Thursday, July 16, 2009

How much does Education have to do with being a sensitive human being?

In my initial years of growing up, I believed that being well educated had a lot to do with how sensitive we are, to our fellow human beings, to our surroundings, to our families etc. I looked up to many people simply for their educational tail and believed that they were all rounders in the emotional sense too. But thankfully being a sensitive person myself (sometimes a way too sensitive :( ) it was not long before i realised how wrong i was in my initial view on this subject. Certain incidents that changed the course of my life aided me in realising this in its true sense because its only in such situations that you hit rock bottom and realise the many truths in life, one being this...

This was my learning when i was still at high school and today more than 16 years since i passed out of school, i am 500% certain that education has little to do in shaping one's sensitivities. And its been a fantastic revelation since my high school days in discovering such balanced and level headedness combined with sensitivity in the people we 'educated egoists' would least expect from. One of these that come to my immediate mind is my family servant maid. She's been with us now for 10 years and it took us hardly a few months to trust her enough to leave a separate key for the home with her. And there was this one incident that involved her and one other servant maid working for a very senior colleague of mine at my former employer that cemented huge respect that i have for her. Even today, I am amazed at the sheer joy with which she braces each day with a meagre income coupled with a drunkard good-for-nothing husband and 2 girls to bring up in our indian society!! And the sensitivity that she shows with us and people around her despite having little to look forward to (in a conventional sense) amazes me even more, more so because she probably has not even passed the 2nd or 3rd standard at school.

Match this with what i see in big malls or fairly expensive restaurants or on the road, at railway booking centers, etc. where our so called 'educated' graduates break queues (eg. shamelessly send their lady family member to break queues many a time), talk loudly on their expensive mobile phones, park their cars without any concern for others to park in the little space available these days, not give way to elderly people or children when in a packed room fearing for self etc...I can go on...

Sometimes I wish i never had to have attended school or college and come a full circle to realise that what primarily helps me keep my head high in life, brings me cheer, is not what education has given me but the sensitivities I have learnt to live life and respect the people and the space around me for what they are...

But yes, we are in India a country which makes or breaks individuals based on their educational prowess (i personally experienced this), and that fear left me with little choice but to send my son to the same formal schooling system knowing very well that these were places in my growing up formative years where I witnessed many insensitivities from people around me....

But yes, do i sound way to negative, well if yes, then it certainly isn't my intention. I still have hope left in me because i look up to heroes or heroines like my maid, or the young man delivering milk to my house every day etc who get up each morning and are many times more brisk and cheerful than we 'educated' lot are....

And what better thing to have happened than hearing the very same thing from the mouth of a very renowned, respected speaker, philosopher Jaggi Vasudev in a television interview last month. I was thrilled to bits that someone who has achieved much more impact in society than I have still has the humility to salute the same kind of people that i do...It only strengthened my belief to say the least....

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