28 March 2012
My family was big into "Indian functions" around this period of my life. My dad was president of the Kerala Association of Greater Washington. My mother was on the committee for the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Association of Kerala Medical Graduates. I had spent many of my weekends of youth hanging around other "malus" aka people from the Indian state of Kerala. So, living in this small fishbowl for most of my life, I came to believe that everyone from India was from Kerala. I had no idea what Gujurat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or any other Pradesh was. And I thought all Keralites were from Cochin, the same city my parents were from. So when we went to meet the family of a person who was currently going to medical school in India, I wasn't surprised to find out that they were Malayalee. What I was surprised to find out was that we didn't really know them. They were "Jacobites" and we were "Latin Catholics" (The sub-fractioning of christianity i.e catholicism is a discussion for a whole nother day). When I first met Jacob, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. My parents were asking him most of the questions. I didn't utter a peep. I knew my fate was already decided by the constant battering of my auditory cortex by my father talking medschool up like it was the light bulb. Of course, my mother's question was totally expected:
"What is the food like, Jacob?" "Well, aunty, it's ok I guess...." "Bobby likes rice, yogurt, and pappadam." "Well then he'll be very happy because that's all we ever get served for lunch."
Yeah, I loved Indian food, especially my mom's duck curry. It was nice and spicy and was like a symphony of flavor exploding on my gustatory nerve endings. But rice and yogurt everyday? I hated any Indian food that wasn't meat. Dahl? Hell no. Saambaar? Whatever. I'm probably the only person alive who will eat a dosai without chutney or saambaar or ANYTHING. This, to me, was red flag #1.
"Was it hard for you to adjust, Jacob?" "I'm still adjusting, Uncle. I've only been there 6 months."
Red flag #2. What did he mean adjust? I always thought India was a place where an American such as myself could live and be treated like a king. Well, I later found out that was true. If you were white. While my parents were interviewing Jacob like he was a candidate to join their cult, he kept looking at me. I looked back as if to say, "Don't bother, bub. I'm going there whether I like it or not. There's nothing you can do to save me now." Later, on one of the rare occasions where we talked in India, he told me that he wanted to talk to me alone to tell me the truth about the place. I told him I understood but my parents' minds were made up.
"Are the professors strict?" "Yes, they'll kick you out of class for the smallest thing. If you sleep in class and get caught, you'll get suspended."
Red flag #3. I'm a big fan of zzzzzzzzs. I slept through the second semester of senior year when I found out about going to India. The only way I would survive was if I had an IV drip of pure caffeine hooked up to me.
"What about ragging?"
Red flag #4. Ragging? What the hell was that? Well let me tell you. Ragging is synonymous with the fraternity tradition of hazing, except with the former you don't have a choice. If one of your seniors decided to rag you, you grin and bear it. How bad could it be, you ask? Well I'll give you an example of what ragging was about.......it's 100% true and you tell me if it was bad. (disclaimer: I wasn't ragged that badly. The worst I had to do was probably simulate receiving anal sex from my classmate, Abi, fully clothed of course ;) )
One favorite pastime for some of the seniors was the sport of field hockey. In India and most other countries, men played it instead of women. It's a lot like lacrosse. These very same seniors were also sexually repressed and were fascinated by the male hardware, pardon the pun. So one day, a senior gathered up a group of 6 juniors aka freshmen and took them in to his room. He made them strip down to their birthday suits and told them to start masturbating (I know what you're thinking right about now. Why didn't they tell him to fuck off? Well if you did such a thing, you would be lynched, beaten, and left for dead). In the meantime, he fashioned a hockey ball out by scrunching up a piece of paper. Once each "player" was ahem, erect, he would split the group into teams of 3 each. One goalie, one defender, and one forward. Now, the defenders usually had the longest "sticks" so they could poke check the ball away from the offensive player. The poor saps with the smallest sticks played offense. Goalie was the guy who had a hard time getting it up. When the whistle sounded, the juniors started playing "dick hockey". Sometimes, they would lose on purpose so the game would end quickly. But the seniors were too smart for that, and it resulted in a beat down. I forget who won, but does it really matter? I like to think that everyone LOST.
So far, 4 red flags had gone up. And I didn't say a word. Yet. This was what was awaiting me halfway across the world. My mind was racing a million miles an hour and we hadn't even started talking about the MEDICINE part of it.
In the weeks and months to come, I started having second thoughts about my parents' decision. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to study medicine. I didn't want to eat the same ol' shit every damn day. I most certainly didn't want to play dick hockey or any variation of hockey for as long as I lived. The absolute moment when I realized that resistance was futile was when my family was returning home from a weekend trip to Pittsburgh. Yet again, ad nauseum, my dad asked me what I felt about going to India. I had it up to here with his questions about it so I told him.
"Dad, PLEASE don't send me there. I don't want to go." "Look at the opportunity you have! So many parents wish their children would go to India to be a doctor. It is the noble profession! I wish I had the chance you have now!" "You're forcing me to go when I don't want to. That's wrong, wouldn't you say?" "No! You don't realize this now. We're doing what's best for you."
That path to Hell is paved with good intentions. My dad's intentions were going to lead me straight to Hell on Earth. Sadly, his intentions, though his best, were not what would get me out of India when all was said and done. To this day I have no idea what got me out of there. Perhaps the survival instinct kicked in and I made it through. Sometimes it felt like a really horrible nightmare from which I was yearning to wake up. During this conversation, I started crying. I hadn't cried in YEARS........I think the last time was when my dad disciplined me by hitting me over the head with a telephone book (gotta love Indian parents' methods). To this day, my father claims he didn't hear or see me cry. But believe me, he did. I realized there was no hope. There's a line in the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption" where Red says to Andy that HOPE is a dangerous thing. It will end up killing you in a place like that. I was soon going to learn exactly what Red meant.
Meeting Of The Minds • Opuss № I