until they unlocked and stumbled back into place. Shouts of protest continued as the horses passed the grandstand. The jockeys’ uniforms appeared like passing taillights, the chestnut bodies of the horses glistened in the bright sunlight.

The race ended with a palpable hint of dissatisfaction in the audience, still upset at the perceived slight in the race.

“I think there will be an objection,” Sanjay said as he puts his hands on his head. He stared at the results board in the infield beyond the racetrack. A smile broke out on his face.

“My horse did not win but he got second. That means I get some money. But…” and his breath started to quicken.

“But what…”

“I could get a parley here,” he continued, still eagerly staring at the results board as the digital numbers started to flicker. “I put numbers two, eight, and seven in the top three. And if that objection holds up, that is what the results will be. That could be big money…” he trailed off.

He looked agitated. “I need to go check. Good to meet you,” he said hurriedly.

“Okay, good luck,” I said, shaking his hand.

“I think I had some good luck today,” he said. Then he disappeared into the crowd of milling punters.

Oscars and Tea

Jenna watches the Oscars Monday morning over a cup of tea.

Hardly anything gets Jenna up before eight in the morning these days. Now that we have no work to accomplish on a day-to-day basis, Jenna finds it utterly appropriate to rise no earlier than 8:30 or 9 am. I can hardly blame her. Most places of business in India do not open until at least 10.

However, she did manage to rouse herself Monday morning by seven. Not so she could read the morning paper with me, or begin a new exercise regimen, or study for the LSAT. No, what was calling her out of bed at (nearly) the crack of dawn was the live broadcast of the 83^rd Annual Academy Awards—the Oscars. Though shown in primetime in America, the movie awards show came on at 6 am in India. For the truly hardy, E!’s Red Carpet show started at 4:30. (This proved too early even for Jenna. Luckily Indian TV re-broadcast it on another channel. So we were presented with the odd time-warped reality of watching Natalie Portman talk about her dress with Ryan Seacrest on one channel at the same time that she accepted the Best Actress Award on another.)

If you think it odd that awards for American movies are broadcast in India, remember that Indians still hold up America as the paragon of pop culture. Students in Tirur expressed a love for Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber before the name of any Indian musical artists crossed their lips. At least five channels on Indian cable broadcast English-language movies 24 hours a day with English subtitles so viewers can practice their speaking skills as they watch such Hollywood flops as Crank and Legion. Despite living in India for six months, I still have a remarkably up-to-date picture of Katy Perry’s love life and Charlie Sheen’s ongoing escapades.

India is just as enthralled with celebrity gossip as America is, maybe more so. The only difference between the two countries, as far as I can tell, is the breadth of their respective celebrity universes. In mostly Christian America, there is one God and an ever-growing pantheon of Hollywood stars (swelled by the preening ranks of reality TV noteworthies). In mostly Hindu India, the situation is quite reversed. There is a teeming mass of Hindu gods but only a very selective cast of Bollywood heroes and starlets.

In India, you read about the same eight to ten Bollywood personalities over and over again, and they all fit a particular type. Katrina Kaif is the ‘new kid on the block’, a beauty who critics say lacks any notable acting skill. Priyanka Chopra is the ‘sex symbol striving for a more serious image’. Her latest role has her playing the lead in a movie based on a Ruskin Bond short story, where she kills a series of husbands in whom she finds some fault. Deepika Padukone is ‘the girl next door’ whose image not only graces movie screens but Nescafe and Reliance Mobile advertisements all across the country.

For the males, Shah Rukh Khan is the heavyweight—a ‘nice guy finishes first’ kind of story. He projects the affable yet genuine image of a young man most Indian parents would love to arrange for their eldest daughter’s marriage. Salman Khan is the ‘bad boy’, an edgy star known just as much for his off-screen troubles as his on-screen successes. And Aamir Khan is the ‘intellectual actor’, married to a screenwriter named Kiran Rao, he makes more show of playing down the Bollywood glitz.

