Sitafal

During my bouts of insomnia I have been envisioning the fleshy pieces of the sitafal fruit in my mouth and trying to think up the best way to describe this delightful specimen.  This trip is the first time I have come to India during the monsoon season since 1998.  All of my trips out here in the 80s and 90s were in the summer months.  But in both 2006 and 2008 I got to experience a more moderate and less mosquito-ridden India.  It was truly glorious.  But one thing was missing.  During my childhood and adolescent visits, I would be greeted by Aruna Masi with an entire thali of sitafal fruit.  It was and always will be my favorite fruit on the planet.  Yesterday we became reunited.  I was calling her name off the gangway.  Tejal Bhabhi took us to the fruit market and there she was.  My eyes focused in as everything around her became fuzzy.  I did an entire photo shoot before I actually had the pleasure of indulging.  I realize this all sounds a bit obscene.  But I am unapologetic.  The verdict is still out but it may be true that the trade with mother-nature may be worth it.  I may decide by the end of this trip that 98% percent humidity and an equally high percentage chance of traveller's diarrhea is the price one must pay to be able to enjoy the splendors of the sitafal.

Sitafal are ready to eat when they are so ripe that the white insides start to puss out of the amphibious and bruised skin.  On the outside they are as unflattering as the toad begging the princess to transform him into a prince.  In the case of the sitafal, the transformation requires a delicate twist of the wrists.  You take the palm-sized fruit and pull apart ever.so.gently until you have two halves cupped neatly in each hand.  You can use a spoon or simply your mouth to slowly enjoy one or a few seeds at a time.  When you open the insides you are greeted by a  mountain range of snow-covered seeds.  The white flesh outside each individually wrapped seed has a texture unlike anything else.  There are really two layers to the flesh.  The first feels like a thin covering of mushy banana.  You can remove that first by putting the meaty seed in your mouth.  You are left with a second very thin layer of flesh that is slightly tougher.  You need to rub the seed between your tongue and the roof of your mouth to undress the bodice.  And you are left with a jet-black, smooth, and hard seed to spit out before shoving a few more snow-covered pieces into your mouth.  It's sweet but not over-the-top.  The sugar is slightly grainy and you can feel it's residue on your tongue after. 

Sitafal are high in iron and packed with calories.  It also makes for a delicious flavored ice-cream.  After I posted Sita's pictures on Flickr Bisse sent me a link to a quickie article about the fruit.  From there I learned that it's ground-up seeds are often used as an Ayeruvedic treatment for head lice.  And the fruit was named after the wife of the god Ram, Sita. Tejal Bhabhi tells me there is a fruit named after Sita's companion called Ramful.  I think she was serious but as I sit here and write this I realize she may have been pulling my leg too.

Pedder Road

In 2009 my aunt, Aruna Masi, passed away.  When you come from a big family like I do death is not something you are shielded from.  My mom is one of twelve siblings and my dad is one of eight.  I have 42 first cousins and I have never even attempted to count second cousins.  I've got cousins who are older than my parents.  So yes, my grandmother, Samju Ba, was pregnant at the same time as her daughter, Prabha Masi.  It's awesome.  It also means that people get old when you're young.  That cancer and heart disease and tragedy become part of your lexicon at ages four and five and six years old like they did for me.  And so I had dealt with loss; but when Aruna Masi passed, it was the deepest wound my heart has had to heal from.  To me, she was a second mother. 

As a first generation American of Indian descent, India is a funny place to feel your skin.  In some ways it is so empowering.  To be a part of the majority when you have developed a comfort with being other.  Identity and sense of self get thrown up in the air and reevaluated.  And for me it has meant that whenever I am in India I am trying to exert my Indian-ness.  My family says things like, "don't speak in English so we don't get scammed."  I try and walk with less swag in my shoulders and try to fit in.  I try to remember the social norms.  But not at Aruna Masi's house.  At Aruna Masi's house I could always just be, drop the heightened awareness, and not care if my kachu Gujarati dialect was filled with mistakes.  Because Aruna Masi was home.  I haven't been to India since her passing.  It's one of the sacrifices that come with diaspora.  I am used to not seeing my beloved Masi for years at a time, so then when someone passes on, how do you honor, mourn and feel their passing?  How do you accept it's real?

