Biodata, please?

Dear dedicated reader,

When I came back to my house from teaching class today, there were a number of men’s shoes sitting outside of our door (no shoes in the house in India!). I peered down at one of them and saw the brand: ‘Shoot Out’ with a small, embroidered gun. ‘Lovely,’ I thought.

When I walked in, there were 2 men sitting on the couch talking with Priya and Vanisha. One had hair dyed that peculiarly bright shade of red that comes with applying henna and was wearing a stiff button down shirt. His mustache curled slightly with his lip, which seemed stuck in a perpetual sneer. The owner of the shoes, perhaps? The other also wore western clothes and smiled at me as I came in.

I sat. The sneering man began to address me. It took me a moment to realize that the gargled speech issuing from his mouth was English. I looked helplessly at the other two girls. What in the world was this man talking about? Vanisha intervened.

“These men have come from Ryan International School,” She said, filling me in. “They read the article in the newspaper and are hoping that you could come guest teach some classes at the school.”

“IB programme,” the man gargled at me. I nodded as I was familiar with the program.

I had only a moment to think this through. The Foundation wants us to build relationships with other schools, but something about this whole situation did not seem right. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what though. I decided to play it non-commitally. “That would be fine, sometime,” I said.

The man gargled some more, this time in Gujarati directed at Vanisha. She looked surprised, then looked at me. “He says he’ll send someone to pick us up tomorrow to look at the school?”

“Uh, thank you, but we have to teach tomorrow,” I explained in the slow English I use to teach my classes. He gave the non-commital South-Asian head waggle. I continued, “We can’t come tomorrow.” He nodded and got out his cell phone. I gave Vanisha a confused look. She returned it. Why had the principal let these men come to visit?

All of sudden, I was handed the phone. “Uh, hello?” I asked.

“Hello, who am I speaking to?” A sharp woman on the other end said directly.

I gave her my name. “And your qualifications?” she barked.

“My B.A. and my M.Ed,” I explained hesitantly.

“And your experience?” What?

“I’ve taught for two years in the US,” I said.

“Okay, Catharine, tomorrow you come to the school and bring your biodata.” She explained.

“Well, as I was telling this man here, I can’t come tomorrow because I have to teach here, at Kadod High School,” I said. “Where I work,” I added.

“That’s okay, that’s okay, then you come anytime,” she said.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. “What is this regarding?” I asked sharply.

“A job,” she said in a patronizing way, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But,” I said, “All of us here already have jobs, at Kadod High School, teaching. We explained this also to this man here. We are not interested.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, some time you come visit our school anyway.” Click.

As I handed the phone back to the man, I asked, “Who was that?”

“The principal,” he stuttered.

Ah.

The men were soon on their way, having given us the card, a favorite token of remembrance here in India. My wallet is now full of them. As they left, the man put on his Shoot Out shoes.

The fall out from the articles has been like this. Between reporters calling us inappropriately to say we are beautiful and should come visit them on the weekends to men showing up at our door without permission from the principal to ask about teaching in their private, tribal, or public school, the effect has been far-reaching. We are to build relationships with other schools, but I think, perhaps, not these.

On the whole, however, the media madness does seem to be dying down. And the teachers here did have a reaction, but not the one I expected. We’ll leave that for another time, dear reader.

Best,
Cat