Of course, benignly looking down upon this glamorous universe from his perch high atop the fray is none other than Amitabh Bachchan, hands down the most famous Bollywood personage ever. (He was quickly referenced in the movie Slumdog Millionaire a few years ago.) Amitabh is still around making movies, touring the country, and hawking mobile phones and life insurance.

Jenna has said—on several occasions—how handsome he remains at 60-plus years of age. Admittedly, he is tall, slim, tanned, with a distinguished, trimmed gray goatee. Though I think his exaggeratedly circular glasses make him look like an overgrown Harry Potter. He recently cemented his pedigree when he married his son off to former Miss World Aishwarya Rai (maybe the only Indian female besides Padma Lakshmi most Americans would recognize).

All this is to say, that watching the Oscars at 7 am over tea is a rather mundane thing for Indians to do on a Monday morning before they go to work. It is just another chance to watch the beautiful people and comment on what they are wearing.

Cricket: It Is More Than an Insect

A crowd of Indian men watch Sunday's India-England Cricket World Cup match outside a TV store near our guesthouse.

I cannot imagine many Americans liking cricket, a sport in which teams can play for more than eight hours and still end in a tie, but India goes crazy for it. In fact, the Subcontinent is widely acknowledged as the premier venue for cricket. And though England invented the sport, the British Empire’s former colonial holdings—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia—have come to dominate the modern game.

I fact, England has never won the International Cricket Council-sponsored Cricket World Cup since it began in 1975. India won its only Cup in 1983. Australia has won the last three Cups and comes into the 2011 version slotted number one in the world rankings. Though many commentators have been arguing that India (the world No. 2) is the favorite because India is hosting this year’s event.

With all that as background, India played England today in Bangalore in a World Cup match that, I have to admit, was quite exciting but ultimately disappointing because at the end of nearly nine hours of play, the teams tied. This, in fact, is quite remarkable. Without getting too much into the intricacies of cricket, I can say that both teams scored exactly 338 runs. I know little of these things, but the TV announcers were atwitter, saying things like “Legendary match!” and “Unbelievable, unforgettable event!”

Jenna and I ventured out into Calcutta today, wondering if maybe we could find a sports bar in which to watch the match. We felt it would do us good to experience it in the midst of a crowd of frantic Indian partisans. There was no luck, though, in finding such a place. India dearly lacks a ‘sports bar’ culture.

We did, however, find, crowds of young men standing in tight huddles outside TV stores, peering in through the glass windows at the flat-screen Panasonics broadcasting the match. Chai-wallahs would take advantage and pull up to these small crowds with their iron pots and dole out scalding cups of tea to the onlookers.

Save for these isolated flocks of cricket fans, the streets of India’s second-biggest city were pleasingly quiet, preternaturally devoid of foot traffic. Jenna and I had a fine time strolling down Park Street, one of Calcutta’s most commercial lanes. Empty sidewalks and shuttered store fronts are all we saw.

The length of a cricket match makes it an affair in which you can come and go at your leisure. Take a walk. Go grocery shopping. Run an errand. Do some work. And you can still flip on the TV and find half the match is yet to be played. This laconic pace also makes the big moments—when a batter gets out, for instance—all the more exciting. It is kind of like when goals are scored in soccer. The American sports psyche has never well adjusted to such games, where long bouts of dull play are punctuated by a few quick moments of intensity. We like our action to be constant and frenetic. It is no mistake that the US does not field a cricket team for the World Cup.

On the other hand, India’s culture makes her citizens particularly well-suited for cricket’s circuitous format. After all, this is the same country that has as one of its most popular television broadcasts a 94-part dramatization of the ancient Hindu epic The Mahabharata, which was laid out on Indian cable over the course of nearly two years. Viewed in that light, a nine-our cricket match seems rather fleeting.

What's In a Name?

A typical street scene in downtown Calcutta.

