The Road not Taken II

Robert Frost’s poem begins with the words: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”, and ends with: “I took the one less travelled by”. I guess my journey through life has been similar, but on more than one occasion I was, as the country song goes: “almost persuaded”.

I never got down to hustling all my life. Where I worked, I lost my cool only a couple of times, but those were, as they say, merely hot flashes. At home I was never violent, though I did smash half-a-dozen whiskey glasses in a sudden rush of blood. Everyone took me to be calm and sedate and I did not do much to change this overall decent opinion of me. Imagine, then, me rolling on the ground, having pinned my opponent below me. He had managed to rip off all the buttons of my shirt, but I think I still got the better of him. Nothing very serious, again; just a tussle, not even a scuffle. The only thing that the incident did was to change the perceptions of some of the people who were there to witness the incident.

In the Gulf, where I continued my teaching career, I had a few close encounters of the bloody kind. Firstly, it was chauvinistic (at worst), because even some of my fellow-Indian teachers felt that I was not capable of handling the so-called native speakers of English, some of whom were also parading their superior teaching skills. They learned, soon enough, that, with words, I could be a Saladin to their Lion-Hearts: forty years’ experience at the very highest level must be taken seriously.

Have you ever come across a really mean person? Mean is too soft a word to describe the person I have in mind. This guy was not just uncaring; he was also nasty, malicious and despicable. Further, he was a colleague of mine. When I pulled him up for a not-very-minor offense, he became ingratiatingly apologetic, but he carried the memory with him. When he got the chance, he bared his fangs.

I was expecting a better pay-grade, especially after almost 4 years of serving as the Head of my Department. Somehow this toady got inside information and taunted me, insinuating that from “F” grade, I was soon to be “D”-graded. I was in for a shock! A week later, with no explanation offered, I was relieved of my post, a degrading experience, doubtless. Only then did I recall those prophetic words. I was so upset, but I did not take matters into my own hands. The oaf, like many others of his ilk, went scot-free, perhaps to spew his venom on some other unsuspecting victim.

That happened when I was in Salalah. A few years later, when I was in charge of the English Language Centre in Shinas, I had at least 2 more nasty experiences. The first involved a female member of my staff, “white” and openly xenophobic. She refused to share the lift if a person of color was already in it, but it was fate that had her tumbling down a flight of stairs. I gallantly offered to drive her to the hospital some 15 km away. She was soon fixed up by the duty doctors and so I escorted her back to the college. A few days later I heard that she was telling her colleagues that I may have informed the doctors that she was loony!

The second encounter was with a middle-aged “white” male teacher. This time around, I was trying to explain a grammatical error that had cropped up. All the Intermediate Level teachers were present. This one guy persisted in arguing the point. Getting nowhere with me or his colleagues, he provoked me with the words: “You are a clown”, before darting out of my office. Seething, I rushed towards him, but he had vanished. I was mollified by some of the other teachers, but I am certain that, if had gotten hold of him, I would have thwacked him till my rage was quite abated.

Back home, I feel consoled that I have gone through life with no major violent involvements. But, then again, I remember another old “Country” song: “Sometimes you’ve got to fight, to be a man.”