Buddha in a Habit

Sister Cyril preparing to send her students out to do the work of the Buddha

Many things overwhelm me when I walk into the home where Mother Theresa took her last breathe.  I sit silently at the tomb that houses her body, the headstone bearing Christ’s greatest message. One that human beings find it sadly difficult to follow: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  I am just as silent when I walk through the exhibition celebrating her life of compassion and sacrifice.  It is in this exhibit where I learn that she not only nursed and fed the families living in Calcutta’s most uninhabitable slums, but she lived there with them.  This diminutive woman begged for food alongside the destitute, allowing them first dibs on the spoils and only eating what was left once the women and children had had their fill.

I am merely humbled by these powerful images of Mother Theresa.  What leaves me speechless, unable to comprehend this one woman’s commitment to mission is presented as a cursory biographical fact.  When Mother Theresa was 18 years old, she left her home country to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (The “Loreto Sisters”).  This teenager got on a plane headed to Ireland (and shortly thereafter, India) having no reference point for the culture in either country.  She did not speak English or Hindi or Bengali.  She had never been outside of her family’s neighborhood, much less on foreign soil. Mother Theresa was fully aware that once she began her missionary work, she would never see her own mother again.  Would never return home.  And she STILL got on the plane.

When I read this, I am unable to move on to the next panel of artifacts.  I don’t know why, but this detail is even more powerful to me than the images of her opening up the orphanage and bandaging up the diseased and dying.  She was just a girl.  Not even out of adolescence.  She would not be the first young person to devote her life to the arduous task of ending human suffering.  But, how many of those who came before her and who came after her gave up their FAMILIES? Their mothers?  Their homelands?  Their native tongues?

Days after having toured Mother’s House, I am still thinking about little 18 year old Gonxha Agnes saying goodbye to all that she knew and 60 years later never once mentioning how sad she was to leave her family behind in order to devote herself to such important work. It is against this backdrop that I find myself sobbing in the presence of Sister Cyril, a lesser known missionary than Mother Theresa, but a woman who is as equally dedicated to ending human suffering.

Like Mother Theresa, Sister Cyril left her native land of Ireland when she was little more than a girl.  Although she does visit her family back in Ireland, since joining the Loreto Sisters in Calcutta five decades ago, Sister Cyril has never gone back permanently.  For the last 30 years, Sister Cyril has been the principal of Loreto Sealdah School.  She has spent most of those years turning it into not only a school of high academic caliber, but a shelter for Calcutta’s parentless street children, an opportunity to learn for the children of the prostitutes who work in the infamous “Red Light District” and a training ground for her successors.  Sister Cyril has spearheaded numerous training programs for people who want to teach the poor.  She has inspired the “school in a trunk” movement that brings even the most basic education to children who live in remote villages and children of migrant workers whose parents put them to work making bricks in order to help support the family.

During our visit to Loreto Sealdah School, we are shown a documentary on Sister Cyril’s work.  She speaks frankly about the great need that exists in India and does not mince words about how more people should fulfill their duty to address that need.  When Sister Cyril began admitting street children into her school, her middle class parents balked.  Sister Cyril enlisted the hearts of their daughters to teach them compassion. “One of the girls told me her mother turned up her nose and called the kids dirty.  She was proud to correct her mother. ‘Sister, I told her she was the one who was dirty because she had a dirty heart.’  I was proud of her,too, for standing up to her mother for the right reason.”

And she trains her girls to stand up for justice even if it means manipulating the unjust.  When Sister Cyril discovered another “invisible” group of children in Calcutta, she called upon Loreto Sealdah students to bring them out of the shadows.  In far too many middle class homes, Sister discovered, school aged children are “hired” to work as domestic help.  They are paid little to no wages, given one paltry meal a day and are not allowed to leave the premises.  They are modern day slaves.  Sister found out about these children because her students leaked their wealthy neighbors’ secrets.  “That girl who is in that flat, she is not a little cousin visiting from the village.  She is the family’s fulltime maid.”  Sister has trained these students in their own form of rescue.  She tells them to use their middle class manners and their familiarity with the families to sweetly coax the women of the houses to allow their young maids out for a few hours a day.  “Just to play and come down to my school,” the girls tell the housewives.  And it is during these one or two hours a day, that these same girls teach their enslaved peers how to read and write.

I am already near tears before Sister Cyril begins to explain why she has worked tirelessly over the years to institute these programs into the fabric of Loreto Sealdah School.  “It is not my job to just teach my students so they can pass their Board exams,” Sister Cyril speaks plainly.  “It is not the goal of their education to go off to Europe or America and become doctors.  Their goal is to continue to change their country.  To allow others to live with the same dignity we have allowed them.”

And it is here when I feel something get stuck in my throat.  Water gathers in my pupils and my eyes begin to blur when I hear this woman continue to explain that morality can not be seperated from education.  That she and her staff have worked to develop a curriculum on Human Rights, which is compulsory for all students who attend her school.  “They must go out and propagate what they learn here,” Sister finishes. “If they don’t, then we have failed.”