In ancient times, as the Hindu legend goes, when the goddess Kali died her royal consort Lord Shiva was so saddened that he picked up her body, placed it on his shoulders, and began dancing. He intended to destroy the world with his dance such was his despair over Kali’s death. The other gods realized Shiva must be stopped and called on the great protector Lord Vishnu to save the day. Vishnu sent his famed chakra, or flying disc, hurtling towards the dancing Shiva. The chakra cleaved Kali’s body into 52 pieces. Kali’s toe, as legend has it, landed on a spot along the Hooghly River—a tributary of the holy Ganges—in present-day Bengal. A temple was dedicated on that spot and a village grew up around the temple. The village was named Kalikata. And in time, that village would grow into one of the largest cities in the world and would serve for more than 200 years as the administrative capital of the British East India Company.

The city was Calcutta, an Anglicization of Kalikata. In the late 1990s, the name Calcutta was changed to Kolkata, as India went through a pique of cultural reassertion, renaming cities and streets with handles that hearkened back to the Subcontinent’s native tongues. Bombay became Mumbai. Madras turned to Chennai. New Delhi dropped the “New” (and Old Delhi became a historical enclave within the larger city).

As a consequence, you can tell a person’s familiarity with a given city in India based on which name they use for that city. Most people both in and out of India call Mumbai by that modern name. But true natives of that place still call it Bombay. It is the same with Kochi, Kerala’s biggest city. Outsiders refer to it the way they see it printed on tourist maps. But Keralites all call it Cochin. An even more pronounced phenomenon surrounds Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram. (Try to say it; I can’t.) It used to be called Trivandrum, and that is what most Westerners and Indians from other states call it. But proud Malayalis love to babble out the name Thiruvananthapuram because they are the only ones in the world who can say it correctly.

In a growing sense of familiarity, then, I have found myself referring to Kolkata this second time around as Calcutta. Despite what maps and newspapers would have you believe, Calcutta is still very much Calcutta to those who live here. Kolkata is used on all official signage. You see it stenciled on the Metro and sewn onto policemen’s uniforms. But nobody around here says that name.

When the visa official interviewed us the other day, he asked, “When did you first arrive in Calcutta?”

When our guesthouse manager met with us to discuss our stay, she said, “And how do you find Calcutta?”

When we visited the ATI office, Sangeeta, our old trainer, said smilingly, “Welcome back to Calcutta.”

I have been surprised, indeed, to feel welcome back here. It was this city, after all, that intimidated Jenna and I so much back in September. So different it was from anything we had ever experienced. So rambunctiously celebratory of all its human excess that shops and restaurants, barbers and bathrooms literally spill out into the streets and all manner of human business is conducted in the open under the sun.

Six months ago we could barely take it. It was Kolkata, with all the foreignness and cultural difference that name suggests.

Now, is a different feeling altogether we get. Jenna commented the other day, “It feels dead out here,” as we walked to the Metro stop. Indeed, the avenues appeared wider than I remembered. The people seemed less hurried and numerous. The sky was bluer, the wind cooler, and the trees literally greener.

I will allow, of course, for the change in the seasons. In September, the tail end of the monsoon season made Kolkata’s weather damp and humid. And the city may have seemed a bit livelier for the impending durga puja, the biggest public holiday of the year.

Yet, it was not just the exterior changes I noted but the interior ones as well. I felt more at-ease, more comfortable. Lord, more at home. I found myself both understanding and anticipating the challenges of the city. This time around, I carry loose change in my pocket to give to the beggars I know I will encounter. This time around, my appetite is piqued by the smells I get from the many roadside stands simmering dahl and grilling chapattis. This time around, I find it not difficult at all to haggle over a mere 10-rupee difference in the price of a street map.

In all the little ways that a visitor can show his growing familiarity with a city, I have found many in these first few days back in Calcutta. Maybe the most noteworthy, though, is what I actually call it.

FRR-Oh No!

Maybe I would have had more luck at the FRRO if I had worn my Kerala dhoti.

Travelogues about India invariably feature stories about the country’s infamous bureaucracy. In his book City of Djinns, William Dalrymple recounted the laborious process it took to get his visa certified, which involved more than a half dozen trips to a dark and dusty office in Delhi.

