COFFEE
- EVENINGS IN EDINBURGH
Khaliqur
Rahman
Volunteers
from the Overseas Students’ Centre (OSC) are there to receive the new-comers.
Our train from London reaches Edinburgh on time at 3:30 in the afternoon and
soon we are in the warm and cosy little reception of the Centre. We’re welcomed
with coffee and biscuits. We’re then given pin-flags with our names on them.
There is a big world map on one of the walls in the room and each one of us is
asked to show on the map where one comes from. I hoist my flag on the dot
showing Raipur, Madhya Pradesh (now Chhatisgarh), India.
Then
they give each of us a packet which has enough information, well written and
well printed on glossy paper about the Centre. I gather that the OSC, at 3, A
Buccleuch (pronounced buckloo) Place, provides a focal point for all students
from abroad who are in Edinburgh. The atmosphere there, they say, is relaxed
and friendly and students, willing to go along and mix with the others who know
what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land, many thousand miles away
from home, should always drop by. Vegetarian lunches are available at the
Centre on weekdays from 12:30 and frequent evening events are organized. The
Centre also provides a selection of foreign periodicals and British newspapers.
A few days later, I discover that I can always lay my hands on the
International editions of India Today.
Another
glossy sheet promises, in a well programmed way, warm and cordial coffee
evenings. Volunteering families, in Edinburgh, arrange these coffee evenings
for overseas students. The idea is to keep the new entrants in good cheer, lest
they should feel lonely and homesick.
We
have our first coffee evening with the Boyds. Rev Kenneth Boyd is a Chaplain in
the University Chaplaincy, I soon come to know, and Mrs Boyd teaches Islamic
Studies at school in Watson’s College. They have no children. But I notice,
they have a dog, middle aged, just as the Boyds, and lazy and portly, too, just
as any priest head anywhere.
Someone
passes coffee, someone else biscuits. In an informal atmosphere, each one of us
bumps into the other to ask for and give introduction like one’s name and
country and the course one is going to do in Edinburgh and so on. In a few
minutes, the crowd of about 30 breaks into smaller groups of two or three. It
is good company for each soon purely on the basis of vibes, I suppose. Each
little group then sits down, on chairs, in the settees and on the carpet.
I
find myself with the Boyds on the carpet. The initial ‘phatic’ communion
prepares us for more specific, perhaps more meaningful conversation. A few more
evenings over coffee at different volunteering families prepared us rather well
for a year’s stay there.
The
course started and I hardly had time for socializing. They make you work really
hard. We were required to do eighteen different courses over three semesters,
write three projects and do two portfolios (equal to one project). In addition,
we were supposed to write two examinations. If you passed all of these
successfully, you’d be asked to write a dissertation.
Thank
God, I came back with the degree, fond memories and a few remarkable observations
of life there and life here that go to make some striking comparisons.
I
noticed that life there is socially very clean. Their bathrooms and public
places are very clean. They seem to care for others. In contrast, life over
here, is individually very clean. We take bath before we take breakfast but we
leave our bathrooms and public places unclean. Socially, we are unclean. We
seem to care for ourselves. We don’t care for others.
I
also noticed what the dogs do here, men and women, boys and girls, do there:
making love in public!
In
India, you’ll find men and women do the ‘big job’ on the roadsides, on the
pavements and along the railway-lines. In Edinburgh, I found that the dog
owners see to it that their dogs do exactly or more or less the same there. I
noticed this on the proverbial Monday mornings because the cleaning up by the
municipal people generally got late on Mondays.
Then
I remember one evening at the Boyds. They asked me to come over for dinner.
At
some point Mrs Boyd asks me what I think of Sufism. I tell her Sufism is
Spiritualism and Spiritualism starts where Religion ends! Have you ever seen a
saint with a belly, and a priest head, Pope, Imam or Shankaracharya, without
one? I ask.
Rev
Boyd looks at his paunch and laughs!
The
Boyds invited me to dinner several times during my one year stay in Edinburgh.
