Regret seems to plague everyone; whether you’re a teenager reflecting on an embarrassing conversation or an adult facing thousands in student debt, it is a part of the human condition that we can only hope to delay. As a teenager with much of my life ahead of me, I often wonder if I’ll look back on my current self the same way I look at myself from a few years ago, clueless and with an alarming lack of critical thinking skills. While I can’t talk to myself from the future, I can look into the lives of the adults around me, and see how they think of their past decisions and how happy they are with where they ended up.
In these interviews, I aimed to get the perspective of people from all different walks of life so I could get a variety of experiences and ideas. People are different, with culture, families, economic situations, and living environments affecting everyone differently as they grow. Luckily, I live in New York, a city known for its incredible diversity and with a slew of people from all over the world making it easy to find people with interesting stories and thoughts on the way their life had gone
Shayoni Mitra
Shayoni Mitra is a professor at Barnard College who has taught courses on World Theatre, Traditional Indian Performance, Modern Asian Performance, Theories of Performance Studies, and Theatre History II. Along with her expertise in the arts, she has also given lectures on women’s rights at Brown, NYU and the University of Wisconsin Madison. In my interview with her, I hoped to get a view of what brought her across the world, an understanding of how she ended up where she is, and if she would change anything given the opportunity.
Born in a small town in Bihar, India Shayoni was constantly moved across the country. Despite the ever changing environment, her parents always made sure to establish a comfortable community wherever they were. That focus on community has stayed with Shayoni, and she aims to recreate the comfort she grew up with everywhere she goes.
In terms of education, Shayoni never really had a concrete plan. She knew that she wanted to write, read, and teach, so she did what she thought would let her do so. Part of this mindset was shaped by the way her family viewed schooling. Being middle class, education was always important, her parents’ overall philosophy was that as long as she did well, Shayoni could have some freedom in how she chose to learn and choose her career.
“You can’t predict the particulars, but I think if you kind of aim for the things you love – and I didn’t necessarily know that I would – I would end up in theater and performance studies. I might’ve been in English or I might’ve been, you know, in political science or something. Very briefly at the end of school. I dabbled in the sciences, but yeah, but I think that reading, writing, and teaching are sort of the cornerstones of it.”
This philosophy is clear in Shayoni’s first college experience, St. Stephens. The University is one of the most prestigious colleges in India, being ranked 3rd out of all NIRF Colleges and the #1 Science College in the country. While people spend years of their life trying to qualify for St. Stephens, Shayoni’s experience getting into the college was a bit different.
“I decided to go to St. Stephen’s because I got in. It was very simple, it was an elite college, so I went. Honestly in India you don’t have that many choices, and back then, you had even fewer. So you kind of take these massive school leaving exams. Like, imagine a state exam, but it’s kind of countrywide. And then based on those scores, you apply to places and then for St. Stephen’s, there is an interview, I just got lucky.”
During her college years, Shayoni studied English literature, an experience that, while rigorous, limited her to older works, as most of the papers she read were written before the 20th century. In addition to her studies, she joined the Shakespeare Society, the drama club at the college which would influence her to continue her study of performance after she graduated and moved on to pursue her masters.
“I was working at a small leftist publishing house. I was doing a lot of street theater, which is political. You make stuff about, you know, price rises, workplace safety, and against women’s harassment, which are broadly liberal progressive ideas.”
As she continued to learn through texts made by old western authors with no real connection to her, she started seeing a divide between the street performances that she was passionate about and the education she was following. That’s when she learned about performance studies.
“I felt this massive disconnect as like, here are these old British dudes that we’re studying, but the theater I’m doing is actually very different. And so that’s when someone’s like, hey, have you heard of this thing called performance studies?”
To Shayoni, performance studies were the missing link between the two increasingly conflicting parts of her life. She immediately looked into programs that would allow her to pursue a course of study she hadn’t even been aware of, a process that would lead her to uprooting her life in India and moving to The United States.
“I just looked up programs. And NYU is one of the earliest programs in performance studies. And again, I applied and I kind of got in. That’s how I got here. And then once I got here, I stayed to do my PhD.”
At NYU, Shayoni studied women’s and performance studies, growing to love the city as she was drawn to the walkability and many different people, cultures and foods that she was exposed to.
“I always tell people that I don’t live in the U.S., I live in New York because that’s the only part where I really live. I came to grad school here, but then once I graduated, I got to be a visiting assistant professor at Brown in Providence. And at the time I thought, you know, Brown, like, Providence is three hours from New York City, it’s 40 minutes from Boston, it’s still the Northeast. It’ll be great! And it’s obviously a prestigious school and all of that, and I still like my colleagues there very much. But it took me just a few months to realize I am not cut out to live in even a small city because like you wouldn’t get food, there are no food options past 9 or 10 p.m. You certainly wouldn’t see people in the streets just walking past 5 p.m. You kind of had to make plans or drive to a lot of places. It just wasn’t for me.”
It was because of this love of the city that when she was offered a job at Barnard College she jumped at the opportunity, not just because of the role she would be given, but so she could be back in New York.
“I liked the job, but I’m not going to lie, a huge part of it was I just wanted to be back in New York. And also, for someone who does theater and performance, there are very few other U.S. cities that have, in the world actually, as many theater opportunities as New York does.”
Shayoni’s journey was a long one, full of unpredictable turns. Despite all this, when asked if she would change anything from her life, she said that there was barely anything. Even the uncertain times of her life playing a part in a journey that she continues to enjoy.
