Except this year, I hate September. I hate it because instead of reveling in the autumn-tinted evenings, I am forced to face an uncertain twilight. Instead of the sense of security and happiness that I experience usually, I am confused, angry and more than a little bewildered. I am, as you may have guessed, in the last year of college. But that's not the problem. The problem is I am in the last year of college with an English degree in hand.
Over the course of three years, I have been asked time and again about why I am studying English literature. Some are curious ('So what exactly do you study?'), some are hilarious, (Yaar, tu books padhti hai? Bas?) and some are mildly offensive ('English? But you used to be a good student? No?) And I have been fine with these variety of questions. Amused, more often than not, but I have never really taken them seriously.These stories make for great conversation with your fellow English-mates and in moments of despondence, a sobering insight into reality that does not value Shakespeare as much as it does Accounts. (Though, in my view it should but more on that later.) Point being, I have never seriously questioned my decision to spend three years studying English.
Why?
Because I love it. Call me dramatic, gushing, superfluous, whatever you want, but the real reason I am studying English is because I love it. I love reading the syllabus sheet and exclaiming in joy to find that I will be studying Pride and Prejudice, Tagore and Amitav Ghosh. I love reading the text, trying to understand it from the writer's perspective and trying to puzzle out why he wrote what he wrote. I love the wondrous feeling you get when you stumble upon a breathtaking line that succinctly conveys centuries ago what you feel now in the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth or Chaucer. I love the drama of Shakespeare and how he invents delightful words and even more delightful ('badass' as my friend often says) characters. I love the underlying complexities that one uncovers when one is studying post-colonialism.I love the feeling of satisfaction after a wonderful, engaging class. And I love the arguments and the disagreements that we have in and outside class, about that one line, that one character and that one universally hated poet.
But you know what I love the most? The hair-pulling, frustrating moment when I throw up my hands and exclaim, Why the hell am I studying this poem/text/poet/period? That moment when you just cannot for the life of you, understand why are you doing this? Why am I studying *insert hated poet/author*? I love these moments (and there are plenty such) because it is in these moments you realise that you are 'in too deep' with literature. You care too much about what you are studying. It has taken over your life, your conversations, your Facebook wall in such myriad and subtle ways that you cannot reconcile yourself to that one bad poem by Wordsworth because it just means too goddamn much. That one poem? You will hate it, you will obsess over it, but you shall always remember it.
Loving what you study is great. Letting it take over your mindspace (as mostly happens when you love what you study), not so much. I discovered this when I gave my European Realism exam at the end of second year. As anyone who has ever read 'Madame Bovary' will attest, you can never just study Gutsave Flaubert. (For those who haven't, http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/Madame_Bovary_NT.pdf) The despair that Emma feels, her inability to ever transcend the reality that she was living in, her dreams, everything seemed so real and so essential that after I gave the exam, there was this feeling of emptiness. That something was lost. And it wasn't just me. Most of my classmates too felt what was termed 'Bovary withdrawal symptoms.' The whole point of this long drawn, fairly melodramatic anecdote being that you just can't give up English as 'just' your undergraduate degree. You can't.
Then what do you do? Do you study it further? Do you go on to do a (and I can hear the accumulated parents-family-society gasp in horror) a Masters in English literature? Well, why not?, the child asks. 'Because it is an irrelevant, ancient career path! And what will you be? A. Professor?! (cue horrified gasp again)
Irrelevant. This is my major problem with the perception that people have of literature. I can handle all the 'grammar' questions. (No, we don't study grammar.) I am fine with all the 'What a snobby bunch!' notion. (Which is not true, because it's not like we are guaranteed 12 lakh a year jobs for our degree. We are not here for money, because no one is willing to give us that kind of money. Not because we are snobbish) But the assertion that just because we are studying Shakespeare, we are living in the 18th century and are just some kind of dreamy, ancient fools really gets my blood boiling. Because it is not true.
English literature is the most relevant form of academic discipline ever. And anyone who thinks other wise really needs to take a good, long look at the world.
You are sitting at home and your mom is watching one of the many inane serials on TV. There is a loud bang implying that there is a plot twist and it suddenly hits you that the serial makers are rehashing 'The Taming of of the Shrew.' The same plot, the same issue, just a different century. Just a different era. Apart from telling your mom where the plot is going and becoming a hero in her eyes, you also realise a fundamental fact.
That literature is everywhere.
