Farewell Woodstock, Farewell Mussoorie

Under the Woodstock Lyre Tree

 

   It has been over a week since I said goodbye to my students, packed up my apartment and had to “come down off the mountain.”  For several night I could not sleep, just kept waking up and looking out the window, through the pine trees, out onto the plains of India with the lights of Dehra Dun below sparkling like gems in the peaceful dark.  Breathing in the fresh mountain air from my wall of open windows I asked myself “Do I really have to go back down there?”  For Woodstock School and the town of Mussoorie, appropriately called  the “Queen of the Hill stations” really are their own world. 

    No, it’s not paradise, just close to it!  Of course when others were enjoying the spring time in India, we were still in our winter parkas dealing with the occasional snowfall.  Even after the weather did change to warm, our school building remained chilly for a couple weeks, except in the library with its wall of sunlit windows.  The students all started wearing their summer clothes and some even swam in the outdoor pool when the temperature of the water was hardly bearable.  Lunches became picnics on the quad and noon hour “talent shows” were a regular feature.  The end of the semester jammed up with student recitals, sports events, Junior-Senior Ball (theme: Midnight in Paris), and exams of every type--it sometimes felt like an impossible whirlwind. 

     But what kept everyone going was the sense that this was not going to go on forever.  It was all going to be over soon. Too soon!  The seniors were gone by the middle of May—they graduate a full 2 weeks ahead of the end of the semester.  Then the Juniors got to move up and enjoy some of their “special senior privileges.”  During those final weeks that involved AP exams, students seemed caught between  “already mentally checked out” and frantic scramble to get those papers in,  There was quite a lot of hysteria in the halls…as if they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry to leave their friends, even for the summer. 

   And what about the teachers?  Students here know about the high turnover--that every year they are going to lose some of their favorite as well as worst mentors.  Which category would I, a six month history “substitute” fall into?  I myself wondered. 

    I knew I had challenged them.  Sometimes nagged them, snapped at them, humored them, entertained them and on occasion, surprised them.  Often I would apologize for what I was going to have to discuss with them, what I was going to show them in the form of some documentary or film reel.  The genocides, war, stupidity of the 20^th century… its all out there on Youtube and for me it was my first experience using the electronic classroom: "Watch the young soldiers faces when Hitler talks."  "Look at the nervousness of the men around Stalin."  How could it have happened? How can one man hold an entire country hostage?  Answer:  fear.

     I would apologize on behalf of all the previous generations for the mess we have allowed to be made of the world.  In “Global Issues” I spent the first one third of the course forcing the large and somewhat unruly class to face it— this course might not be such a picnic.  We ARE going to have to look at some unpleasant truths about who and where we are at this time in history.  It is not good news folks!  They finally got it, and so began some very interesting discussions.

     Similarly in 10^th grade World History, from the trenches of World War I to the so-called “War on Terror” that guarantees the increasing militarization of the planet from now to Kingdom Come, I am SO SORRY to interrupt your facebook time to bring you this awareness of what has come before!  I told them that it’s all about WAKING UP.  “No, you cannot put your head down on the desk, the bare minimum requirement for my class is CONSCIOUSNESS!” 

   So after all that would they think of me? Would it be “Shoot the messenger”  or  “We got it Dr. Gupta!”? Reading their exam essays I got my answer. My heart leapt for joy when I read most of them-- tracing the political, economic, and social dimensions of 20^th century conflicts and today’s contemporary reality. THEIR reality.  They did a GREAT job of outlining the entire course using appropriate terms and analysis.  Two of my favorite opening sentences in the essays were these:

“After WWI, the entire world was in depression due to the horrific events that made the world hallucinate.”

“Humans have been fighting wars since they discovered what war is.”

 

     You gotta love it!

  

     Like icing on the cake, there was a send off with cards and little gifts from my advisee group, many of whom were my students as well, and a few even asked me to sign their yearbooks.  My great co-advisor JC Sharma presented me with a Woodstock Tree of Life locket on behalf of the group. 

cafeteria turned banquet hall

THEN there was the superb Farewell Banquet put on by Judy Crider and the entertainment committee, complete with decorations, live music and a comedy trio.  In honor of my service, I was awarded the “Summer of Love 1968 Real Woodstock” Award referring to my playing Joni Mitchell's song of the same name during a morning assembly.  I was especially touched at the dinner by the generous comments offered by my Department Chair, the graceful Shonila Chander:

Shonila, my department chair

     But it was a note the next day from one of my “kids” that really brought tears to my eyes.  Scribbled on a small piece of notebook paper it read:

Doctor Gupta!!  “Believe it or not, I never used to read newspaper about politics and economies.  Now I’m starting to be more interested in reading them.  It’s all because of your passionate teaching.  Although I didn’t get an A in history, I learned a lot that I could not have learnt/known if I didn’t know you.

I too learned a lot that I could not have known if I didn’t know all of you, at Woodstock.  Farewell Woodstock for now, THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES! 

POST SCRIPT--  HIGHLIGHTS OF MY SOJOURN IN MUSSOORIE:

Queen of the Hills, Mussoorie

the locals

My friend Chitranjanji, Principal, Landour Language School

Dinker Rai, man of the mountains, my hero

the health food store

the Kashmiri Brothers... my favorite shopkeeper friends

Kalsang Tibetan Restaurant

visiting friends

hot cardamom milk in clay cups on the mall

monkey friend

dancing in Parker Hall

with Pandit Vishva Mohan Bhattji after his concert

Goodbye Mussoorie, Goodbye Woodstock

 Time to leave...

You are Forever in My Heart...