“If you look at my résumé, there are no gaps. I went straight through school to undergrad, I actually got a master’s degree in India before I came here, and I’ve always kind of known the next thing before the first thing has ended. But at times I was in the unknown, where I didn’t know what I was doing professionally. But the thing is that those are actually the years that I really found out who I was.”
It was in fact those gaps in between knowing what came next that she wishes she had more of, time where she could live not sure what tomorrow could bring. A break, as terrifying as it sounds, would allow her to spend time finding more things she loved and wanted to do. It’s because of this satisfaction with her journey that she’s able to live without any major regrets.
“Of could I have dealt with this situation, or this person, or this interpersonal thing, better or worse. But in terms of major life decisions, I’ve not really regretted anything. I kind of make the most of it. And I can really do that because I try, 100 percent or 120 percent if I really want something, and then if it doesn’t work out, it’s fine. It’s not on me then, and that’s just life.”
Anna Kudlash
Anna Kudlash is a high school mathematics teacher at The Bronx High School Of Science, where she’s worked for almost 15 years. Growing up in Moscow, she received her Bachelors in mathematics at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and received her masters in mathematics education at the Teachers College of Columbia University. Because of her journey, I wanted to know how she ended up in the education field, why she chose to make the jump from Russia to the U.S., and if she always wanted to follow this path.
If anything was certain throughout Kudlash’s life, it was that she was going into the STEM field. Growing up, she was heavily influenced by her mother, an engineer and her grandparents, who worked as educators. Mathematics was always a part of her life that she would embrace, but teaching wasn’t even considered until high school.
“In 9th grade, I met this amazing math teacher. She was magical. So I had this crush, you know, she was amazing and while she taught me we created a strong relationship. At one point she started giving me some students for tutoring because of course she didn’t want to do it. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I have so many students for tutoring, maybe I should start to do it.”
While this sparked off what would eventually become her career in teaching, the journey wasn’t straightforward. After starting her degree in mathematics at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, a trip to the United States would change everything.
“When I was in my 2nd year, I came to the United States as a camp counselor for the summer. And then when I came here, that was 2004, the first time I came. I was 19 years old. It was scary. It was my first flight, and I just fell in love with this place. I just felt like feeling, it’s almost like I was supposed to be born here. Like, it was just such a strong feeling. And then I sort of kept coming back every summer, but I started feeling more and more, like, I don’t belong in Russia. I don’t know. It’s just a strange feeling.”
This feeling would prompt her to cut her Masters in pure mathematics short and start over in New York. With no family and without a green card, she was on her own, relying on work with no job security and struggling through her teaching education at Columbia University. Despite her difficult situation, she still speaks positively about this time.
“It was so good. Like that you just achieved this, and it’s just everything comes into your hands, and then you meet all these amazing people around that sort of help you along the way. It’s almost like you have a moment when you’re suffering, like you lost your job, and somebody’s kicking you out of the apartment, and then you have some angel coming in and it’s like, here, I’m gonna help you. It was nice, it was a beautiful feeling.”
Even as her life became increasingly difficult, it was the small things that she received day to day that kept her going; for her, the kind words of a conversation with a stranger or the small kindnesses of a person nice enough to lend a hand were enough. And it was in those acts of kindness where she found the job she has dedicated the past 14 years of her life to.
“It was interesting because Bronx Science was hiring and the Assistant Principal who hired me, her name was Rosemary, sent me a bunch of e-mails, actually more than my professor from Columbia. And then with this professor, I told them I wasn’t going to apply because I probably cannot get accepted here. Right? And then he told me to go for an interview. She’s famous for hiring people. She’s famous for thinking outside the box, and maybe even though you don’t have papers, they will find a way to hire you. And it was so funny because I remember when I came in, I went, I went through the parking lot by accident and then I saw a lady there and she’s walking towards the entrance, and I was like, oh, are you by any chance Rosemary? I’m coming here for an interview. And she’s like, oh, yeah and you’re Anna Kudlash? It was as if we knew each other and then I came in, we got very connected over Stuyvesant because I was doing my student teaching in Stuyvesant, and she used to work there. And she said to me, ‘I know about your situation and I will help you to work here,’ and I was so happy.”
While miraculous, Ms. Kudlash’s story was not without roadblocks – the immigration process is notoriously difficult and punishing. On top of that she faced years of uncertainty with no promise of stability, only driven by her love of America and passion for teaching. But to my surprise, when I asked if there was anything she would change about her experience, she had nothing other than a few of her own actions. To her, those hardships were a part of what made her herself and gave her the life she loves today. The only regret she pointed out was that she didn’t put in more work in school, feeling that if she had placed more effort into her studies outside of mathematics rather than doing the bare minimum, she would’ve had an easier time in higher education, where she often felt as if she couldn’t take all the work she was getting.
“It’s like on one hand you feel kind of sorry for yourself a little bit. But on the other hand, it’s like maybe that was my push. It’s like how the bird has to kind of push the baby out of the nest? It’s to fly, and I think it was the same for me.”
Regret
Given the difficult times we live in, it’s easy to look at every small problem that you encounter as the end of the world, to let your regret over the little things stop you from moving forward. We often point to every problem as the end of the world, falling into a nihilistic view that doesn’t help anyone, especially ourselves.
But if there’s anything I learned from these interviews, it’s the importance of looking ahead rather than holding yourself back. Maybe in five years, you’ll feel as if everything you’re doing now was a waste of time, but as long as you’re doing what you think is right and what matters to you, the regret will fade and fulfillment will follow.
Given the difficult times we live in, it’s easy to look at every small problem that you encounter as the end of the world, to let your regret over the little things stop you from moving forward. We often point to every problem as the end of the world, falling into a nihilistic view that doesn’t help anyone, especially ourselves.