Deaf in DC: A Memoir

6. First Day of Classes

21 6 First Day of Classes NEXT MORNING, I GOT UP EARLY AND SAW THAT DAN WAS still asleep. I took a change of clothes, my bag of toiletries, and my small towel and went to the bathroom to get ready. There was no one in the bathroom, so I leisurely shaved and was ready to shower when I saw in the mirror two boys entering the bathroom and making it straight to the shower stall. I stopped shaving as both of them were stark naked. I couldn’t see them in the mirror any more but could see the steam coming from the shower stall. I have never thought that two men could be naked in front of each other. In India, we used shorts or a small dhoti or loin cloth to cover ourselves when taking a bath in public. My original plan was to use my shorts to bathe in and then dry them in my room. I decided to wait for the two guys to leave and took my time brushing my teeth. Momentarily, both guys came out drying themselves with their huge towels and signing to each other at the same time. I looked at my towel; it was less than half the size of theirs. I thought of hiding it, but they were not looking at my towel or me at all. They produced their toilet kits, joined me on either side, and started to brush their teeth. All the time they kept their dialogue going, and, yes, they were still fully in the buff. Sandwiched between them, I was very uncomfortable and hurriedly washed my face, dried it and left the bathroom . The shower had to wait. I dressed up in my suit and tie, used mustard oil in my hair and combed it so that each strand was in place. After checking my schedule, I picked up the books that were needed for the day and made my way to the cafeteria . There were a few students eating there and I wondered when they would get ready for the classes that were to begin in fifteen minutes. After eating my breakfast hurriedly, I walked to the Hall Memorial Building (HMB) to start my first day as a student. I was exhilarated. The last time 22 d e a f i n d c I had sat in an academic class was in December of 1951, almost sixteen years ago. I was a student again. The main door of the HMB didn’t yield to my pulls and pushes. I went around and tried the side door. Same result. It was 7:55 a.m., and I began to worry about being late for my class on the very first day. I looked around helplessly and saw a couple with arms around each other coming from the upper-class dormitories. They must have seen my efforts to open the door and came to me and began to sign, which I didn’t understand. The male student saw the schedule card on top my books and took it. After glancing at the card for less than five seconds, he showed me my schedule. I had classes from Monday to Friday. He pointed to Saturday and looked at me. I understood. It was a Saturday and they didn’t have classes on Saturdays here. I had read the schedule many times, but the idea that all Saturdays were holidays never came to my mind. Dan was still asleep when I returned to our room. I put the books away and was glad that I had two full days with nothing to do. But the problem was I had nothing to do, either. There were no friends to hang out with and no money to go see a movie or places to visit. I decided to take a walk. Dressed in my suit and tie and walking on Florida Avenue in Northeast Washington, DC, I must have looked odd. I was not sure where I was going, but I hoped to find a marketplace where I could look at stores and do some window-shopping just to pass the time. Since I had no map, I decided to stay on the same road. At each block, I read the names of the streets and tried to remember them in case I got lost. An interesting thing I noticed was that as I moved from block to block, the streets didn’t have names; instead, they had...