Celebrity

I expected many things in India, but I never expected to be a celebrity.  And for eight days in Pathardi, celebrities we were.  We had crowds, chairs, enthusiastic handshakes, and requests for selfies and autographs. It was exciting at first, but then became problematic. How could we work with students and teachers when the class erupted into applause because we walked in to the room? I
was admiring beautiful Rangoli paintings, but had to stop because so many students wanted selfies. It was particularly difficult when teachers were insisting I go to one room over another and then arguing in Marathi about it, a language I could not understand.

I was never sure of why we were so popular. The area is remote and does not see many foreigners and they said we were the first Americans there. On the first day we joined in on a dance, the zingat  song, and with social media we became a hit. Our host teachers said we were much more personal with our students and that contributed to it. Maybe because we talked about how I believe in our world we Indian students and American students will work together in the future and we need to collaborate, communicate, and value each other. Whatever the reason, we were honored by the attention.

Celebrity changes dynamics and for eight days it was heady. I found myself waving out of car windows at any passing stranger, and automatically expecting selfies ( needless to say hitting the big city of New Delhi, I needed to readjust. It also added a sense of responsibility, what could I do to fulfill this sense I was important? What changes could I make to help not just my students but all of our students in India and the USA. Words and actions matter more.

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