Jenna and I had been relatively lucky in this regard. In our experience, government services like customs and the post office have worked with an efficiency that is, if not rapid, at least no slower than their American counterparts. For instance, the Tirur postal department successfully delivered eight packages shipped from America to our apartment without losing a single one. And airport officials in Kochi successfully found my parents’ suitcase after it was lost on their flight from the US over Christmas.

Our luck changed on Monday. On that day, we visited the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Kolkata in order to register our student visas. (For background on why we had to leave Kerala and return to Kolkata to do this, see an earlier post entitled: “Oh Visa, My Visa”.)

We already knew we would be in trouble for we had failed to register our visa within the requisite 14 days of arriving, which would have been way back in September for us. Yet, we had also been told it was simply a matter of paying a fine.

The FRRO in Kolkata is on a commercial stretch of AJC Bose road near the Victoria Memorial, a short Metro ride from where Jenna and I are staying. When we arrived Monday, we were pleased to find the office neat and orderly with no lines, unlike the chaotic FRRO we had visited in Delhi, which was in turmoil registering dozens of Afghan refugees. Our feelings continued to be lifted when we were directed to an official after waiting only a few short moments. So far, the ugly Indian bureaucracy had yet to rear its head (though the office we were in still had heaping stacks of moldering paper).

“Your purpose here?” the official said in a clipped tone. He was a slight, middle-aged man with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair complemented by a neatly-trimmed mustache and goatee.

“We have to register our student visas,” I said, handing over our accordion file of documentation—copies of our passports and visas, a letter from the American TESOL Institute, a letter from JM school, receipts from guesthouses we had stayed at, a note confirming our residence in Tirur for the past four months.

The man flipped through the papers. He licked his fingers as he turned the pages. His eyes scanned over the documents. He clicked his tongue and looked up at us, over his glasses like a schoolmaster.

“You are very late. Your passport says you arrived in September,” he said.

“I know,” I replied, taking a deep breath. “We simply did not register then. It was a mistake. You see—“

“A mistake, yes!” the man said, cutting me off. “A big mistake. You cannot come to India with a visa and not know the regulations. That is very irresponsible on your part.”

Jenna and I sat there placidly as the official off on a diatribe. “It is the same in America, your own country. American immigration is very strict. They do not treat Indians that well. Indian students in America are treated poorly if they make a mistake on their visa. We have regulations here, just like in America. What am I to do? You have made this mistake.”

As he was speaking a young man had come up to the desk and poured the official some chai in a small clear plastic cup. The chai sat on the edge of his desk steaming while the official spoke.

“I believe we can pay a fine and we can still register,” I said, nervous bile rising in my throat.

“Yes, a fine. One thousand, three hundred and ninety-five rupees. One. Three. Nine. Five. Rupees,” he said, enunciating each number with heated precision.

“Yes, we have that. We can pay that,” I said, starting to get out my traveler’s wallet.

“You also must write a letter,” the official said.

I stopped rummaging in my backpack for the wallet. “A letter?” I said, rechecking the list of required documents I needed. I saw no mention of a letter.

“Yes,” the official said. “A letter stating your own ignorance.”

“Our what?”

“Your ignorance. It was your ignorance of Indian visa policy that caused this problem. You did not register when you should have registered because you were ignorant.”

“A letter?”

“Yes.”

“Stating my own ignorance?”

“Yes.”

“My own…stupidity,” I said, feeling the tension rising in my voice.

“Yes.”

“What exactly should this letter say?”

“You can word it however you want. But it must make the point that you failed to register because you were ignorant. It was not our fault. It was your fault,” the official said. This all seemed to conclude the matter, for he put all our papers back in our file and handed the file back to us. He began sipping his tea, as if to say the interview was finished.

“We need to come back tomorrow, then. With our letter…the letter of ignorance,” I said, as we got up form our seats.

“Yes, anytime tomorrow after eleven. But we take lunch from 12:30 to two. Then the office closes at 4:30.”

