Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [75]
On the way back to the college gate, where the bus to Tashigang will stop, Catherine explains the Fantomes’ unusual name. “Mr. Fantome’s grandfather or great-grandfather was a French convict who apparently jumped ship in India and then changed his name to Fantome,” she says.
“And what was the tragedy in Sikkim?” I ask.
“It was annexed by India in the seventies. Sikkim used to be a separate country, like Bhutan. Remember there was that American woman who married the King of Sikkim?”
“Sort of. But why did India annex it?”
“I’m not sure. Something about a power struggle between the Sikkimese and Nepali immigrants.”
Over the next week, I am invited to almost every lecturer’s house for sweet tea spiced with cardamom or ginger and plates of samosas, pakoras, fried peanuts. During these visits, I begin to piece together the network of alliances and shifting hostilities that exists beneath the daily my-good-sir routine. At Mr. Gupta’s house, I am warned to keep away from Mr. Matthew, at Mr. Matthew’s house, I am warned to stay clear of Mr. Bose. Mr. Bose advises me to have nothing to do with Mr. Chatterji, Mr. Chatterji claims that the Mr. Bose is not trustworthy. Mr. Ratna says Mr. Nair is a drinker, Mr. Nair says Mr. Harilal is a trouble-maker. Mr. Krishna allegedly carries tales to the principal, and I would do well to be careful of what I say, to whom, and where. “I wouldn’t pay the slightest attention,” Shakuntala says when I see her again in the library and recount the various warnings and dark allusions. “Some of them are well meaning and genuinely interested in their work, but a lot of the others are only here to make money. These little plots and subplots keep them amused. I stay clear of all of them. The students are much better company, anyway.”
I am not sure about the students yet. The Zoo is my favorite class because they are loud and enthusiastic, but last week, one young man informed me that I looked “damn fat” in my kira. (He himself looked as if he was put together out of wire coat hangers.) I had barely recomposed myself when another chimed in, “But ma’am is very simple.” Fat—damn fat—and stupid! Thank you, I thought to myself, you’ve both just failed English. And Smirk’s class continues to be difficult. Difficult in comparison to class II C. By Canadian standards, their manners are exquisite. They still stand up when I enter the room. They hand me their homework with both hands and bow when I pass them in the hall. But they are also testing me. They mimic the way I say their names but when I ask for the correct pronunciation, they remain silent. They ask me how old I am, and if I am married, and how long I have been teaching. I refer to the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and Smirk smirks and calls out, “What do you mean by Romantic?”
I fold my arms and try to look bored, but I am thinking that maybe Father Larue was right after all. “What do you mean by ‘Romantic’?” I ask.
There is an uncomfortable silence that stretches out and out.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” he finally says, embarrassed.
The small class of third-year degree students is easier because they are mostly silent. They are extremely attentive, sitting quietly with pens poised above thick notebooks, but they will not speak. I spend a week on a Shakespearean sonnet, talking about structure and imagery and language, and I have no idea at the end of the week what the poem means to them, if it means anything at all. I have no idea why I am teaching it beyond the fact that it is in the