Duvall Mahalakshmi Homer was having a bad-hair day. The coconut oil had burst open in his travel case and left behind an undeniable smell, that would take a second bath and his more powerful cologne, to drown out. After all, he could not show up to class, smelling like the Keralite everyone suspected him to be, but were too cosmopolitan to confirm. The class was multi-lingual and had employees from the top-10 firms, the ones that showed up at least, attending for a week. The audience had come there by plane, train, car and bus, making Duvall feel like a shrine on some days. He was the best at his job, of that there was little doubt in his mind. He was teaching English to the unassuming (and often times, incompetent) audience wanting to fast-track their careers within organizations that were country's pride and joy, the Information Industry. His classes started on time, by him setting an example and being there by 9am. The slow trickle of shrine-watchers, took sometimes until 10:30am to materialize, but this did not faze him. He was a perfectionist and very old-school about keeping time. This had been instilled in him as a child, when his mother schooled him on collecting clothes from the clothes-line, helping her with washing dishes and bringing in water from the community well, all before he went to school at 8am. All tasks were not a woman's responsibility, she would often say. In fact, after his father died when Duvall was 3, his mother changed his legal name to include her first name as his middle name, and changed his last name from Siddhagangaiah Joseph to Homer. She had a post-graduate degree in English Literature and fondly thought of the Iliad as the story of her life. Inchampalli, where she lived with Duvall, was the namesake for Ithaca, after she had had a few shots from her ex-husband's liquor closet and everything just made perfect sense.

Traffic was moving slower than usual that morning but, Duvall was pre-occupied with the latest Etymological dictionary, he had had his American "counter-part" mail him from Waxahachie. He had met his counter-part when qualifying himself on the English-as-a-Second-Language circuit and the two had taken an immediate liking to each other. Duvall's name and obsessively clean finger-nails had impressed Mike Nathaniel Jones so much, that they had decided to remain in contact, long after their class together, also a week long, in the cold Chicago winter of 1998. Mike had married his pet student, Utumporn Meejaroen, quit his job as an ESL teacher and moved back to his family farm in Texas. The temperatures suited Utumporn better than windy Chicago anyway. Duvall was already on “Tennis”, having spent a week poring over the book. The car came to a sudden jarring halt, which made him look up briefly. Two billboards placed next to each other caught his eye. One advertising for the latest in two-wheeler brands, with the country’s leading Tennis star and the other advertising new e-mail services, with a kid that looked hardly 18, in a pair of jeans, spiked hair and a big grin. He looked down at his own beer belly and ruminated on the time when he weighed 80kgs, played cricket every evening and was the apple of his then girl-friend’s eye. She had gone on to marry his best friend, because her parents were not sure of Duvalls religious inclinations and he had gotten married through the classified’s, to a wonderful woman whom he always acknowledged as the corner-stone of his success. They had a 4-year-old daughter, whom he loved spending time with, in the time that was allotted to her. He was a fiercely ambitious man, who had seen the world with his job, and had a plan in his mind about how he would conquer his career path, methodically and with no fear of failure. He had worked 15 years before he took up ESL and had several people that would take him back as an employee, if his current plans did not succeed. He had nothing to lose. He never forgot a name and always returned phone calls. That had won him several well wishers and an exit strategy, whilst he conquered the world, one syllable at a time.

As he looked out the window, he realized that they were hardly a kilometer away from the training center but, that would take them 15 minutes to cover, given a big bus that had broken-down, sideways, right ahead of them. It was too cramped for him to get out of the car so, he heaved another big sigh and let his thoughts wander over the melee of traffic and citizenry on the roads. The usual suspects were in action, the beggars (who seemed to multiply and use the British ideas of divide and conquer across traffic lights placed exactly 250 meters apart on this road), the cyclists on fixed-gear bikes that weighed more than the rider themselves, the air-conditioned Toyota Corollas with a well-dressed entourage, usually reading a book or watching TV on the small-screen behind the seat, the paper-sellers and hawkers, the maverick cow trying to decide whether or not to grab attention by taking a leisurely stroll across the traffic-filled street and the zillion pedestrians, some with employee tags, others without, walking to and fro as quickly as they could, as if the freedom of the world rested on their young shoulders from the word Go! Duvall wondered if they listened to Suprabhatam anymore, these days. Even that classic had hip-hop overtones when it played on the radio. His own childhood and youth had been spent in what was a rich river basin where the land in his little town stretched across the borders of three adjoining states. As he grew older, it seemed natural to him that he should be a citizen of the world, because transcending borders was what he had been raised doing. The latest hydroelectric project in his town seemed to him a far-away issue from the more pressing needs of idiomatic semantics.

When the car finally pulled up at the center, Duvall got out with aplomb, his shirt creases more reminiscent of a whole day on a factory floor, rather than the 40 minutes in the car he had hired, with a driver. The anti-crease technology advertised for by Mark Folly clothes for men, was not working He was greeted yet again by an empty classroom, the glare of the ten overhead tube-lights and the air-conditioning on in full-blast. He sat down, setting the Etymological dictionary aside and turned on the computer, made available to the instructors, on the podium where they delivered classes in written, spoken and pronounced English. Duvall kept himself updated on American, British and Australian slang by watching every movie he could get his hands on, and every television show he meticulously recorded from the Australian channels on SKY TV at home. Last night’s viewing of Chicago, the musical, had taught him about a new religion. He had a different opinion of America now, thanks to Ezekiel Young and was not sure he ever wanted to visit Salt Lake City.

Duvall’s thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone ringing discreetly, at a volume that was almost sub-altern, one that only he could really hear. His daughter Dena was on the phone and had a question as she worked on her morning classes for the Spelling Bee competition, 10 months away. Dena asked him how “M-O-T-I-O-N” was pronounced, was it “mo-tee-on” or “mo-tyon”?? Duvall patiently replied “moshun”, “MO-SHUN”.. Dena was not convinced. How could it be “mo-shun”? There was a “T” in there.. her 4-year-old parser was not accepting the situation too well. He tried an analogy with “T-E-N-S-I-O-N” being pronounced “ten-shun”… “But daddy, that has no “T” … it is not T-E-N-T-I-O-N… are you sure its Mo-Shun?”. Given the persistence of his youngest trainee, Duvall knew it would take at least a week for him to convince this one.



.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond's glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.