We left frustrated and a bit confused.

“What was that about a letter?” Jenna asked. “What are we going to say?”

“I guess it will start something like this: ‘To Whom It May Concern: We are idiots.’”

Come Around the Campfire

A scene from around the campfire at JM on our last night in Tirur.

Jenna and I pose with some JM students on our last night in Tirur.

Jenna with one of her 'favorites'.

Students and teachers dance around the campfire during the Bharat Scouts' weekend retreat.

The gym teacher Prakash, who has a fine singing voice, led the group in a traditional Hindi song.

A group of students takes the mic and belts out a Bollywood tune, to the delight of the other students.

One of our most memorable times in Tirur was saved for our final night in town. On Saturday, Jenna and I, along with our roommate Jaime, went to a bonfire at JM School. The bonfire was part of a two-day retreat conducted by the school’s Bharat Scouts—the Indian version of the Boy Scouts (though the Bharat Scouts are co-ed).

More than 40 students participated in the retreat, which started Saturday morning and went all day, with several leadership and teamwork-building activities led by a group of JM teachers. The Scouts were also set to go on a hike the following day to a hilly area near Palakkad, north of Tirur.

In many ways, the bonfire was reminiscent of the campfires I had sat around at Boy Scout Camp when I was a kid—the familiar smell of burning wood, the sharp sensation of smoke burning your eyes, the sight of dancing embers licking up towards a starry sky.

In other ways, though, the experience was totally Indian. Instead of songs like “John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt”, the students belted out Malayalam classics and hit Bollywood movie tunes. At one point, the students feverishly broke out into Shakira's hit song "Waca Waca", the song used as the anthem of last year's World Cup.

They danced incessantly around the burning blaze and forced me to join their rhythmic motions. (There is embarrassing video of this but, fortunately for my sake, the Internet connection is too slow to download it properly onto the blog.)

At one point, the teachers and students insisted Jenna, Jaime and I lead the group in an ‘American campfire song’. In desperation, we latched onto the simplest thing we could all remember: “Kumbayah”.

“It’s got to be faster,” I muttered, for I had noted the speed of all the other songs the students had been singing. (Indians, I think, like their music fast with a pulsing beat.) I sang out the first verse alone at a speed that would be considered entirely inappropriate for the spiritual song in America.

“Kumbayah…my Lord. Kum-Ba-YAAAH!”

Jenna and Jaime joined in on the second time around. By the third time through the verse, some of the students had picked up on the simple words and were hesitantly singing along, nodding their heads. By the fourth time around most of the group was singing with us, their voices more brash and confident. By the fifth time, they had gotten bored, realizing this tune was not really that danceable.

They still clapped when we concluded, however. Though some of the kids had quizzical looks on their faces.

The night concluded with some of the students acting out skits in Malayalam, which received much uproarious laughter from the kids and teachers. At the end of the night, the group stood around the dying fire and concluded the evening with a short prayer. Then, they all lept from their seats and sprinted towards a few classrooms which had been set aside as sleeping areas for the night. The students would be spending the night laying on the benches and tables normally reserved for learning during the daytime.

After some long goodbyes, taking pictures, and giving a few hugs, we struck out for our apartment in the dark. A nearly full moon lit our path along the same road Jenna and I had walked almost every day for the past four months. It was hard to believe it was the last time we would be walking it. But we could not have thought of a better way to end our experience at JM.

Goodbye to All That

Images of some of our students in our final week at JM.

The other day as Jenna and I began to sort through our belongings in Tirur—separating what we will take with us to Calcutta from what we will leave behind—I came across some dusty papers stacked up in a corner of our bedroom. They were papers from JM, the very first assignment we gave our kids our first day teaching back in October.

We had done a ‘get-to-know-you’ activity. We had asked the students to complete a series of simple questions: draw a picture of your family, write down your birthday, write and draw your favorite hobby, and write your age. For Jenna’s students, who were younger, she asked them to draw a picture of their ‘dream job’ and also draw a picture of their favorite animal. For my students, who were nearly high school age, I asked them to draw their home and write the name of someone important to them.

