By Aradshar Chaddar.
Past November, I decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from Stanford University, one of the elite colleges in the US. My friends expressed surprise; my parents sighed in exasperation. “You are so lucky to be there! Why would you do that?” Their befuddlement was part of the answer.
Dreams are considered a luxury in the village I belong from in Pakistan called Mano Chak. When you have no idea where your next meal is coming from, high educational attainment and hopes of doing something grand are dismissed as wishful thinking. Who has time to read philosophical treaties on war and peace while suffering from an empty stomach?
I was one of the privileged few. My parent’s middle-class income was sufficient for me to study at a private school in Lahore on scholarship and be able to access opportunities that kids in my village could not even comprehend of in their wildest fantasies. I was also blessed with a US passport as my father adeptly applied for a visit visa to America while my mother was pregnant, so I could attain birthright citizenship.
Fate had chosen me, it seemed. At least, everybody said so. “There is nothing for you here”, and “Get out of here as soon as possible” was common advice. For an impressionable child, it was bound to have an impact. As far as I could remember, I was preparing to leave. Memorizing MLK’s “I have a Dream” and Obama’s 2008 inaugural address by heart, I started believing in America: a place where anything was possible. Where even a brown Pakistani kid like me who had claim to a US passport despite having no living background there, could aspire to one day become the President through sheer dint of effort and high dosage of ambition.
It was my strong faith in the “American Dream” that led me to start on my college applications way earlier than usual and dive into a million extra-curricular pursuits to become worthy of being in an elite college. After going over my multiple acceptance letters, I decided on Stanford. West Coast was where I would shine and create my own compelling immigrant story. In my enthusiasm, I decided to come to the US two months earlier than college commenced to travel across the country and learn what it meant being an American.
I still remember the first time witnessing the imposing skyscrapers of Manhattan and the majestic figure of the Statue of Liberty. They were living, breathing examples of the oceanic depth of human potential. However, my amazement was soon overcome by a perplexing sight. An endless assortment of people on the pavements with all their life possessions, muttering nonsense to themselves in a drug-induced frenzy. I still remember one encounter I had near Brooklyn Bridge which brutally shook my faith.
Finding myself in pity for a homeless woman, I struck up a conversation.
“What’s your name, dear?”
She stared at me deeply for a while.
“I don’t know what my name is”
Her eyes were sharp red. I don’t know what drugs she was on.
“I’ll call you Sarah,” I said stupidly.
There was a hint of softening up on her end. She adjusted her dry hair and made an odd request.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
I still wonder why I didn’t hesitate. Probably just from sheer shock of my illusions of a wonderland clashing with the hard wall of reality.
She inched a bit closer.
Her hands parsed through the silkiness of my hair, as if in search of something profound or a prized object that was long lost. The touch was tender and smooth. She took a lock of my dark brown curls and bound it to one of her own. Two minutes like that.
Then, she just stood up and left.
Troubled by this interaction, I left New York the next day.
I became a purposeless wanderer.
Boston. DC. Philadelphia.
Everywhere I went, I found the same destitution and hopelessness of a mass slithering around every corner with nothing in their eyes but “quite desperation”, yearning for a temporary reprieve from their predicament. I played chess with Jack outside Harvard’s campus, who begged me for ten bucks. I consoled a weeping woman outside Union station, who wanted nothing more than to reunite with a lost husband.
I wanted to get to Stanford as soon as possible. Maybe, there was a different America waiting for me there. Stepping outside Palo Alto’s Cal Train Station, I absorbed the warmth of the Bay Area sun and strolled around the pristine campus. The courses were interesting, the faculty welcoming. Yet something continued to nag at me. The campus seemed like an isolated corner; an artificial bubble of sorts divorced from the outside world. I became frustrated with the pretentious small talk, sense of entitlement and phony tributes to trendy social causes. If you were so passionate, why not actually go out there and engage with the one’s you purportedly cared so much about?
I resumed my wanderings. Every weekend, I would slip off to San Francisco or Oakland, making friends with strangers of all kinds.
I became well-networked. My friends would make bemused expressions when a random “homie” would say hi to me on the street. All I had done was supply these “humans”, lest we forget, with my attention and free cigarettes; in return they reveled me with their stories. They were stories of ordinary American’s who found themselves uprooted from their normal lives through circumstances outside their own control. Addiction and crime were not a cause but a byproduct of what had happened to them. When they most needed help, America was not there for them. Who could criticize their choice of escapism through drugs or petty theft when surrounded by sheer indifference to their misfortune?
The American Dream had failed these people.
Finding my political science and history classes unemblematic of the reality of the world outside campus and fixated on teaching student’s fancy lexicon such as “democratic peace theory” or “paternal state” without imparting tools for effecting social change, I applied for a leave without consulting my parents.
I filled my backpack with the barest of essentials, exhausted the little money I had on buying rounds for friends and resolved to spend the next months trying to get a sense of what it means living in the same shoes of those who have lost everything. Of course, I could never compare my situation with theirs but at least I could empathize.
Every morning is an exercise in making new friends. Every afternoon is dedicated to listening to stories no one deigns to hear in their “busyness”. Every night is a reaffirming of human compassion and generosity of spirit as somebody offers a free biscuit even when they haven’t eaten all day.
I have learnt more on the streets of America than in the cozy classrooms of elitedom. The stories I collect in my journal are a more enlightening education than one Stanford or any Ivy League can offer.
I don’t know if I still believe in the American Dream anymore, but I do know that the America I have found is no different from the underdeveloped states it takes pride in being different from. No country can ever be great by asking their people to do something for their country when they have nothing to do for themselves.
The writer is an undergraduate at Stanford University studying Political Science, History and American Studies.
