My Post-Schedule Life, or; R.I.P. to Google Calendar

By Caris Gross ‘23, Lady Doak Fellow 2024-2026

I finally arrived in Madurai in early October, towards the end of the first semester at Lady Doak College, when students were winding up for exams and holiday periods. Even after speaking at length with Phoebe, previous fellow to LDC, it was clear there was nothing I could really do to prepare for my role ahead of time. Even so, in the weeks I spent waiting for my delayed visa, I was antsy to just get started. I told myself I would hit the ground running as soon as I arrived in Madurai, which carried me through tearful goodbyes and “see you laters” with friends, family, and my five tiny nieces and nephews. My first months saw hours and days of just sitting in the office of the International Study Centre, waiting for something to come up. I wasn’t equipped yet to organize events or courses for the students, and I had no friends. I wanted to plan, but I didn’t know what to plan, when to plan, who to plan with/for, and I found myself floundering. My empty calendar stared back at me, laughing at my inability to handle nothingness.

I was warned about the vast amount of emptiness and waiting time I would have once I arrived in India, but the preparation and the reality were two very different animals. I woke up in my on-campus apartment, walked the 10 steps across the courtyard to my office, sat and read my book or tried to decipher the vastly different academic calendar, took a break for lunch at the faculty mess, spent more hours in the office, then returned to sit in my apartment. Dinner. Call my parents or siblings. Walk laps and laps around campus to tire myself out. Wave hello to students I’ve never met and try to initiate conversation. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Exploration of Madurai, a city that’s not exactly pedestrian-friendly, felt impossible. When Donnie (my officially unofficial Senior Fellow at American College) left for a pre-planned 10-day trip, the doubts and worries about my place here kicked in big time. I felt helpless and ineffective - what good was I doing for these students just sitting here?

Fellows before me have shared at length about their experiences like these. So why did I still feel so alone? Surely this couldn’t be right! I must be doing something wrong. I was convinced that I wasn’t cut out for this fellowship, that I was missing whatever spark a Shansi Fellow needs to do the work and do it well. In other words, I experienced extreme impostor syndrome. It took months for it to click that these feelings are normal.

Allow me to set the scene for you: you’re a product of college during the height of a global pandemic, which snowballs into extremity in the spring of your first year. From the day you gain consciousness, you face “unprecedented times” that seem to and one up themselves every few weeks. Every day you wonder what the next big event is that’s coming up over the horizon. Everything is new all of the time. This sense of chaos and unpredictability is your normal.

It’s difficult to describe the moment of actually understanding that I was having the same experience as fellows before me. Because the past few years have been so unpredictable and isolating, it’s been rare to connect with people outside of my direct circles and age who have been through things the same way I have. It didn’t erase my feelings of sadness or confusion, but that moment made it real to me that I would not only be here for two years, but that I could actually make it through and even thrive like those who came before me.

This is a normal part of moving to a new country where you don’t know anyone and you’re thousands of miles away from everything familiar to you. This understanding makes it easier to manage. Every challenging moment now comes in a pair with something beautiful. It takes time to build community when it’s not ready-made for you and I am used to solitude at this point. Rather than filling my calendar to stay busy, I go for walks around campus to say hello to students passing between classes, and I linger at the faculty mess after dinner to look at the full moon with two first-year faculty members. I still frequently encounter moments of isolation and feeling trapped and scared and alone. I don’t think these will ever go away, but I have no choice but to keep trying.

I’ve rambled into oblivion. Here are some of the beautiful moments and people that have reminded me to stay present and offer what I can to this community.

–

Thirty minutes before the ISC club potluck and international poster-making contest, I realize I never heard back about borrowing tables for our food. No problem, we’ll improvise. Students help me drag every horizontal table-like thing we can find from the ISC office and my own apartment to create a hobnob collection of surface area. It’s just enough space. Students deposit the items they brought that begin with the first letter of their name – who cares if we have a large number of students who all brought soda because their name begins with an S? We have plenty to eat, and students laugh with each other as Beyoncé plays in the background. In the end, posters depicting Día de los Muertos, Seollal, and Halloween take home the top three prizes.

ISC students pose together after the potluck and poster-making contest

“The election? What do you think?”

I’m walking through the front gate of the college in late November. The sun is setting; I’m coming back from the gym. I’m stopped by one of the watchmen.

“Well, what do you think?” I ask. He chuckles.

“Not good,” he says. “Not good at all.”

I nod my head in understanding. Everyone’s on edge, wondering what will happen.

I’m sitting in my office on a Thursday in the early weeks, reading and greeting the slow trickle of students who pass by. A history PhD student (soon to be a dear friend, Vasavi) stops by to tell me about a weekend trip her department is taking to the Nilgiri hills.

“We’re going to Ooty for on the spot learning. Do you want to come?”

I look down at my computer. My calendar is unpleasantly empty. There’s no doubt - of course I’ll go.

“When do we leave?”

