Uneducated Educated

Will the real educated please stand up? I woke up in the morning to the sound of two people fighting in the apartment above mine. No words were minced and crisp English was fluently used to deliver the punches. A couple was fighting and it was the last thing I needed on a Sunday morning. I pulled a pillow over my head but the commentary within refused to drown. Are these the new uneducated educated?

Somehow, wherever I go, I am met with these specimens. English speaking (as if that is the only measure of being educated), homo sapiens lacking basic empathy and courtesy – that is how I would best describe them. How else could I explain two well to do people, married to each other, fighting over each other’s mothers and what had gone down on the wedding mandap some 8 years ago? All this with nil regard for neighbours and their children. Names were being flung about and I could even hear a thing or two breaking as I hurriedly evacuated my daughter from the room.

Is this tribe of uneducated educated people increasing? People refusing to stand in line, refusing to teach their children how to do the same; people talking so loudly in restaurants that one has to look for a new table; others who judge women on the basis of clothing – and they all call themselves educated. This breed of the uneducated educated also extends to people who frame their degrees on their walls, even as they bring home a wife who will cook, clean and put her career on the back burner while he happily zooms off into the horizon to satisfy his ego and call himself the bread winner. These uneducated educated people also include feminazis who will attack these men at the drop of a hat, without sitting down to have a sane conversation with empathy for one another and a solid plan in case both are equally passionate about their careers.

And that is not all. Sadly, I see this degree of being an uneducated educated person, obliterating all other forms of education and life skills. And yet, we remain obsessed with degrees while our children are clueless about opening bank accounts and renting a home. Kids! Kids who hop out of college and straight into a sense of entitlement, often lacking patience and the direction which unravels with each hard working step that you take. I see these millennials seeking to take charge of their choices, without a care in the world about checks and balances – or even consequences. I see young guns ensuring that their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Feeds are up to date, whether or not it adheres to a sense of privacy. And then I see them all roaring with anger on being “trolled”. Nice.

Spearheading them all, I see a bunch of tut tutting individuals in all shapes and sizes, from all ages, passing their opinion like some holy rod they are all high on. They are the same people who talk of the Earth’s scarce resources and then burst a tonne of crackers on Diwali and drown in an ocean of colour on Holi. I switch on the TV with much trepidation, wondering which funeral the media will be reporting in its typical crass way today. And more than that – which politician will be uttering words that will become online fodder, the next. India and Karma seem to go hand in hand thanks to the uneducated educated, who insist that Karma fuels everything from a celebrity death to cancer. Slow clap for democracy. And now, let us cover its funeral too.

I wonder then, if this is the state of what we have become or is this the state we must escape from?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *