The Bicycle Diaries

I've always bordered on the dorky side. And growing up, I was a total girly-girl: the Barbie-playing, house-house playing, pink-loving, love-all-things-frilly kinda girl. Predictably so, I never learned how to ride a bicycle. I never had one of my own. Never did 'cause I never wanted one and therefore, never asked, and therefore, never got nor had one.

I did have half a bicycle though. My crafty brother wiled me into "lending" him 500 Rupees (and this was many years ago!) from my post-birthday gift money savings. Of course, I never got the money back and never really claimed ownership over the bicycle. I remember a time many years later when I began to show some interest in learning how to ride one. But by then, the bicycle was way past its glory days. An unrepairable chain problem. So that was pretty much where my interest stopped. Anyone who's from Kohima would say that it's not really the ideal place to cycle. Sure we have our share of scenic beauty, but what with the traffic being a state, only the skilled would perhaps manage to cycle around unharmed.

All this talk to make my point that all my life I had been up against some odds- inherent, social and well, geographical.

When I joined JNU, it seemed like a great place to cycle around. In fact many students did. But my friends and I never really gave it much thought. We preferred walking. It was pretty much the only exercise we'd get on some days- days when we'd wake up way too late to make it to class, spend the rest of the day mulling around in lethargy of the deepest kind, and only with the onset of dusk, we would go out for a stroll to good ol' PSR (Parthasarthy Rocks) and perhaps (!!!) stop by the pan shop to buy our ermm, stock. So yea, there again, I never quite had the will to learn how to ride a bicycle.

Luang Prabang is a lovely place. Oh, such an understatement. However, the point here is that it's sort of like an ideal place to cycle around. And when I got here, I hadn't really thought of how I'd commute to work daily, or how I'd get around town, and so on. Having lived in Delhi, I just assumed there would be public transport in plenty like autorickshaws. Sure enough, there are tuktuks. But there didn't seem to be as many as autos. And also, it seems like it's an okay thing for a tourist to do, but not for a resident. So I being a resident always got laughed at when my answer to "Oh, how did you come?" or "How do you get around?" was "Tuktuk."

Optimism told me that I should buy one. So I did! A few months ago. Last year. Person after person tried to teach me but I was incorrigible. I was so desperate to learn that I even practiced with tons of school kids watching me in fascination and laughter. After a few more tries, I gave up. And my cycle was at least being saved from disuse by Mina, one of the girls who I live with, because hers broke down, or something.

I often remembered that episode from FRIENDS. The one where Phoebe can't ride a bicycle and Ross buys her one and tried to teach her. Ross tries to (mis)use her naivete (for her own good) by telling her that if the bicycle is not ridden, it's spirit will die. Of course there is loud recorded laughter when Phoebe whispers to the bicycle,"Please don't die!" Well, atleast my bicycle's spirit has been kept alive all this time.

Earlier today, Haen, one of my friends here had invited me over to lunch. She also told me that she will teach me how to ride a bicycle. Lunch excited me because her family owns a guesthouse and she's an amazing cook and there's always food, glorious food at her house. But the part about the bicycle didn't exactly interest me. I knew it'd be yet another disappointing attempt. Yet another person unable to teach incorrigible me.

Well, anyway, I went. And yes, the food was great. After eating, I kind of tried to evade the topic. In fact, she even got a call from some other friends for some other activity. I kind of hoped she'd go. But well, she was determined to teach me. So at first, we tried in the narrow cobbled lane in front of her guesthouse. My unsuccessful attempts amused some old men sitting nearby. After a few more tries, she decided to take me to a place nearby with more space. So we did. We tried a few times. I just couldn't get it right. I would put my right foot on the paddle, and pushed, but I couldn't get my left foot on the other paddle. She tried to push me to get the momentum going. She said I moved my upper body way too much. So she kept shouting "Don't move your body! Don't move your body!" After a few more tries, I could suddenly ride to a short distance without her holding the bicycle from behind. But I kept losing the balance 'cause I "moved my body like a snake" (ew!)

Many failed attempts later, we tried reverse psychology. "Move your body! Move your body!" And what to say, I managed to keep my body straighter and paddle better and in a few minutes time, I was riding the bicycle around that place. I felt the wind in my face and I felt the rush of adrenaline (though only faintly, yet very much there), and remembered the many times when I had thought I would never ever learn how to ride one.

Of course I crashed into a parked truck, a tree, jumped off the bicycle a few times 'cause I forgot the brakes were for stopping the bicycle. Besides these, I think I did really well, and made my new teacher very proud.

So here is the post I had been dying to upload. The post that along the way, I almost felt I'd never put up. The post that would be about one of the many wonderful things that coming to Laos has made possible. Thoughts of cycling around Luang Prabang's pretty streets, along the Nam Khan river and the Mekong had become fantasies, but now, after a few more times of practice, I think I will finally be able to!! Oh the joy, the joy! Long overdue, or maybe right in its own time. And what's more the bicycle I practiced on today was a lovely shade of pink. Life's small hidden ironies!

