Sorting nets

Yikes! Some of you faithful ones are still checking this blog, which I was preparing to lay to rest. I guess I better deliver. While we are waiting for the pictures of the grand finale, I'll tied you over with beach shots from Mamallapuram.

 

Wordless Wednesday

A living funeral, part 1

As it turns out, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer weren't the only ones to attend their own funeral.

I felt the same way when all the children, along with teaching staff and other stray employees, gathered in the dining hall to wish me farewell. It's not every day that 250 people assemble to send you on your way.

It was, hands down, the most overwhelming experience of my life. The teachers and a few students gave what sounded like eulogies. And everyone watched me cry. That's all that I remember, besides feeling the urgent desire to be someplace else, anywhere else. I don't relish being the center of attention even on a good day. It helped to pretend that I was, in fact, somewhere else and that the person they were highlighting was someone I knew but not me.

I kept thinking that I most likely wouldn't be seeing the children again. We had been together for nearly two and a half years. I wondered what life held for them.

It's taken me a month to face these pictures again. Here we go, the first half. I had handed Deepenraj, a 9th-standard student, my camera and hoped for the best.


Leading me to the slaughter.




Kala, as always, brought me her sari that morning and wrapped it for me.




Jasmine flowers, the most common Indian hair ornament. The petals are all painstakingly sewn together. They put in a great deal of effort even for such ephemeral accessories.




Vadivu, kind and dear, the warden and part-time teacher.

There was also a cake, which added a macabre wedding element to the funerary (and as you'll see in part 2, several of the women suddenly started feeding me pieces after they'd made me cut it).

10th-standard student Manodaya, true to form, wrote a polished essay

Rajakumari, who teaches math and science

Uvaraj, the Tamil teacher, gave a long speech in Tamil. Not sure what he said other than something about me working like an ant

8th-standard students designed a poster

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

La vie sans enfants

Don't be fooled by the smile. It belies inner turmoil resulting, soon after the pictures were taken, in an emotional breakdown and forced bedrest. This is my last day at Rising Star (there! I said it), and I am saying goodbye to the children as they are heading homewards for fall break.

There are many more pictures of my last days, my apocalypse, but I've been avoiding them. Will post at some point in near or far future, rest assured!

I have been putting off these last blog posts for a long time, being in denial mode. India? What India? That's how I am currently dealing with the transition and with--let's make it less trenchant by rendering it in French--la vie sans enfants, the new life. That's why I still haven't unpacked most of my suitcase and why I have at least fifty unopened letters and cards from the kids.

(Although my sanguine self will be quick to add that I am a new woman thanks to the American comforts, and that I detect the final stages of exhaustion written all over my face below).

with Priya and Nishanti, both fourth standard, Priya as sweet and thoughtful as they come, Nishanti precocious with her insightful questions and artistic abilities

Sathrabathi with mother on left, Tamilselvi on right (note the "...lvi" henna'd on her forearm)

My chudidar (tunic top) is a farewell gift from the housemothers.

Wordless Wednesday

Andiamo

 

In the rice paddy

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

At interval ("recess")

Manish and Dhilip

 

V. Sanjay 

 Jayanthi, Sathyapriya, Vijayalakshmi, Agalya, Abisha

 

Naveen, Elumalai, Ranjith

 

 Jaikarthik

 Madhavan and Harikrishnan