“And so, where is Rhode Island, the island you go?” The young companions at the airport in Mumbai-Check-in counter asked me with a smile, when she submitted my passport and me It was not in facetious.

“This is not an island.” I Répondit. “It is a state of the East Coast of the USA!”

They have been we have not yet acted negligently. Protects against ignorance, the sentence can not monopolized by a single culture.

Eighteen hours later, when I’m in the field of luggage were transported to the airport TF Green, January 18, I wondered if I had done what the right to expect.

Last year, after several laps, I was bi-national Fulbright Commission announced that the USA Educational Foundation in India (USEFI). With the award of Fulbright, I went to each school to the USA, wanted me.

And yes, Rhode Island College, why?

A friend has recommended: A better name would be known more about my curriculum vitae impressive

For me, however, is the decision to teach in a school of small size, rather as a “brand name”, everything seemed normal. I teach at one of the most famous Indian universities, but I have always pointed out small communities. I started my career, teaching in 1980 at a college in a temple in Orissa City, Province of my house, on the east coast of India.

Ideally, Fulbright - made in an act of Congress in 1945 - has prompted scientists to promote mutual understanding through education and cultural exchanges. In this sense, Rhode Island College, an institution supported by the State of Rhode Island on the restoration of the middle and lower income people, appeared to offer challenges.

The teaching of Indian literature in such a group of students would be difficult and interesting. I have new exchange, as attested by the recent publication on the international scene. Furthermore, a former teacher myself, Amritjit Singh, professor, teaches at the RIC and has always been positive. Amrit and his wife, Prem, treat me as their brother.

But this was not the bourse, the first in my head on January 18. A huge snowstorm was brewing RIC Daniel’s got me Scott Green Airport. It was extremely disturbing - I come from a region where we have touted for three seasons: hot, hot, hot!

When I left India, my father was dead in his bed, Pondicherry. He was in his insistence that I stuck to my plan march to Providence. “Go ahead, my son,” he invited me. “The college can not have a back-up plan!” He died on February 4

First, stay with Subas and Jhuna Mohanty, the first generation of Indian Orissa, I soon in the Hillside Terrace Apartments, a fruit Hill Avenue, near RIC. It is quiet, residential area, I would have to walk to school and my students for the next five months.

My stay stretched from the harsh cold winter (so inexplicable spring) on a pleasant season, when the rain.

All intercultural learning activities in the context, it is exciting. And what was also the particularity of Rhode Island in my experience?

I found my students interested articulate, clear and attentive - even if it is something insular. Education has always been accompanied by a plethora of questions about the evils of India, real and imaginary: poverty, inequality, widow burning, delay, the caste system, tsunami.