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Show PERSONALITY 4 Ranjan Adiga, a Nepali professor of English at Westminster College, has traveled all over the world before settling in Utah. I think culture is an interesting thing because its underestimated and overestimated at the same time," Adiga said. 'So, when I compare typical Nepali lifestyle with an American lifestyle, I can find a lot of similarities. Bringing community to the classroom Professor brings a touch of Nepalese culture to Westminster MEGAN SKUSTER STAFF REPORTER Westminsters Ranjan Adiga, English professor, holds a new perspective about the colleges atmosphere, which he developed as a result of growing up in Nepal and traveling all over the world. Before coming to Utah, Adiga lived in Kathmandu, India, Thailand, Bahrain, Hawaii and North Carolina. Despite having no formal creative writing instruction until he was enrolled in a masters program, he has embraced the challenge of writing in a second language and exploring his homeland through a new lens. Q: What was your first impression of Westminster when you began teaching here? A: The small class sizes were attractive, but also challenging having come from a public university in Hawaii. The demographic was different, too. I had to leam to strike the right balance between using my experiences and cultural background to further discussions in the classroom, while simultaneously making sure that I demonstrated just the right amount of assimilation to not overwhelm the students. This is a challenge that I constantly reflect on. Q; What is some of the writing youve pub- lished? A: Ive had a few short stories published in different literary journals across the nation in the U.S... Although I write in English, my second language, all of my stories are inevi tably set in Nepal... I write it from the perspective of someone who is an insider and an outsider, me having lived outside of Nepal for some time now. I think gives me the distance to look back at that culture through an inter- nity-bas- ed society, its not necessarily a very individualistic society... I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone knew each other, so it was very normal to people to just drop by your house without prior notice... our doors were more or less left open in anticipation of someone dropping over for tea or breakfast morning TO BE A WRITER, YOU or something.... In HAVE TO HAVE VERY OPEN the U.S., its a very sort of isolated exisEARS AND EYES AND MIND tence. safe and our house is pretty much unscathed. People I know are safe for the most part, but been transformed pretty dramatically. When I go back next, I overall, the cityscape has might not recognize it anymore. Q: What golden piece of advice would you esting lens. give to students who want to pursue writQ: Why do you write in English ing? lanA: You have to be willing to slug it out second (your like in every other field. In terms of writing, guage)? A: It gives me it means constantly being open to revising. the distance and Writing is revising. Writing is rewriting. Its a constant process of constantly reflecting perspective to obAROUND THE TO WORLD serve and it for a Q: Did you on what youve wrote and know anyone or any better piece. To be a writer, you have to have Nepal, my country YOU. THOSE THINGS that Im constantly places that were afvery open ears and eyes and mind to the BE TAUGHT. CANNOT fected by the earthfascinated by. Also, world around you. Those things cannot be quake last year? taught. You have to be a keen observer and writing is a more A: My homehave a lot of curiosity about other people. At labored process than town has been devWestminster, we talk a lot about global conRANJAN ADIGA ENGLISH PROFESSOR talking, and English forces me to gather astated, pretty much. sciousness... a writer needs that more than the any other discipline. Kathmandu, my thoughts more deliberately. Its still a language that I struggle city where I grew up, is a city of old temples. Adiga teaches Bollywood and Beyond in Theres with, and I enjoy that struggle. pretty much a temple or a monastery May Term. The course focuses on exploring in every neighborhood. Like in the U.S., you how colonial education and language have Q: What was it like growing up in Nepal? A: I think culture is an interesting thing might have a Wal Mart in every neighborshaped cultures and identities in South Asia, hood. Well, in Nepal we have temples in every because its underestimated and overestiAfrica and the Caribbean. It mated at the same time. So, when I compare neighborhood, and those temples give a lot of also investigates themes that preoccupy the character and personality to the street... altypical Nepali lifestyle with an American postcolonial imagination such as coloniza.all those all were 200 find lot of built similarities.. I most can a 300 or of lifestyle, temples tion, hybridity, immigration and arranged made old brick. 80 of And us feel anger and love and jealousy, but when years ago, percent marriage vs. love marriage. of those temples are gone. In that sense, its you put those feelings into specific cultures, its interesting how its translated in very difreally devastating, those big landmarks that I grew up with. But fortunately, my family is ferent ways. Broadly, Nepal is a very commu ine ing 33 Sub-Sahar- an |