The arrogance of the educated - and the bus driver's comments.

I had hurt my foot, and so stayed sitting in the tourist bus with the driver, while others went for a walk.  The driver was a man in his late fifties, and we got to chatting,. He said, 'I would normally not say this to any of my passengers, but honestly, 90% of the educated are educated fools - paducchcha muttalkal'.  The uneducated have scant respect for the 'educated'. The 'educated' respect themselves, thats all !

Seeing that I concurred totally, he continued, "I have no studies, but I have  common sense. With education, common sense gets lost. You cannot imagine the kind of people I see and have to deal with.  The educated are arrogant.  The other day they started quarellingwith me, 'Driver, it is raining. How can we see sights ?' ! As if I am responsible for the rains. Also, they simply dont adjust if there is need to. They say, 'We have paid for the seats'. The other day they harassed a poor man in the bus into a  back seat when he was unwell and requested a better seat. In disgust he got up and left the bus. They felt victorious at his leaving and that they had got an extra seat - and did not realise that he had left disgusted with them."

The driver's assessment was shortly validated. The bus had all simple, vernacular folks from small towns. There was just one IT professsional family from Bangalore. The day was long, and the driver had to negotiate 36 hairpin bends, and wanted to avoid night driving. All families were back by early evening, and waiting as per the driver's request. The IT English-fluent family stayed on for another hour. We told them that the others were waiting, and the children were tired, but they 'exercised their right' to stay on as 'they had paid' for the driver's services. The rest of us gave up and waited for them. When a child from Agra asked her father. 'Ab kya hoga', he replied, 'Ab bhagwan ke hath main hai'. The IT family finally descended, and the driver in the dark drove on patiently. Even the most cantakerous in our village  would not behave this way. There is a natural adjustment  the Indian  makes - the educated have lost it. And I noticed that over years, our own comfort level has become more with the simpler and vernacular folks. Nagesh was more with Raogaru, a government school teacher from Vijaywada, a simple and polite family, that with the few IT families. And I saw that in myself also.


As we did part of our journey in an unreserved coach, i saw this again - the way the people willingly squeezed in to make space for us when none existed. And the bonhomie and friendliness in the casual chatter thereon. The educated hold onto their 'rights' that they have 'purchased'. They have such a deep sense of entitlement