The next evening, close to midnight, I shuffle myself onto what I can only describe as a party bus. Songs from Tamil movies blast out of the speakers above my head. Students dance with reckless abandon in the aisle as we bump through the uneven Madurai city streets and wind up into the hills. I let myself be pulled up to join in; there are shrieks of delight as I pick up the choreography. New friends embrace me. Who needs sleep, anyway?

“hi hi friends my friend from the gym (an auntie) invited us all to her house for dinner sometime pls let me know if you can come”

This text from my friend Iyshwary is how I find myself sitting on a ledge in a beautiful kitchen, each bite on my plate somehow better than the one before. Said auntie friend tells us about her journey becoming principal of a teacher’s college and her love for her young grandchildren while she fills our plates with parotta, chicken kulambu, and potato fry. After our meal, she and her husband drive us home, stopping for jigarthanda (a Madurai-famous dessert - butterscotch ice cream, milk, and almond gum) on the way.

“Usha Auntie is too formal of a name,” she says. “Call me Amma (mother).”

I cry when I get back to my apartment. I miss my mom.

I drive with a staff member and some friends to see a neighbor’s Golu – a collection of figurines depicting Hindu mythology – as part of the autumn Navratri festival. She sings along to Yung Gravy as she drives, declaring him her favorite artist. When she drops me off, she cranks the volume, laughing and singing the lyrics as I walk into my apartment.

Oberlin Hall, home to me and the ISC, welcomes me back on a rainy day

“You should stop looking at your phone,”

I look up to see two young faculty members smiling at me across the table at the faculty mess. After a day in solitude passed entirely in my bed, my conversation skills are terrible, but I do my best. One of them, Christy, takes me under her wing and introduces me to everyone she knows as her friend. She takes me shopping with her sister and mother (another who tells me to call her amma). She wraps my first sari for the Christmas carol service, bemoaning my height and declaring me too tall to easily wear the intricately folded outfit. Her mom makes my favorite snack for me for Christmas, because she heard me mention once how much I liked it. She patiently corrects my Tamil when I forget every word I’ve ever learned in conversation.

In early November, I take a day trip with an exchange student at LDC down to Kanyakumari, a city at the very tip of India. At our first stop, I look out at the meeting point of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal, knowing that these bodies of water are connected to the water near my loved ones. It puts a smile on my face. We take a ferry to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, a monument to Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century monk, philosopher, and scholar. We emerge from the memorial to a cloudy sky and a few raindrops. By the time we make our way to the queue to get on the ferry back to the mainland, the heavens have opened up. After dodging several requests for selfies, we squeeze our way into the line with a little bit of shelter directly over our heads. As the storm worsens, the shelter becomes useless. Rain blows horizontally towards us; I’ve never been so soaked in my entire life. Babies are crying, people are shivering, and fish are washing up onto shore. Lightning strikes the flagpole on the island and the ocean maybe 100 feet away from us. All return ferries are halted due to unsafe conditions. My cell service becomes spotty, causing great concern for the team in Madurai. We make a run for it to the welcome area and shelter, but the wind is so strong that it feels like we’re running on a treadmill. We wring out our clothes, but the storm somehow worsens. Over an hour later, we get back in line for the return trip to the mainland, and the ferries start again as the sky clears. We explore the town for the rest of the afternoon, and as the clock hits 7pm, we get back in our cab for the four-hour drive back to Madurai. My clothes are still damp when I get home. I’ll have to try Kanyakumari again, but next time I’ll check the weather forecast.

I’m on the bus from Kotagiri to Coimbatore to make the trek back to Madurai after a weekend with the other India fellows. But my bus charges right past where I need to get off. After 45 minutes of trying to figure out what’s happening, I find out I was supposed to get off and transfer buses, but it’s too late. I bounce between talking to the bus driver in my broken Tamil and commiserating on the phone with co-fellow Donnie about what to do. I get off the bus on the side of the road and follow Donnie’s instructions. I whack my head on some metal scaffolding, worsening the concussion I’m trying to recover from. All I want to do is sit down and cry, but I’m in an unfamiliar town off of my route carrying all of my luggage in the blazing sun. I have no choice but to keep trying. I make it home many hours later with Donnie’s encouragement, only to collapse onto my bed and sleep for 13 hours.

Donnie (Shansi Fellow to American College, 2023-25) and I celebrate my 24th birthday at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bengaluru, with far less chaotic travel than the return from Kotagiri

“Where are you, Auntie Bit?” my 4-year-old nephew asks over a video call in January.

“I’m in India!”

“Again?!”

“Yes, I’m still here!”

“Ughhhhhhh!!!”

In Hanoi, the roads are paved, but the cars move swiftly and motorbikes weave in and out of impossibly narrow gaps, just like they do in Madurai. Impatient, I take another Shansi Fellow’s hand and charge forward into the traffic, holding out my other hand to indicate the passing cars to stop. When we get to the other side, I turn to see her gaping at me. I shrug. ”It’s just like home,” I said. Home.

My Post-Schedule Life, or; R.I.P. to Google Calendar

By Caris Gross ‘23, Lady Doak Fellow 2024-2026

Oberlin Shansi