You Can’t Be Serious(14)
1?The uncles knew.
2?Okay, bad example.
3?The better part of my childhood summers was spent pooping in communal toilets and washing my tiny butt with bucket water.
4?“You mean A-plus!” —Mom
5?In brownface
6?In brown-voice
7?Piccolo doesn’t sound as folksy.
8?I had no lines.
9?“Did we mention that already? It is for premed. Early admission. He will be a neurosurgeon. Anyway, how is Kalpen?”
10?Spoiler: The opposite happened! And I am very thankful for their tacit support.
11?Not a real thing, I don’t think?
12?Modern, jazz, and tap dance classes instead of gym class. No more getting picked last!
CHAPTER THREE YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO
My high school guidance counselor was named Mrs. Cummings, which I found as amusing then as I do now. As was customary for all students early senior year, Mrs. Cummings1 called me down to her office to discuss my future. What were my goals? Where did I see myself in ten years? (Not kissing anyone yet, that’s where!)
I had all the answers. I earnestly told her that I wanted to be an actor and filmmaker. I had also been so inspired by my grandparents—who basically instilled in us the idea of public service as a family value—that after my career got going, my goal was to add something civic-minded, like development studies or nonprofit work.
For the summer between the Summer Arts Institute and Governor’s School, I had my eye on a few of the philanthropic international programs I saw advertised on the school library’s bulletin board. I came home one evening and eagerly presented my dad with a colorful pamphlet about a “volunteer” opportunity that took high school students to Kenya for four weeks in July. He thumbed through it skeptically and laughed when he got to the last page: “Program Cost: $5,500.”
“If you really want to volunteer in a developing country,” Dad said, “I’ll send you to India. Our friends Daxa Auntie and Anil Uncle run a small NGO in rural Gujarat called Action Research in Community Health and Development [ARCH]. You can stay with them there.” I took him up on it. Each morning that summer I’d wake up early and shadow one of the various teams of ARCH specialists that could use an extra hand: doctors running an on-site medical clinic (which some patients traveled on foot for several days to access), environmental and social workers visiting tribal sites deep in the Dediapada rain forest, volunteers running sex education workshops on the street (bold for a conservative country).
I came back from India late that summer completely fluent in Gujarati—something I’ve managed to keep up, thanks to my parents and other relatives. I also returned with a basic understanding of 1) some important international development challenges, and 2) the reality that nobody wants to hook up with a sixteen-year-old American who came to rural Gujarat for a summer of volunteer work. (It was the exact opposite of the bucolic Maine sleepaway camps where my friends were getting repeatedly laid after Midnight Lip Sync Competition by the Lake Night.)
Mrs. Cummings knew about the summer volunteer work, and as I shared everything else that I wanted out of a future professional life, saying it out loud made my dreams feel more real than they had before. “So, that’s what I want to do,” I said eagerly. “Be an actor and filmmaker and do something in public service!” I was unprepared for her sudden, deep, from-the-belly laugh, just like Pussy Auntie’s. “That’s pretty much impossible,” Mrs. Cummings said with a hint of condescension. “You know, Kalpen, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
She spent the next ten minutes bringing me back down to earth, telling me that my interests were too varied, my dreams too lofty and unrealistic. I was used to this scorched-earth tactic from the Indian community, having been recently asked at a family friend’s house, “Are you not smart enough to get into medical school?” I just wasn’t expecting similar discouragement from my guidance counselor too.
What a disappointment. Just like the elementary school teachers who couldn’t tell me and Persian Araz apart, I mostly felt bad for Mrs. Cummings, thinking to myself, Your grade-A, inspirational guidance counselor advice is “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”? A cliché you probably read on a fortune cookie?
“Something that might help get you on a more realistic path,” she continued, “is a test we administer for students with varied interests.” Okay, this was different from Pussy Auntie’s “Be practical.” I was listening. “It measures your interests and gives you a set of suggested careers to consider.” This felt very promising: If an objective tool existed to figure out my future, that meant there was a way to know for sure whether something was going to work out, right? Maybe this test would give me special knowledge about how to blend my passion for acting with my interest in the social sciences, development studies, international affairs, and poli-sci. Maybe I’d never make it as an actor because my brain was actually wired for some other thing that I hadn’t thought of yet.
Mrs. Cummings pulled a long multiple-choice test out of an envelope and handed it to me. I don’t remember exactly what the questions were like, but I feel like they were more “Buzzfeed Quiz” than AP exam because I didn’t stress over the choices. I quickly filled out the Scantron bubbles that would help me define my life, and returned to class, eagerly awaiting the results. Six weeks later, she called me back down to her office, and that’s when my heart started beating fast. “Have a seat,” she said. Opening this envelope felt like it took forever. I was sweating because I was excited about what it might potentially tell me about my future. What would be possible? What could I accomplish? I pulled out the results. On top, in bold letters, it read: “Inconclusive. This student’s interests are too varied for us to provide tangible recommendations.”