In the Machiavellian shades of NaMo's rise. In the TV debate about caste where Premchand's Godaan and Panch Parmeshwar come into sharp focus. In sports, where you see Faustian elements in Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods. In every statement of any politician, where the classroom discussion on 'hubris' suddenly acquire new significance. In the Dante-like set up of Bigg Boss 7, with circles of hell, heaven and the Ceaser like baldness of Salman Khan. When you read about Nina Dalvuri and racism, you think about what Gordimer writes in her novels and wonder at how much the definitions have changed but not the context. In the arrogant declaration of Obama to bypass the Congress and declare war on Syria, you detect resonances of Edward Said and suddenly all those Orientalism classes acquire a new meaning, a more sinister significance. It reminds you that what you are studying is not just confined to the classroom, it is out there. In newer forms, in manifestations that you cannot imagine, but out there. Newer literature is being formed, newer discourses are coming up, stereotypes are being made and unmade. Language, for instance. When we speak, we are forming a literature of sort. In our words, resides a history that is centuries old and that has many lessons that we will do good to learn.
The examples are countless and endless. Is there any other academic discipline that is as relevant, as contemporary as literature? That is as necessary, as urgent?
No. Literature is not irrelevant. It never was. Not in the time that Johnson published his 'London'. Not in the time that Pope published his 'Rape of the Lock' and shook the literary world. Not in the time of Eliot. And not now.
What literature is, though is impractical. Yes. It is not an irrelevant course to study. It is an impractical one. And I concede that with some sadness. It is not practical in the sense we understand it. I realised this as I looked upon scores of University websites and found myself at a loss because I didn't have the requisite social science background. Or because what I wanted to do was at divergence with English. I realised this as my cursor involuntary passed over the Faculty of English website to more practical, specific, job oriented courses. I realised this as someone told me, 'Oh, now you must be serious. English kar liya, theek hai. Ab kya karoge life mein?'
Yes, you can do a Masters and then a PhD and teach in an university (which is a perfectly fine career, I think) but you probably won't be earning as much as your Commerce or Economics friends. You probably won't even start earning as soon as them. And having said everything, you do need a job, a well paying career and as everyone keeps telling you, you do have to get married. No? Not that I am saying that my English professors aren't married, happy and earning. But just that when you are a 20 year old facing an uncertain world filled with exorbitant college fees, scholarships and childhood dreams, you don't know whether being a professor is meant for you.
In his article on 'The Ideal English Major', Mark Edmundson says, (which can be read here, http://chronicle.com/article/The-Ideal-English-Major/140553/)
'He (the ideal English Major) doesn't give up his view easily, but it's nonetheless always up for debate and open for change. He's an unfinished guy, she's an unfinished woman. Which can be embarrassing and discomfiting from time to time, when he's with the knowing ones, the certain ones: those who are, often in all too many ways, finished.
And it is in these moments that you long to be like the 'finished ones.' Your engineer, economist, architect friends. You long for that certainty that in whose absence you had been reveling. Because it hits you, that those three years in a classroom were a sheltered cocoon and that life is a tad more practical, a little more street smart than you always thought it was.
So what to do?
Well, I don't know. I don't have the answer to the question.
What I do have the answer to is something that my friend and general bundle of awesomeness, PGC, told me while were sipping iced tea in D-School. (Delhi School of Economics, for the uninitiated.) We were talking about life after college (surprise, surprise!) and I was on a rant quite similar to this. She nodded and listened, oohed and aahed at all the right places and then said, 'I am not giving literature up.'
And for the past few days, looking at all my 'options', I am coming to the same conclusion. A little sadly, a little reluctantly, a little joyously.
I don't think I can ever get literature up. It might sound funny. Like literature or English is my prized possession, a tempestuous lover, a drug I am addicted to or someone that I have deeply, inexplicably fallen in love with and can't imagine my life without.
And you know what? That's exactly what it has always been.
And that's exactly what it will always be.
Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteHave the conviction, and more so, the courage to follow what your heart tells you to. Ultimately you're the one who has to live with those choices.
Write a book. Make fun of people. Write a book while making fun of people.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better, I always wanted to do an English Honours course after school. Unfortunately, my parents managed to dissuade me early on in my life as to whether or not I'd have a future. So it joined bus conductor and street lawyer as unlikely career paths on my list. Now, of course, I know (slightly) better. But yeah, it is how it is, I guess.
Very well written piece though. Best of luck. You'll certainly find something lucrative that you love to do. Here's to a good life till then.