| It was 8 P.M in the evening. As usual I was in the kitchen doing my assignment. For me kitchen was the best place to do assignment and learn new things from people. It would be flattering if I have said that kitchen was the best place for studying during weekend because it was not. Anyway the kitchen in our corridor had been a good friend of mine and it was always nice to be in there and study or chat. The worst thing about my kitchen was that it was always full of people during weekend and for short period of time it would become casino. I did not the reason why people did not use other kitchen in the corridor despite it was always cleaned and tidied. Could be because it was too silent or could be it was not lively as my kitchen. This was my first ever visit to the western country. I had never been out of my country before. My first impression about white people was they did not like peace and silent. They love to talk laud and love to spend their time in group. Well the family I was brought up in Nepal was strict and everyone in the family should follow the rules and regulations. We (I and my sisters) were forbidden to talk laud in the house and never dared to speak with the elder people loudly and always used polite tone whenever we spoke. I remembered once I was badly bitten my step mother when I refused to obey my uncle. The problem was I never liked him because he was rude and wild like my step mother. Anyway I now think all the rules and the respects I learnt at home, was meant for me in good way. It was almost 8:30 in the evening when I met Deepak Ale in my kitchen. He had black hair and was wearing Italian Gucci jeans pant and brown timberland t-shirt. My first impression about him was not good as I felt him to be talkative and over smart. But to my surprise he turned out to be a smart and nice guy. I told him that I wanted to interview him about the participant observation that I needed to write up for my Ant 122. He was kind enough to say yes. I offered him a seat opposite to mine in the kitchen. I thought he was from India since his complexion and action sounded as if he was from India. He told me that he was from Nepal, Kathmandu but was born at Mahelpalpur in India in 1982. He told me that his full name was Deepak Bahadur Ale Magar. I was bit surprised to find out why he was using his cast at the end of his name. He simply said his father used to have and he inherited from him. He said that he was studying at Reading university and lived with his parents near Bracknell, west of London. He seemed hesitated when I asked him what he was studying there. I did not want to pressurize him about this as I changed the topic. Within half an hour of interview I found out that he had father, mother and an elder sister (Tej) and a younger brother (Sunder) in the family. He told me that his father was an ex-Indian army who served in New Delhi for seven years. During my interview he talked about his hatred in politics and his interest in detective books. He told me that he had read all the series of Sherlock Holmes books but I didn’t believe him until he started telling some of the stories from the books. I would say that he was smart kid but the problem was I rather listen to Boy zone music than detective stories. I found both boring. It was almost 9:30 GMT and the kitchen was almost full with people. I started observing people. I had a quite few number of people with whom, if I so chose, I would be able to work for an extended period. I began my formal observation at 10:00 pm GMT. Within a short period time the kitchen exceeded its carrying capacity. There were only six chairs and a big dining table in the middle. One of the Greek girls went to other side of the kitchen started bringing some of the chairs from kitchen. Soon the room was full of people, mostly boys. There were nine people sitting on the chair, only five of us from our block. There were only two girls one Indian and other Greek. They seemed to enjoy the company of boys. Most of the people were in their mid twenties. So one could easily say what they could do if they freedom was allowed. There two decks of card on the table and one set of monopoly. The Greek girl sitting next to me was trying to convinced people to play monopoly with her but she was badly ignored by the crowd. After some ups and down in the decision they came up with card game. They proposed to play a game called Black Jack, the game I disliked the most. I lied them as I told them I did not know the rules of the game. I wanted to be off. Immediately I finished my sentence I was thrown out the chair as the Chinese guy replaced me. The Chinese guy who usually would work at Chinese shop near Dixy chicken which was located near main gate of UEL. He was pretty happy to be a part of the game and laughed all most of the time during the game. He was wearing black trouser and t-shirt and had a long heaving metal chain (silver??) in his left hand. Within quarter of an hour the irritating usual laughter and chanting grated into my nerves. The interesting fact was we were warned twice before by residential service group to lower down our volume when we talked but no one seemed to bother about it. I could imagine how mad the noise had made to the Greek guy who lived next room. Only God knows… After half an hour I went to my room because the noise was reaching its boiling point and I knew people would not stop until their vocal cord get tired. After an hour I went to my room. I found two Spanish people on the corridor smoking and an Italian girl and her boyfriend were watching movie as I could clearly hear the sound of the movie. At this time of the week, no one were studying but making laud noise as if they were on a mission to make a world record and keep their name in the Guinness book of world record. I went to kitchen again after I finished checking Cricket world cup result through teletext. When I returned I engaged Deepak Ale in conversation again. I told him about the cricket world result played on that day. He told me he was not a fan of cricket but football. He seemed to be enjoying black jack than cricket. So I let him play his game. I found out more than fifty percent of the people in my corridor were playing card and around 20 percent of the people were locked in their rooms at this time of the day. One of my friends from Indonesia went to his room at 11 pm and told me he had headache. I saw him taking some tablet but could not find out what kind. By this time I was tired and felt unwanted in the joint. I went to my room and started jotting down what ever Deepak had said in the interview. Usually I had to take sleeping tablet during weekend because of the non stop noise from the kitchen. Actually I was waiting for that Greek guy to go to the kitchen and stop the noise as usually he would do if the noise was too intense. Today he seemed reluctant. Since I was living in the quietest hall in the university (as it was written in the residential promotion book), the dynamic and activities of the people would have been different in noisy hall like Marley and Redbridge. Besides I was bit mindful not to disturb people and let them do what they wanted to do. I could not interview Deepak later as he was totally absorbed by the game. Also I did my observation during night time; I wonder how it would have been in the day time. I know the hall is the ideal site for participant observation. But it depends what time of the day we are conducting our observation which is only limiting factor. I believe people hardly share their private life stories with stranger but Deepak being a Nepali might not have felt the same. |
| ONE DAY AT UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON |