power, fear... and?

there is Power, Fear… and Respect?

‘Nandini, your head is like a crazy ball!’

The words of my very critical art professor for whom I have not only utmost respect but even more fear, the shivering kind, the kind that makes my toes tingle and my chest hollow. Interesting, the effect a 4 foot 10, skinny, 60-something-year-old lady wearing an organic block printed suit and mauve lipstick has on me. Her appearance is simple, but not simple as in boring, simple as in clear, almost as clear as her voice when she critiques or even appreciates my work, almost as clear as the way her mouth manages to produce the most well-spoken words. More often than not, I compare the way one speaks to the fillet of a fish (although my vegetarianism has no bearing on this analogy), cleanly pronounced words are like a perfectly done pink salmon while the garbled ones are like what you find inside of sloppy tins of sardines.

Somehow, my professor speaks as an experienced poissonier cuts his fish. On the days I am most afraid, I can see her tongue rolling in perfect uniform motion as she pronounces the double-‘R’ of the word ‘Correct’, just before it flecks the roof of her mouth at ‘ECT’.

There is power in every syllable.

There is more power in her eyes, the wrinkles that shift from the apple of her cheek to the brim her undereye bags as her left (my right) eye begins to twitch and her brows furrow leading the doom of the frown that develops between them. She then says, ‘Good work’. I sigh in relief.

‘You’re dismissed’ she says.

I don’t notice her face. I turn, screech in my mind and leave class. 

There is power. There is fear. 

Still, there is respect.