Being Taught and Being Trained...?

07 May 2013

A Significant Remorse

Written on 7 May 2013

Regrets are good, aren’t they? They make you if you take them seriously. But this happens in space. But no possibilities whatsoever without the time facet of our puzzling space-time! Time usually demotivates you with its constant winning in the race. I fell into a similar regret recently. I felt I lost my time.

I had an electricity problem at my place last weekend, and like most Indians do, I called for an electrician. He spent about 45 minutes in uncovering all the switch boards, plug inlets, ceiling fan connections, on the walls, on the ceiling and allover. The problem was that a light in our kitchen was burnt regularly. And he found that a network of wires was misconnected in one of our bedrooms which caused the problem in kitchen. He explained in his lay terms why and how the problem persisted. I was amazed.

He was not even halfway educated, formally. But he was so perfect in searching, finding and solving the root cause of a problem. I had 2 questions in my mind bee-buzzing and troubling me for the rest of the day. My wife understood what I was going through, but did not react, maybe because she was in a similar situation. Indian housewife culture doesn’t give her the practice of even thinking of these issues. But I shared with her my frustration, she was full of empathy.

One, why did I have to call for an electrician, without even attempting to see what went wrong? I had the necessary equipment in my hold. Then why did I choose for an alternative? I am sure it was not laziness, as I just finished fitting the heavy dismantled king size bed in the bedroom. What then is wrong with my attitude?

Two, by the time I got the first question running around, I understood what exactly was troubling me. What troubled me was the fact that I am a physics graduate with considerable amount of research experience. Needless to say, my head started crunching into my shoulders further than before and my shoulders drooped. On what grounds that electrician who cannot write even a blog article like me could defy and unfit me so brutally?

Another thing, following this incident, I wrote a wonderful promotional article for an official cause recently, and I got it reviewed and edited by one my leaders. The point is, we both belong to similar age, but educated in two different countries. How on earth this person is so perfect with such writing and editing abilities when we both had similar qualifications and experiences? All these things led me to an understanding. I did not allow my education touch me. Meaning, I never applied it the way it was supposed to be.

I remember from my experience of spending quite some time in the US, a family in a small remote town of Mississippi. The family consists of a married couple at their sweet sixties, as their children got well settled far away. They are two-fold happy in their life: one, as their children are well settled; two, they got their space back after a long tiring journey of settling their children, which most of us loose when kids come into our picture frame. This old couple has a grand but cute wooden villa on a small hilltop of altitude not more than 50 m from the ground around it. They own the whole hill very flat in its appearance. They have a car garage in the backyard, as the husband is crazy in mantling and dismantling cars. To an utter shock, when I met them, he recently purchased a Chevrolet racing engine and fitted it into his 1955 model antique coupe. He gave it to me for a drive too and explained how I should kick the gas (accelerator) especially on a racing engine. Holding the steering after hitting hard on the gas was an out-of-the-world experience.

And they owned one angelic garden beside the house grown and escorted by the lady lord. They own 4 cars besides a caravan. They have too many wall-hangings, ceiling-hangings, decorative sculptures made of wood all over the space. The point is, almost everything I mentioned above including the whole body of the house, the couple constructed them with their own hands without a third person. Especially the husband can do plumbing, carpentry, electric works, mechanical works, professional works, cooking, writing, racing, and swimming besides high quality pun and sense of humor.

I also remember one of my British friends asked me one day to drill a hole into a podium when we both were trying to set up the stage for a professional event at the workplace. I said,

“What?”

It was something I never did. But he trained me and I finally did it. So my work experience increased by 3 holes on a wooden podium.

Two things to meditate on: one, I did not allow my education affect me; and two, I was only taught but I was not trained.

Do you want me say anything more? How different is our education here from countries like US, UK, Japan or Europe? This is the difference. In India, we have a handful of people who fall in this kind of truly-educated bracket. I am not one of them. Can I ever be in future?

Yes I can. At least if I drive my 2 year old daughter into this bracket!