Most of the time, I love to travel and chat with the auto drivers in Bhubaneswar, the temple city of Odisha. This is because I love to listen to the unheard stories and learn from them.
Surprisingly, I met an auto driver who was a graduate. I sat in his auto for about 30 minutes while travelling in the city. We got talking about his daily life and income sources.
He said: “Brother, earning is life and life is earning.” I started thinking about the same statement and reflected upon the fact that earning can be anything.
The idea was that earning and surviving in the country is crucial, in terms of fulfilling one’s needs like food, shelter, clothes, education, health care and so on, these days.
He Taught Me About Self-Reliance
He asked me, “What do you do?” I replied saying that I am a student. He did not believe me and asked me: “Where are you working?” I told him again that I was still studying. Again, he didn’t believe me. He told me that I didn’t look like a student.
I asked, “Why, dada (brother)?” He said that, “Your beard, clothes and way of talking, tell me that you earn something.” Then, we stopped talking for a while as I got a call from one of my friends.
After that, he said to me, “Why are you lying brother?” I was surprised and asked myself what I had lied about, to this driver. I told him to tell me what he was referring to. He replied saying that, “You speak in English and yet you say that you don’t work or earn.”
I answered saying that, “Dada, I am poor.” He remarked angrily: “If you are not earning, don’t blame your parents.” I did not understand his logic and asked why he had said so. He said that one’s parents may be poor, but if one is earning, one isn’t poor.
Education Encourages Curiosity
I told him that I get a stipend as a part of my fellowship, but that I was a student. He asked me about my fellowship. I shared the same with him and he was happy to listen to me.
He started sharing his life’s struggles, why he earns and how he is surviving with the earnings from driving an auto. After that, he dropped me off at my location and told me that he enjoyed driving me because he got to learn about what a fellowship is.
He also said that he will apply for a fellowship after finishing his MA (Master of Arts) degree, at IGNOU. I wished him all the best and asked him to call me if he needed any help with it. I gave him my number. He thanked me and left.
Thereafter, I understood how his logic applied to me in the context of earning and learnt how to think in such circumstances. I thought to myself that education helps people be curious, ask questions of others, and to learn from that.
Education Is NOT Equally Accessible
And, that curiosity of knowing, understanding, and analysing comprehensively, is much more crucial than in any part of the world, because it helps us to explore the world from different perspectives.
From his perspective, I learnt that one’s mindset is the way to move forward. Gaining knowledge from different perspectives will lead one closer to the truth.
Also, poverty is a form of discrimination in India, as well as in the rest of the world. In spite of the auto driver’s qualifications, due to his poverty, he was unable to pursue higher studies. He was earning and feeding his family.
So, the question is: “Who is responsible?” He himself, his parents, or somebody else When we talk about equity, accessibility and quality education, where is that form of education in the 21st century?