By the time the film has ended and Sister Cyril strolls into the room as if she has been cued by her staff, my mind is in overdrive and so are my emotions.  I think back to 18 year old Gonxha Agnes on the road to becoming Mother Theresa.  I look at this sturdy Irish nun standing before me.  An outspoken firecracker to whom police officers bring raped and half starved children because they know Sister will take them.  Feed them. House them.  And teach them.  The woman who puts 100 of her students on a hot bus every Saturday and sends them out to villages with lesson plans so they can teach their rural counterparts.

“I hope you enjoyed the video,” Sister smiles as she sits down.  “So, do you have any questions for me?”

Questions?

Will you take statements, I want to say.

I want to say a lot.  I want to express my inability to fully understand how a Buddha has ended up walking this earth as a Catholic nun.  How I have been practicing Buddhism for just two short years and I am therefore unprepared to meet her.  This living, breathing embodiment of the most basic of Buddhist concepts: We ordinary human beings possess the Buddha nature; it is up to us to continually access and act on it.  

Yes, Sister Cyril, I have some questions for you.  I am forming these words in my head, but each time I try to say them, my throat gets tight and more tears trickle down my cheeks. 

How long did it take you to grow these fearless Buddha legs?   When will mine become as strong as yours?  Tell me what prayer to recite when I grow frustrated with my baby Buddha legs.  My wobbly walk of compassion that sometimes ends with my butt crashing to the floor, having to get up and try all over again.

The others in the group are able to ask Sister thoughtful, intelligent questions while I struggle to find the right thing to say.  And the 5 or 10 tear-free seconds needed to say it. 

It takes me two hours.  We have visited classrooms at Loreto Sealdah School.  Had lunch.  Taken countless pictures with the curious students who love to practice their conversational English with foreign visitors.

Before we leave, we are back in Sister’s office and she asks us again. “Is there anything else you would like to know about our work here?”

I can feel my throat tightening and my eyes welling up.  I take my 10 seconds while I still have them.

“Thank you for the work you do here.”  I can hear my voice cracking.  “It takes so much courage to devote your life to this work.”  The tears come back and I feel the other eyes in the room on me.  Wondering why I can not stop weeping.  I rush so quickly through the rest of my statement, I don’t even know if Sister understands me.

“I wish more of us had the courage to do it.”

Naughtiness Redefined

The Girls Behaving Properly...I think?

I like to think of myself as well versed in the elusive skill of classroom mangement.  For my civilian readers, classroom management is the term used by educators to connote one’s ability to “get kids to act like they have home training so you can teach them a few things on a semi-regular basis.”  Over the years, I have gotten more than a few confirmations that I  have indeed earned the self-awarded title of The Benevolent Dictator.  Several student teachers have thanked me for modeling a tangible example of how to require (and receive) respectful, non-disruptive behavior without being overly punitive or permissive.  Visitors to my school, administrators and fellow teachers routinely comment that it only takes one quick observation of my classroom to know it houses teens who are crystal clear on what I expect from them and are careful not to fall below my expectations.

I  do not tolerate naughtiness in my classroom in the USA so it stands to reason that I would not tolerate naughtiness in my classroom in India, right?

So, here is the thing about cultural norms: they often dictate what we view as acceptable or not.  This, in turn, sets the standard for what we define as crossing the line of  appropriate behavior.  America has a standard for what it defines as students being naughty.  And India has its own standard.

Naughtiness looks REALLY different in India.  It bares so little resemblance to USA naughtiness, somebody needs to get a paternity test.  Naughtiness continues to elude me at Shri Shikshayatan School; I never see it, yet according to my fellow educators, the girls are flaunting it all up and down the corridors.  And for shame, they sometimes unleash their naughtiness on ME, a guest teacher at their school!

Recently, while rotating around a tightly packed classroom of 52 children, I stop at one table to answer a student’s question.  For the most part, the students are working quietly and much of the pockets of muted chatter I hear is about the assignment itself so I don’t bother chastising the girls for talking.  In the USA, many teachers overlook the “be quiet” rule when MOST of the talking is the result of students actively engaging in their work, even helping each other understand the work better.  Teachers are aware that some of the students are probably not actually engaged in their work, but are more likely engaged in discussing who was kicked off American Idol.  We ignore this reality, filing it under the “You can’t fight every battle” category.

Apparently, every battle is fought at Shri Shikshayatan School. 

The teacher whose class I am taking over on this day suddenly yells across the room, “Rashi!  Rashi Gupta, are you over there engaging in personal conversation right now?!”  Rashi has hardly begun the quintessential kid back tracking, when the teacher shuts her down: “Do not give a feeble excuse for your naughtiness.  Stop it right now and get back to your work as Ma’am instructed!” When the class is over, the teacher and I walk back to the staff lounge together.