Tutoring Boram

It's been a few weeks since I started tutoring Boram. She's originally from South Korea but studies in China. She arrived here in December, right when our busiest weeks were about to begin. So things were pretty haphazard- a class today, canceled tomorrow, classroom interruptions, etc. Like a lot of non-native English speakers, she too has a pretty good grammar grounding. In a written test, she'd probably score high. But putting that knowledge into speech is where the problem is. She's here for just two months, so is really looking for a crash course. Owing to that, we haven't been able to work through a "normal" text- normal meaning one that's designed to be studied over a course of 4 months or more. So we just rip things off from a text here, a text there and ESL stuff on the internet.

The other day we practiced sentences she might say if she goes shopping to a big mall. Stuff from "Excuse me, where is the ladies clothing department?" to "Do you do alterations?" These few weeks being my precious weeks of break time before another term begins, teaching isn't high on my to-do list. However, of late, I've been beginning to enjoy my daily two hours with her. There are little things that happen in these two hours that I have begun to look forward to. For example, her Korean candies. Boram has a sweet tooth. Oh yea, I told her what "sweet tooth" means. Anyway, everyday she brings two candies. Sometimes more. Sometimes yummy ones like pumpkin candy. Or some hard-to-distinguish flavoured candy which had "Good for Women" written in Korean on the wrapper. Sweet moments, really. Pun definitely intended.

We learned some prepositions yesterday. She said they will be useful. So I thought I'd give her some more. Secretly weaseling my way out from lesson-planning. Our time of meeting being post-lunch, she was drowsy and the prepositions weren't really helping. So we just sat and talked. Of course, as we chewed on the yummy pumpkin candy. I then asked her about her favourite childhood memory. This was after an explanation (with a diagram, stick figures et al) of "childhood." Once she understood, she immediately said her favourite childhood memory is from when she was 5 years old. She hadn't begun school yet because back then kids in Korea weren't sent to school until they were 6 or 7. So for a year, her family lived in the countryside. She began to draw a diagram as well as she tried to articulate her memory. She drew two houses and some fields. Rice fields, as she later specified. With her limited English vocabulary, she told me that living there by the rice fields where after the rains she would see rainbows, which she said were really big. Predictably I was drawn in to her telling of her memory. And for a few seconds, we sat there with silly grins, staring at her scribbly drawing of what was supposed to be the rice field and their house. Silly moments I seem to thrive on. Silly moments I seem to live for.

Uncountable Nouns

It doesn't take much for me to cry. It runs in the blood, we say. My mum's side . A family joke. It's almost inevitable for my mum or her sister to start sniff-ing (and later, let out a sob or two) during family gatherings; it's so inevitable that we're sure to spot an uncle or two yawning in a corner and not paying the slightest attention nor trying to summon a sympathetic look in the least. I take after my mum, and oh, what a thing to take after. Sometimes I detest it so much. I cry so easily. I'm a "jepsu" as Aos would call it. Little things like some childhood memory of Christmas, a kind unexpected gesture, a scene from a movie that reminds me of some place I've been to or seeing a person that looks like someone dear to me can make my eyes well up with tears.

So it's really no big surprise that I felt a little emotional as I was typing the last lesson plan for this term. It's just the thought of doing something for the last time (for this year at least) I said to myself. Today being the last day of class before the students take their test tomorrow, I thought it'd be a nice treat for them to have some food and drinks. So over some pizza and some iced tea, we did a review of the things we had learned over the term. But more than the review, I enjoyed the fact that the students are already so fluent in the language to be able to converse about topics like education, corruption, what they've become better at over the course of the term, the dreams they have, the changes they want to see in their country. the " little" contributions they'd make to make life better. The students are really bright and it's such a remarkable feat that they have reached the Upper Intermediate level and have learned a second language with such proficiency.

So after a class like that, and given my history of jepsu-ness, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at myself as my eyes welled up with tears after I left the class. I felt it strong and I felt it deep. I'm an emotional person- the feeling-feeling type, if you please. But I had a moment there and small though it may be, it was a moment of triumph for me. A milestone of sorts and a reflection of how blessed I am. And I in all my inherited emotional glory received it as an addition to the unending list of blessings.

We did Countable and Uncountable nouns this term. Makes one wonder if blessings are really uncountable or countable.

in-the-making

There By The Sea

Paper Parasols

But For Now, This Is How We'll Talk

Communicating through speech comes to a stop after some time. With basic vocabulary learned over a span of just two months, there's only so much you can say. There's only so much to talk about. There's only so much miming and gesturing you can come up with. So I sit back and feel a little frustrated as my brain tries hard to make sense of what they're saying. I try and slow them down saying "Khoy bo khao jai" (I don't understand). Being honest and trying to find a way to give myself a break at the same time. Yet they persist. So I smile and try to get myself interested. They want to teach me how to dance. They try to remember the steps and begin to sway their hands and move their bodies. Their fingers make delicate movements as their hands sway from left to right, right to left. I've seen the actual dance with the accompanying music. Suffice it to say that the girls' version sans the music is so much better. They beckon me to join them. I get up and try to get my pace right, my fingers begin to move slowly to their delicate rhythm. So we dance for a little while as the girls try to sing a song, the words to which they try to remember. But we dance.

I then sat back and watched them dance; thinking, "Communicating through speech comes to a stop after some time..." But when it does, we find other means through which we still try to communicate... even though it's just our bodies swaying to the humming of a half-remembered song.