Blowing in the Wind p Sophia Mitra C

Blowing in the Wind

Sophia Mitra, New Jersey

“How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man?”

Every Friday for the last two years members of the Muse, our college’s art and literary magazine, would get together in the commons area around 4 pm to chill and jam. Young boys and girls would be crowding around the pit, the center stage area, thumping, tapping, and clicking away to the sound of Bob Dylan blaring from a boom box. That was our moment of creative inspiration according to Stefan, the Muse’s President and one of my best students in my Introduction to Literature class. He was the one who invited me to join as advisor in the first place.

“It’s so cool, Mrs. Mitra. We get a space to express ourselves. Somewhere to find our voice.”

At first, I was a little skeptical of the enthusiasm exuded by this 5’9’’ athletic young man with icy blue eyes that seemed more fit for decoding trigonometric equations than creating romances with figurative language. Turned out Stefan was indeed a computer science major. However, he surprised me with his creative ability and his first story, a personal narrative based on his grandparents’ lives, was truly touching.

Native of Belarus near Ukraine, his grand-

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father, a firefighter, had perished in the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, leaving his young wife to fend for herself and their three young children aged 9-5. Stefan’s grandmother faced immense difficulty making ends meet, which only worsened with the fall of Soviet Union in 1991. Suffering from extreme poverty and instability, like many other Belarusians, she decided to migrate with her family to the US and ended up settling in Bergen, New Jersey, for the last thirty years. Stefan’s story was one of arrival and acceptance as much as it was one of alienation and exile. We featured it as the highlight story in our magazine.

Soft-spoken, motivated, and goal-oriented, Stefan’s choice of music, from Bob Dylan to Tupac, was as varied as his interest in foreign cultures and cuisines.

“ You need to try some jerk chicken, Mrs. Mitra. It’s epic!”

“Did you see the Discovery channel’s feature of the glacial ice melt in the Alps! Can’t believe there won’t be ice there soon!”

We bonded over these, as much as we did over my limited knowledge but interest in Russian circus and Tolstoy. No doubt, Stefan’s ability to jump from one topic to the other amazed me as much as his zest for social activism in whatever form, from censorship on campus to issues of globalization. In fact, it was his idea for our club members to join a peaceful protest for George Floyd down in Newark when Covid wrecked our world not too long ago.

Stefan graduated last winter, 2021, and I cheered and clapped for him walking down the stadium aisle in his silver robes and flashy cap, a goofy smile beaming on his face. As expected, he had done very well and was transferring to a four-year to finish off his undergraduate degree before plunging into the workforce.

Occasionally, we emailed each other to share news. I needed his advice in recruiting new Muse members and he wrote back about the classes he was taking or sometimes a paper he needed me to review. However, the semester got busy with exams and grading, so I stopped hearing from him for a while.

“Hey, Mrs. Mitra, can I come in?”

Two weeks ago, a familiar voice outside my office door one Friday afternoon surprised me. Looking away from my monitor’s screen, I spotted a ghastly, pale figure from not too long ago, dark veins prominent under river-blue eyes.

“Stefan, it’s so nice to see you. But what’s the matter, son? You look a wreck!” I could not help blurting out.

Stefan sat down slowly, took a deep breath, and forced a smile. He needed my help and had come for a recommendation. He was applying for an emergency visa to visit his country where war broke out recently caused by Russian infiltration. His grandmother had gone back against his family’s will, only a few years ago, to settle down in her ancestral land and hoped to be buried near her husband’s grave. Then news came recently of their town being bombed and the list of casualties…his grandmother’s name being on it.

“I have to go…to bury her,” Stephan gasped. “My parents cannot risk it. If they get stuck for some reason, there’s no one to look after the rest of the family here.”

I remembered Stefan mentioned he had twin siblings in middle school and a baby sister starting first grade.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, we just sat there, holding hands, and silently weeping. Student and teacher, mother, and son. Two immigrants in a foreign land, bridged by a sorrow for an unforgettable past, a shaky present, and an uncertain future.

“Promise me you’ll be safe,” was all that I could urge him that day.

“The answer my friend is blowing in the wind

The answer is blowing in the wind…”

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