I have gone through the motions of what it would feel like so many times in the last five years.  I suppose that trying to envision the loss in some way was a strategy to deal with it.  I have imagined arriving at the Bombay airport and not seeing Aruna Masi and Pravin's Masa's thick lensed specs.  I have had lucid visions of doing the u-turn on Pedder road and taking a sharp turn up the hill toward their flat.  I have, in my waking dreams, stood at the spot outside the apartment where she sat the last time I saw her.  When she was wrapped in the red shawl I got her.  Waving and crying and smiling until our car became a dot in the distance.  That day when our cries became dry-heaving and irregular gasps as our car rode toward the Bombay airport because we knew it was the last time we would see each other in the physical form because she was so sick.

And today I finally experienced it. Today I arrived at the Bombay airport - just five hours ago at 1 AM.  I came to Pedder Road.  And I am laying on the floor of Aruna Masi's bedroom.  My mom and dad are next to me on her bed, the bed she let out her last exhalation upon.  My cousin brother and Bhabhi picked us up at the airport.  The tears came unexpectedly and I had to look away from Amish and my mom to try and gain my composure.  But the tears didn't come when I got to Pedder Road like I thought they would.  When I stood in that last spot where she sat and said good bye, and when I came in the house, I felt her presence and not her loss.  And so the answer to my fear is starting to reveal itself to me slowly and positively.  I still have a home in India.  I still feel connected.  I feel Aruna Masi in these walls and in the breeze blowing through her bedroom.  I feel her in Amish and Tejal Bhabhi.  And I know my mom feels her sister too.  When we said good night to one another a few moments ago we communicated that to each other through our welled-up eyes and genuine smiles.

Pinky, Aruna Masi and Me on a train to Surat

Neili, Aruna Masi and me on Pedder Road

Aruna Masi, me, and Pravin Masa in Disney World

An Introduction

In 2009 I was twenty-seven years old, slightly self-righteous and ready for some soul-searching-travel. I applied for a Fund For Teachers Grant. I was rejected. It was a bummer to say the least.  I applied a second time with two other women.  Strike two.  I had no intention of applying this year.  But late one night I was approached by Dottie Engler, the Special Projects director at the Boston Plan for Excellence.  I was listening to a Catherine Russell jazz album and doing paperwork.  Dottie and I started chatting because she was working late too.  At the end of our talk she encouraged me to apply again.  The application was due in two days.  I went home that night and worked on it for hours.  The proposal had more intention behind it then it did back in '09.  As I embark on my seventh year as a primary urban educator I am thrilled that I have an opportunity to travel back home to explore the ideas that led to my eventual decision to become a social justice educator.

The goals for my trip are simple.

1. In my second grade classroom in Boston, my students and I embark on a year-long study of Boston and her neighborhoods.  The neighborhoods where my students reside are often places left off the map.  They are neighborhoods that are given attention to only where there are stories of violence and drugs.  The silent messages that my students receive are loud and clear from this portrayal.  My student's home's are places that are feared and exotified at the same time.  There are parallels that I can make to India here.  My plan is to put myself through my student's Boston Neighborhoods curriculum, but in my mom and dad's hometowns instead.  The writing and documentation that I create in India will serve as exemplars for the work I want my students to do upon returning home.
2. As a first-generation Indian woman, I often get asked by students if I am Native-American or from Trinidad.  Every year I take out a map and show students where my parents were born and where I have spent many summers.  I show them a place I feel connected to and disconnected from at the same time... a feeling not so different than the feelings I have here in Boston.  Each year my students crave to know more about India.  I can tell from their questions and their desire to make connections to India and all things Indian.  And each year I provide them with superficial information about where I am from, while asking them to deeply uncover and think about where they are from.  The demands of the job, the standards, and the most limited resource of all, time, force me to engage on the surface level.  But there is a great deal lost with this approach.  For starters, my students don't get to understand why I believe so strongly in the work that I am doing and in them because I don't have the time to tell them.  I became an educator so that I could take part in a daily exchange that would result in a sense of tolerance and acceptance.   I need to figure out a way to expose myself more fully to my students.  By using exemplars from my own adventure of self-discovery I can feed two birds with one hand.  I can show my kiddos the writing skills they need while providing a space for cultural tolerance and exchange.
3. In 2007 when I graduated with a Masters from Boston Teacher Residency I had to write my Philosophy of Education.  Even then, I wrote about how I needed that document to be a constant work in progress.  But in 7 years I have not edited it once.  I intend to add the experiences of the last six years to my Philosophy in order to edit and revamp.  But first I need to explore where it all began.  And I need to start before I was even a concept.  For me, the story needs to begin with my mom and dad, and probably even before that.  

The journey begins tomorrow...