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| paramendra | Posted
on 27-Oct-02 07:37 PM
Of Institutions And Individuals: Budhanilkantha And Berea Paramendra Bhagat October 19, 2002 http://www.geocities.com/paramendra/2002/bb.html I spent a decade at Budhanilkantha School in Kathmandu and a half decade at Berea College in Kentucky. My lingering emotions of disgust for both institutions that otherwise claim aspiring heritages rest primarily on my impatience with the way the socio-political stars have been aligned in both contexts. Lingering regionalism - for, in Nepal, the madhesis of the southern plains have grievances like the Tamils in Sri Lanka - coupled with the casteism and the ethnicism was the status quo at Budhanilkantha. Ethnic slurs and jokes were commonplace, as in, "Gyaney, smile, so we can see your teeth." Some of the British who taught there, while expecting and receiving what amounted to worship, subscribed to racist attitudes, as when two of them sharing a table with me in the tourist district of Thamel conversed, "Don't you miss when we used to rule India?" Berea is Bible Belt crap pretending to be a social statement. Careerists whose food on the table is bought through the huge endowment - "the Harvard of the South" - spend their working hours patronizing poor white students who, according to official dogma, are never grateful enough for the free tuition and who, in turn, talk of how "we Americans take so many things for granted." International students are stamps in a collection, never more exotic than during their annual cultural performances. Religious harassment is officially condoned, for there is but that one son of a God: dangling prospects for nirvana. Dr. King's birthday is celebrated with extra zeal to cover up the lingering racist tendencies, primarily of social segregation, the way segregationists used to worship Lincoln. Well-meaning leftist students explain how the planet can not afford "Third World" prosperity. Select girls make mini careers out of reporting to ever-so-eager administrative jokers of their fear that you might jump out of the bush. Aging, bitter minds threaten in so many hints to snuff out your career prospects. Rednecks stick out their blushing necks from their moving trucks to tell you to go home. And, to add salt to the insult, the cafeteria serves no curry. |