Turn

TURN

Oreef is weird. He is never late to the lectures, turns in the assignments on time, never forgets the names of others and, most importantly, seminar room numbers. He is a guy of short height with dark curly hair. His eyes usually look down when he is talking to others. He doesn’t talk too much by the way. He has only one rucksack and a polyester suit which he wears all year round. He polishes his shoes immaculately and never loses his 50-year-old tie. If I didn’t live with him, I would definitely believe he would take a shower and sleep with his tie. But I know, he doesn’t. He wears it all the time because it’s part of the University uniform. I usually take it off once I get past the checkpoint at the gate.

I understand the freshmen being this responsible for everything because here if you do not show the teachers and professors how good you are from the first year, then you are mostly in trouble for the rest of your life. Even if you do not study hard, you have to pretend to be a nice guy with a mild attitude who is ready to do what your teachers tell you to do. Sometimes, they may ask you to write an article in two days or gather some money in your group so that your grades will be a little higher than others. Your eyebrows may be raised out of sheer surprise or shock, but it has always been like this. My dad and mom graduated from university by corrupting teachers because there is no way of not doing this in local universities. But there are some students who believe in themselves: the ones whose parents or relatives work in ministries so even faculty deans fear them and the others who learn by heart old textbooks to prove the teachers they truly did study. I do not belong to either group. I do not have much time parroting one whole book to a teacher for I have to work to pay rent and tuition fees. I do not have anyone working in the ministries, that’s for sure, and I hate these old rotten soviet textbooks with no practical value.

What’s the use of learning theories of language, if you never speak it at university? I think I have forgotten to mention that I study in the foreign languages department. You probably get the picture of what it’s like to study here: lectures where students are forced to write what the lecturer dictates from his rotten book, seminars where students must make a presentation of the lecture topics, and students who got into university with loads of money. I really do not understand why our universities still assess the university applicants’ knowledge and skills based on school textbook tests which makes no sense. Getting admitted to Uzbek universities is like learning by heart every single year in the history book, every single grammar rule in a grammar book, and endless boring many other things. Let me stop here, for I can complain about the education system from dawn till dusk. I nearly forgot I was talking about my weird friend Oreef with whom we share a two-room apartment with other four boys. We couldn’t make it to corrupt deans to give us rooms in the dormitory. You have to be an orphan or from an extremely poor family to get it easily. It may not sound quite right for higher education, but, yes, in post-soviet Uzbekistan things are different. Different than anyone in any part of the world can imagine.

Oreef has one sacred philosophy in his life, that is, taking turns is so important for him that he says our world would be in a mess if the smallest particle missed its turn to accomplish a mission. He says even ingredients should take turns to make a meal, threads to make a fine texture, letters to make a word and people to speak. Even Sun and moon take turns to make a day and a night. He has built up his life on turns and order. Interestingly, he can’t stand if somebody cuts the line, comes late, or goes back on a promise. Basically, he is a bookworm and a miserable punctual junior student who still does assignments even if some teachers don’t even open and read them. Most times, Oreef takes over our lectures with the knowledge he harnessed from different kinds of literature for our lecturers have too limited knowledge of what they are talking about. He knows three languages and reads whatever he finds interesting. After classes, we take a bus together to go home. I usually strike up the conversation and ask things he has recently found anew.

I: Oreef, what’s up in the world?

Oreef: Nothing much except for the new Mars rover called ‘Perseverance’ landed safely on Mars. You must know who launched the project.

I: Is it Bill Gates?

Oreef: Elon Musk. He said he would bring humanity to a new level.

I: Do you believe in him?

Oreef: It’s not important if I believe in him or not.

I: Don’t be a nerd. Then what’s important?

That moment I could see in Oreef’s eyes glitter and a moment of pause. I think he was either thinking of a smart answer or deciding to make his answer much simpler so my dumb brain would get it.

Oreef: The important is giving back in turn when you have already got enough of what you asked for. See, our people throw parties, have luxury weddings, and build houses if they get rich. But smart people like Elon Musk donate one-quarter of their income to charities and funds. He wants to build a city on Mars because he knows we are exhausting the natural resources of our planet. We are in a game with everything and when our turn comes we pass the buck and betray.

I: What game? Didn’t get it?

