Utshaa Basu, Grade 11
UWC Mahindra
There are people who form the fabric of the life I lived at MUWCI- little stray threads and embellishments, coming together like a lovingly knit sweater.
Attached to private spaces, and coming from a small nuclear family; MUWCI gave me four other roommates, tucked away into a house set apart from the rest of the wada. We lived breathing the same mold and the same air; and I meshed easily with my second-years, for the better part of the year, the invisible lines drawn between our corners disappeared, and I thought not even twice to step over to share joy or sadness, plead for snacks or hand out my own. Amulya’s dish sponge became ours, and my toothpaste became there’s. My second laundry basket went to Shalabha, the second term, and a day before we bid our farewells, I received a black and white blocked painting, a hand-down, from the second years that preceded her. My private little bubble has expanded to include at least four other hearts, and I will hold Amulya’s withering fridge and Shalabha’s paper lights close to mine.
Perhaps it is my mother’s profession, but I have grown to be clinical about teachers- and perfectly self-reliant, there’s added pressure and effort in wanting to please a teacher, to get on their best side. Yet, at MUWCI I meet my second visual arts teacher, or in particular, the second visual arts teacher I’ve ever liked, for once separate from any relation to my mother. It is already staggering to have a better part of the faculty be decidedly not Indian; it’s something else to have a young, lovely, and unabashedly queer visual arts teacher, smart and shiny, and just slightly judgemental. I learn that she’s hard to please; so of course, all I think is that I want to please her, want her to like me and think I’m a good student- when I join art in the second term, my perfectionist attitude goes into overdrive; I work twice as hard on art that is already fun, eager to please, eager to “get on her good side”. She’s so liberal, so unlike the middle-aged Indian man who taught me previously, doesn’t bat an eyelash at art that may be inappropriate and controversial, and spouts artist biographies like she’s taking a breath. There is so much freedom; enormous freedom that is already characteristic of MUWCI, but coming from IGCSE art straight into art in this IB, led by this cool, lovely teacher, is like a breath of fresh air gulped in too quickly. We fret over leaving MUWCI- what’ll we do when we leave? And she tells us, calm, and maybe, slightly surprised, “You guys think MUWCI is all there is? So liberal? But college, I promise you, is much better.” There’s a world out there for us.
My friends are sort of ridiculously talented, and if I was anything at my last school, I am barely anything at MUWCI; I sit, agape at talent shows and open mics, and marvel what others can do. I am envious, no doubt, but I’m also a bit simple, to be honest: I’m bowled over, starstruck by what the people around me can do. My closest friends can sing like angels and draw like thunder and dance as they belong in their bodies- they are cool and quirky and artsy, and arguably, more talented than me in most ways. Yet, there’s some pride, to be able to be with people like these; it’s humbling, for one, and it’s inspiring, for the second. Amazing people exist, but they’re my friends, too; I know their insecurities and their moods; they’re just normal teenagers, no matter how bright they gleam on stage. And they are lovely people, good and humble and always there for me- they deserve good things too.
At MUWCI, I have learned to shed some of my old personality- grown to be less private and more trusting, more comfortable with sharing my spaces. No longer a big fish in a small pond, it’s been humbling, to say the least, but it has also made me more at ease with inferiority, with losing. And it has prepared me for the adult world, for what’s more to come, to change and adapt as the kind of people I surround myself with do too.
Attached to private spaces, and coming from a small nuclear family; MUWCI gave me four other roommates, tucked away into a house set apart from the rest of the wada. We lived breathing the same mold and the same air; and I meshed easily with my second-years, for the better part of the year, the invisible lines drawn between our corners disappeared, and I thought not even twice to step over to share joy or sadness, plead for snacks or hand out my own. Amulya’s dish sponge became ours, and my toothpaste became there’s. My second laundry basket went to Shalabha, the second term, and a day before we bid our farewells, I received a black and white blocked painting, a hand-down, from the second years that preceded her. My private little bubble has expanded to include at least four other hearts, and I will hold Amulya’s withering fridge and Shalabha’s paper lights close to mine.
Perhaps it is my mother’s profession, but I have grown to be clinical about teachers- and perfectly self-reliant, there’s added pressure and effort in wanting to please a teacher, to get on their best side. Yet, at MUWCI I meet my second visual arts teacher, or in particular, the second visual arts teacher I’ve ever liked, for once separate from any relation to my mother. It is already staggering to have a better part of the faculty be decidedly not Indian; it’s something else to have a young, lovely, and unabashedly queer visual arts teacher, smart and shiny, and just slightly judgemental. I learn that she’s hard to please; so of course, all I think is that I want to please her, want her to like me and think I’m a good student- when I join art in the second term, my perfectionist attitude goes into overdrive; I work twice as hard on art that is already fun, eager to please, eager to “get on her good side”. She’s so liberal, so unlike the middle-aged Indian man who taught me previously, doesn’t bat an eyelash at art that may be inappropriate and controversial, and spouts artist biographies like she’s taking a breath. There is so much freedom; enormous freedom that is already characteristic of MUWCI, but coming from IGCSE art straight into art in this IB, led by this cool, lovely teacher, is like a breath of fresh air gulped in too quickly. We fret over leaving MUWCI- what’ll we do when we leave? And she tells us, calm, and maybe, slightly surprised, “You guys think MUWCI is all there is? So liberal? But college, I promise you, is much better.” There’s a world out there for us.
My friends are sort of ridiculously talented, and if I was anything at my last school, I am barely anything at MUWCI; I sit, agape at talent shows and open mics, and marvel what others can do. I am envious, no doubt, but I’m also a bit simple, to be honest: I’m bowled over, starstruck by what the people around me can do. My closest friends can sing like angels and draw like thunder and dance as they belong in their bodies- they are cool and quirky and artsy, and arguably, more talented than me in most ways. Yet, there’s some pride, to be able to be with people like these; it’s humbling, for one, and it’s inspiring, for the second. Amazing people exist, but they’re my friends, too; I know their insecurities and their moods; they’re just normal teenagers, no matter how bright they gleam on stage. And they are lovely people, good and humble and always there for me- they deserve good things too.
At MUWCI, I have learned to shed some of my old personality- grown to be less private and more trusting, more comfortable with sharing my spaces. No longer a big fish in a small pond, it’s been humbling, to say the least, but it has also made me more at ease with inferiority, with losing. And it has prepared me for the adult world, for what’s more to come, to change and adapt as the kind of people I surround myself with do too.
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