“The class was so naughty today, no?”  She sighs and looks apologetically at me.

I have no idea what was naughty about any of the students’ behavior.  When she yelled at Rashi, I had instinctively adhered to the universal rule among teachers: Do not allow the children to divide and conquer.  So, I had followed her harsh chastisement of Rashi with a stern look in the girl’s direction and an added, “Get back to your work.”

There were other kids beside Rashi who were also naughty?  What were these children doing exactly?  And how had I missed it?

Because I want to require the same behavior from the students as their long term teachers, I spend the next few days searching diligently for naughty behavior.   Waiting for it to leap out of the girls who stand up whenever I walk into a room and greet me with: “Good Morning, Ma’am!”

When I am walking around the building, I try to be inconspicuous as I linger around classrooms, waiting.  Patiently waiting for the students whose eyes are locked on their teachers to do something naughty.  I wonder if their raised hands and enthusiastic pleas of, “Ma’am, call on me, Ma’am!” will transform to, “Miss, I told you I don’t know the answer, dang!” I want to see this happen so I can reprimand them for being so terribly, terribly naughty.

The only time I take a break from my naughtiness search is when I am at morning assembly.  Three days out of the week, all 4000 of the students at Shikshayatan are required to report to the school’s courtyard and line up by classes and grades.  The assemblies begin with the students singing and praying followed by standard school announcements and sometimes, a student speaker.  I love morning assemblies because I have found the prayer and singing very calming ways to begin a long, humid day inside the cavernous pressure cooker that is the school building.

Here, the girls seem to be at their best.  It is early in the morning and they haven’t had their first class yet.  Their mind is fresh and there have been no conflicts among friends, no chastisements from teachers to put students in a less than well-behaved mood.  Surely, morning assembly HAS to be a naughty-free zone?

And it is for the most part.  Mrs. Ganguly (“Principal Ma’am” to the kids and just plain ole “Ma’am” to the adults) normally only waits for a few seconds in order for the girls to get completely silent.  Occasionally, she has to scold them because it takes them much too long to completely stop talking and look directly at her.  But, on most days things run rather smoothly.

Except for the day when the entire 12th grade was being naughty and got themselves kicked off the courtyard. 

It happens right under my nose (AGAIN!!!).  I am standing on the same side of the courtyard as the seniors and am nonchalantly staring at the stage as Principal Ma’am demands: “Girls, it is already 9:25 and some of you are just getting to the assembly.”  I hear Principal Ma’am call for silence.  I hear Principal Ma’am call for silence again, making it known to all present that she should not have had to call for silence twice.  I hear Principal Ma’am call for the shuffling around to cease.  All routines that even I, after only a few short weeks here at the school, have come to anticipate before they even happen.

Then, all of sudden, Principal Ma’am is yelling at the seniors. “Class 12, what is wrong with you?  This behavior is unacceptable.”  My eyes shoot to the senior class and I look for it.  This sneaky naughtiness in action.  All I see is a large group of students doing what large groups of students normally do.  Some are shifting in their place.  A few are whispering to one another.  Most are just staring blankly at Principal Ma’am, waiting in that indifferent way that teenagers who are in their last year of high school often wait.  There are at least 300 of them.  As a group, they do not seem to be disruptive.  Is it possible that Principal Ma’am actually CAN see the six who are rolling their eyes?  The three who are mumbling under their breathe?  The girl in the corner giggling as she pokes out her tongue at a friend several lines away?

It doesn’t matter what I can or can not see.  Ma’am sees it all.  “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she continues.  “Our senior most class ruining the mood of assembly this way.”  I think this is the end of her scolding, but: “Leave the courtyard, now.  You do not deserve to be here.”

Like magic, 3oo eigtheen year old women do an about face and march from the courtyard in near perfect sync.  As they leave, Principal Ma’am orders the other students to keep their eyes forward. “Do not look at the senior class as they exit. They have been shameful.  They do not need more attention.”

I abandon my search for more naughtiness.  I transfer my energy into being certain that I am not being naughty.  Until I have memorized and am able to recite the Shikshayatan definition  of naughtiness, I am going to play it safe and be extra, extra behaved.  I do not know if teachers can get kicked out of assembly as well.

So….

When Principal Ma’am instructs, “Stop shuffling,” I stand up straight and tall.

When Principal Ma’am instructs, “Now fold your hands for prayer,” I squeeze my eyes shut and put my hands into prayer position.

“Now, bow your head.”

I do as I am told.

When the students begin their morning song/prayer, I sway to the music coming from the stage.  I smile as the girls chant in harmony to Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge, asking her to guide them through their day of learning. 

I pray for Saraswati to make me smarter.  Able to figure out what the seniors did and what Rashi did.  I only have about two more weeks left at Shikshayatan, but I must leave having identified naughtiness and properly reprimanding the offender for it.  There is a different definition here. I want to learn it.  Teach it to others.