I found myself distracted from packing as I slowly leafed through the tilting pile of paper. I scanned through the sheets, I spotted a few names I recognized and chuckled at some of the drawings. Some students had quickly breezed through the assignment, scratching out their answers in near-indecipherable lettering. But others had shown an astonishing amount of care and dedication.

I hated to throw them away, but I also did not want to lug a good five pounds of paper in my backpack. So I made a compromise. I decided to tally the students’ answers and put up the results of my unscientific straw poll on the blog. You the readers now get, what I think, is a fairly telling ‘snapshot’ of adolescence in Tirur. Keep in mind, this survey is wholly amateur and the results detailed in this post only come from about half our students (392 students to be exact.). At some point, we must have thrown away or lost the other half of our students’ papers.

With all obvious caveats in mind, here is what I can say about our students at JM Higher Secondary School in Tirur:

--71% of our students come from families of five or more members. We asked students to draw who they live with, and many times this included grandparents and in-laws. The biggest family depicted was 13 members.

--Only 3.5% of our students are only children. Only one student comes from a single-parent home.

--32% of our students claimed their favorite hobby was a sport of some kind—football, cricket, badminton—making recreational sports the most popular out-of-school pastime. The next most favored hobbies were playing on the computer (20%), reading (17%), and watching TV (13%).

--With a whopping 68%, Kerala is by far the most common place that my older students claimed as their ‘home’. ‘India’ (28%) was next, followed by ‘Malappuram’ (22%).

--34% of Jenna’s younger students say being a teacher is their ‘dream job’. Following that are ‘doctor’ (26%), ‘pilot’ (23%), and ‘engineer’ (14%).

--50% of Jenna’s students also say their favorite animal is a cat. Rabbits are next (9%), followed by chickens (8%). Dogs only garner 7 percent. Not surprising for a mainly Muslim school, since that faith looks at dogs with great distrust.

These numbers lead me to a few conclusions. First, our JM students, generally speaking, have many deep family attachments. The majority (more than 70 percent) live with at least four people and many of these live with extended family—grandparents, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins. The effect this has is untold and beyond the ambit of my little survey, but I cannot help but conclude that the students in Tirur have a more stable family environment at home and are made more accountable by their elders for their schoolwork than the students I taught in Houston.

Second, the recreational habits of the students in Tirur show a good balance. The most popular activity outside of school is, thankfully, playing sports. It is not surprising to see that ‘playing on computers’ is a distant second, but it is encouraging to find that ‘reading’ is a more popular activity than ‘watching TV’. The results might be influenced by the level of disposable income in Tirur. TVs at home are not universal and personal computers are rare. Therefore, students must be more imaginative and active in what they do to fill their free time.

Third, the ‘dream jobs’ espoused by Jenna’s students show a striking amount of realism and rational ambition. The top jobs are teacher, doctor, pilot, and engineer. Good jobs that are attainable with the correct amount of drive and hard work. Anecdotally, both Jenna and I found it rare for students to say their ‘dream job’ was to be a ‘professional athlete’ or ‘singer’ or ‘actor’.

In sum, what I get from looking wistfully at these surveys is that kids in Tirur, indeed, have the freedom and complaisance to be kids. By and large, they come from solid family backgrounds, they pursue playful out-of-school activities, and they have formulated ambitious but realistic visions of their futures.

In contrast, the kids I taught in urban Houston had grown up too fast. Frequently, their family lives were in turmoil. They had been exposed unhealthily to sex, drugs, and violence. And many of them held fantastical notions of their careers and ambitions.

Looking back on it, only once did I have to correct a student at JM for writing something inappropriate on that ‘get-to-know-you’ assignment. The student had said one of his favorite hobbies was ‘drinking beer’. When I tapped him on the shoulder, he scratched it out and re-wrote ‘football’ in mortification.

JM proved to be a different world than I was used to. And that was not always a bad thing.