Kaykobad Sir
BUET Part 2, Drifting Days Feb 24
It took some back-and-forth for me and Kaykobad sir to meet. The ‘sir’ thing is a south-asian thing. We refer to our teachers by ‘sir’. It feels incredibly weird for me to refer to him as Dr. Kaykobad. Sir is on my Facebook. He sat me down and started asking how I have been doing. I told him I would be joining Google once I go back. I told him I was a little stressed about this job. I kind of sensed that he wanted to tell me something but I couldn’t guess what. He started with a story, like he used to in his classes and when he advised me. The story was about a couple he knew when he was in Korea. I realized that though he is on my Facebook he didn’t follow all that had happened with me. I cut him short through his story and told him. He did not ask much detail. I did not expect he would. But he was kind, he was kind in a way that somebody traditional like him is not expected to be. I had hard time holding my tears in that busy lobby.
He did not tell me he was proud. Those words are not spoken in our culture. But he pointed out that a job at Google was well-deserved and he had no doubt I will do well there even with all the esteemed still-publishing colleagues I mentioned. He reminded me that when I applied to UIUC I was not confident that I would get in. But he was and I did. I really had forgotten that. I guess I nagged him quite a bit then. He also told me to motivate the current students. To instigate in them the aspiration that I always had. I smiled and said, “These kids are way smarter than I was, they invited me to talk.” He was funny. He said, “They want to work at a high-paid job at Grameen Phone.” Grameen Phone is a local wireless provider. He added, “They don’t dream big like you did. Inspire them.” He knew how to pump me up.
Kaykobad sir has been the greatest sponsor I had in my life. I always tell people he is a great motivator. I am sure he motivates the current students the same way. But he also has been a great facilitator. Anything I ever told him I wanted, he facilitated that. And he does it in a way that I rarely realized it. When I was applying to grad schools, he realized, without me really telling him, that I needed to print lot of things and fill lot of forms online. He gave me access to a faculty lab. I could browse and print freely anytime from there. I felt weird to go in there and work. The first few times he kind of dragged me in there. Every time he would loudly announce to the faculty in there that I am applying to top grad schools and I will be using the lab frequently. I used to feel so embarrassed. All I wanted was to sneak in and out.
He has also always been there when I faced non-academic problems. I had gotten into a major issue with my male classmates. Some sexists comments were made and then some abuse happened. The whole thing turned really ugly. But it was me vs fifty dudes. I summoned up some courage and went to him. He was calm. My dad told me that I should have had kept quiet. He told me a story of one of their girl classmates whose life was ruined after she had protested. Kaykobad did not comment much. He gave me some paper to read or something. But my classmates saw me meeting with him for a long time. Later he went to the class and gave a very non-specific speech about importance of spending the time at college studying. He was subtle yet effective.
I have the imposter syndrome. I really don’t feel like I have achieved much of anything. I just feel the mountain of pressure on me and breathe out deeply when I realize I have survived that pressure. I want to make a promise though. I won’t give up on the dreams. I do not know where life will take me or if my dreams are even big enough. But I’ll dream bigger dreams and I’ll always strive to survive. I feel obligated to make him proud.
