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Acchan and Amma (Father and Mother)

By RK
As I was reading this week's pieces about the academy and its position as a site of resistance I was reminded of a saying in Malayalam, my native language, which essentially says "A greedy child wants to sit in his father's lap, and simultaneously wants to breastfeed off his mother". Now before we go arguing the logistics of it :) I would like to point out the its significance in terms of the academy for me as a scholar.
I had some of the same thoughts as Saqib about Boyd's reading, particularly when I read the line "Is critical teaching [and scholarship] anything more than an intellectual game in such circumstances?" Admittedly that is a very powerful question which forces us to be reflexive and "turn the lens inwards" in Mohan's words. As I look deeper I expect to see a hypocrite and hide shamefacedly from the truth of the academic jargon being just that. However, throughout the course of the semester, as I have played tug-of-war with this notion of hypocrisy and activism, a semi-comfortable place has emerged for me as a scholar and as a person (and this is purely personal without any insinuations against scholars who fancy the academy as a panacea). Now I see the academy, and the doctoral program not as the be all and end all of my life's work - it is but a step in a very long but satisfying process. It may lead me to an activist path away from all the ink or it may lead me deeper in the maze of R & R's and academic politics. The point is that I have decided to be ok with this uncertainty and realized the truth of the academy for myself - that it is after all a place of learning. What we do with the learning is based upon personal and professional preferences.
I may come into the classroom and learn that to have a good academic life I have to be greedy and like the proverbial greedy child want the mother and the father's company all at once. I may figure out a way to do that and reconcile my activist proclivities with sending out carefully worded responses to reviewers and professors I don't really like. If I do, I'm sure it will be a proud moment. If I don't, it may be just as well that I did not play the "intellectual game" and chose to spend my time as a scholar working for people that I enjoy working for, even if it is in an Indian village. At best, the academic experience will bestow me with credibility at conferences with academic bigwigs; at worst, when I go home, my neighbors will consider my Ph.D. as a sign of expertise and say "America-return hai!"

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Shaunak Sastry said…
To use a Facebook term, 'Like'.

Shaunak
April 26, 2010 at 7:45 AM
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