Roshen Time

This morning, we had an optional yoga session at 5:30am. In order to participate, you not only had to wake up at 5:30, but you had to ride on a bus, trek up a mountain, and only then do yoga on top of a rock. I was super pumped. However….guess who didn’t hear her alarm and didn’t wake up until 5:50? Yup, me. I ran outside to see if they were still there…nope. I started to slightly freak out, thinking I was the only one who wouldn’t be there, I had talked so much about it and then failed to show, they had probably waited forever for me before leaving, Sid and Roshen were going to make fun of me for not waking up. So I got back into bed, dozed a little bit, and then showered and got ready. I brought a book down to the lobby so that I would be there when the kids got back and wouldn’t miss the bus to breakfast and the field visits.

I had been sitting there for maybe 10 minutes when who pads down the hallway but Roshen himself (and yes, he really truly pads. Roshen is like a little Indian hobbit…the bonus is that he is always barefooted). I asked, “Roshen! You didn’t go?” to which he giggled(and when I say Roshen giggles, he really truly giggles) and replied, “No. Jen there was a reason why I stressed that It was optional.” [Normally on SJPD when things are optional, it really means you’re expected to participate. Clearly not this time!] “Want to go get some tea?”

Yessssss this was the Roshen time that I have been missing. We walked down the national highway [the main road through Koppal…that leads to Bangalore on one end and Delhi on the other] and had a great chat about assumptions, course design, the art of debriefing, and how we thought each of the students was doing.

We also talked about the Western lens, even the “Visthar social justice” lens that we automatically bring to our field visits. We are in a social justice class meeting with temple prostitutes about the woes of the “system”; therefore in our questions and discussions we already bring the assumption that this is a bad system and that those involved in it agree. However, we never even give space for them to tell us what they think about the morality of it. So we decided to chat about it with the students, to see if we could challenge our prejudices and take steps towards truly open dialogue. I just love Roshen, and I just love my job.