Oreef: If you look hard enough, everything is like a game where you take turns. If you skip your turn to act back, the system gets out of control. Let me put it simpler. If a science teacher doesn’t teach well and yells at students for a missed class or the wrinkled shirt, students can’t get enough of the important thing, the lesson. Some may drop out of that teacher’s class thinking it’s not worth studying or they are dumb. See if the teacher had taught well, who knows, maybe students would have discovered a bunch of new things in science. Here, the teacher betrayed his turn. He didn’t give back and broke the chain.

I: Then, I guess, we have too little of what you call ‘taking turns’ philosophy in our country.

Oreef: Maybe… 

When he says ‘maybe’ it’s a sign that he no longer wants to talk. We kept silent all the way to our apartment.

Next day, Oreef was in trouble. He argued with our psychology lecturer for about fifteen minutes. Mrs. Ziyayeva was explaining autism characteristics and behavioral disturbances when she said autistic people need special care for they cannot control their feelings at times. Then she continued saying most of them cannot make it to higher education. That was the moment when Oreef shot back an answer to the lecturer.

Oreef: I think we should not make a judgment based on their emotional status. There is too little research done in this sphere and people are still seeking a good way to educate autistic people. On top of that, most autistic people make good researchers for they have strong discipline and a command knowledge.

Mrs. Ziyayeva couldn’t stand a student teaching her what’s right and wrong and started defending what she said with millions of other irrelevant quotations from every single researcher she had known so far. Oreef was giving strong arguments and supporting his point with relevant and recent data. Like spectators in a tennis match, students were intrigued by the scene. As an average Uzbek lecturer, Mrs. Ziyayeva finally decided to use her power to make Oreef quiet.

Mrs. Ziyayeva: Oreef, either you stop showing off what you read just yesterday or I will subtract your points from the last course paper you wrote.

Oreef was irritated but in the place of another firing reaction he exhibited so far, he just nodded forcibly. That day everybody in the lecture hall discovered one truth: Oreef is definitely smarter than all the teachers we had.

On the way back home, I tried not to remind him of what happened and brought up different things to distract him from that unpleasant experience. To my surprise, he even was not bothered with my questions. He kept walking staring at the road and only stopped to buy bread for our lunch. I did not know how to help him but I did my best to make a decent lunch with fried eggs and a salad. When I called him for the lunch he was lying on his bed and staring vacantly at the ceiling.

I: Oreef, lunch is ready. Get up.

I was trying not to look at his eyes and I was making my way to the kitchen as quickly as possible until he answered me back after 2 hours of silence.

Oreef: Rasheed, do you know why I argued with the lecturer instead of letting it go like I do with other professors?

I: I don’t know, Oreef. Maybe, she made up things that never existed in the books or in the internet and that made you mad.

Oreef: No. Not for that.  

I: Then, what?

Oreef: I’m autistic.

I: …

Oreef: I’m not a moron or a creature who can’t handle his emotions. I’m in my full facilities to do anything. I just see the world a little differently than others do. It’s in me, I can’t change that.

I didn’t know what to do. Should I reassure him that everything will be ok or stay silent? I don’t know why but I hugged him at that moment. It was not a friendly hug at all. It was a firm hug that could tell my friend he is a wonder for anybody that knows him. Tears from my cheeks start to roll down on Oreef’s shoulders.

I: I’m sorry you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, my friend. You will never be appreciated if you study and live here. This society will never let you fly high and be honest. There are so many filthy traps waiting for us so that we will be the corrupts and imbeciles in the future. You should just go and never come back.

For the first time in my life, Oreef did not try to escape from my hug. He was sitting still and totally thinking something grander that my brain could not comprehend. His body was in my hands but his thoughts were far away. After few minutes, he looked at my weeping eyes with his bloodshot eyes.

Oreef: Rasheed, I’m not mad or upset at anybody. I’m just disappointed in our people. Maybe, you are right. Maybe, I should just go and never come back.

The following day, Mrs. Ziyayeva made him apologize to her in front of the dean and the whole class after that incident. She was celebrating her victory with a perfunctory smile on her evil face. We knew Oreef was innocent, but we also wanted to graduate from the university without getting into trouble. Deep down I could feel we were betraying our turn to tell the truth and knew Oreef was thinking the same.

In the last month of our study, Oreef did not show up in the classes as he would before. People could tell he washed his hands out of university and became a zombie who was spending hours in front of the library computer. But, I knew… I knew he was working on his great escape plan where he would get freedom. Such freedom where he can speak for himself and freedom to be different than others. Most importantly, for the first time, he was working on his turn to answer back to all the injustices he got in his life rebelliously. It was his time, it was his turn.

But, little did we know that we were losing an eminent scientist who would not remember us for a second.