Illiterate or Uneducated?

Illiterate human beings have always been a subject of fascination for me; I cannot but wonder as to how they make their ends meet. This curiosity once almost led me to commission a study that would find out jobs that people at various levels of illiteracy do to sustain themselves...more on that some other time; this time it’s about a rough diamond that has come up from the river bed of illiteracy.

Hamid, a man in his 60’s- rotund, and, clean shaven all over- walked in to consult me for a tumour that was growing on his wife’s leg for the past three months. After the clinical examination was over and the discussion about treatment was done, I asked Hamid whether he would read the contents of my prescription to his wife, whose mannerisms suggested to me that she could be illiterate.

“Doctor, I am completely illiterate; my wife is 10^th pass and she will read your paper”, he said.

Now it was the wife’s turn to chip in; “Doctor Saheb, in our family I am the only one who can read and write; Hamid can barely sign his own name.”

This was turning out to be interesting to me so I decided to chat up a bit with them.

“So, Hamid, what do you do for a living?”, I asked.

“Doctor, I am into real estate brokerage business.”, he said casually.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Hiding my bewilderment, I continued with the conversation.

“So how do you avoid traps in real estate- you know how laden properties are with undeclared mortgage or hidden deficiencies of proper paper work?” I asked.

Again, Hamid said self-assuredly, “Doctor, God is great! However, if ever there is any problem with the papers, I have contacts right up to the top to get things sorted, this way or that.”

“What do you mean?” I probed further.

“Look Doctor, when I have clients like **** and **** (he took the names of two really well placed national level politicians), people trust my skills as well as contacts”, Hamid offered.

“Okay, so how did you get into this real estate business?” I asked.

“Doctor, in my earlier years, I used to sell second hand cars and trucks. Once someone defaulted on the payment, and I had his house mortgaged to me. Still the payment did not come through so I sold the house; that’s when I realized that there is money in real estate” he said.

Without any further prodding he started rattling off the list of properties he owns all over - hold your breath- the country. This shabby looking illiterate fatso was a multi-millionaire many times over.

Still I was not satisfied as to how he would manage, say, at an airport. So I asked him that, and he said, he just asks people around to find his way.

Thinking that he would value education, I thought of asking about his children’s education. He lamented that all the five of them were school drop outs, and though they were themselves parents, none of them was either gainfully employed or in any business of their own. Hamid was supporting them all. He had even helped them finance three or four large scale ventures one after another, but not one of his children took the trouble to run these.

For a man of his background, Hamid was unequivocally confident about his situation in life and the course he expected it to take. He confided to me that his situation was like the old time Kings who knew that their progeny were useless and yet they chose to be blind to their children’s faults- he had to plod on.

He had circumvented illiteracy to gain riches, but it still hitched on to him when it came to raising a proper family- and it showed, rather too well.

There are plenty of examples of illiterate parents raising literate children who go on to become successes in the world; but this illiterate Hamid and his semi-literate wife lacked values- those, they  do not come with literacy- values flow through a family- educated or not.

Money does not buy you class- it’s said; neither does it buy you values.

So while it may appear that I am biased against the illiterate, it would help clarify that the literate can be off the mark in many areas of life, where perhaps the former could succeed; there is something called the incompetence of literacy!

Creativity, Civic-Sense, Contentment, Responsibility, Resilience, Reliability, Enthusiasm, Curiosity, Motivation, Humour, Self-awareness and Wisdom are qualities that are independent of literacy. So are the abilities to love, serve, care and meditate- all worthy and life enhancing abilities in themselves. If you have these and are illiterate, you are not uneducated.