Education- whats its worth really?

The next time you are travelling in an auto and find that the driver is only driving through the middle of the road, although the left /right lane is relatively free, you may assume that the auto is an illegal one without license and paperwork… cause cars in the middle of the road are more difficult to catch...or so says Rahul Bhai- an auto driver I met recently in Aurangabad.

I am appalling with names, so obviously I can’t remember his surname, but it was pretty impressive and a long Marathi one. He was dressed in a starched white shirt, had a mustache which will make our Sanju Baba cringe and was surprisingly well spoken. Hanging onto the front seat of the auto, where he was kind enough to make around 4 inch of space for me to park my butt, I took an instant liking for him. Usually autowallas are a pain...they take a solemn oath at the start of their professional life to harass customers and over charge them…but this one was jovial, smiled and seemed to take pride in his driving skills.

I guess I was easily recognizable as an alien in the streets of Aurangabad, as I spoke terrible Marathi, had no clue  how I needed to reach the bus stand and looked a bit lost at 8pm at night  (late by their standards, especially as I was in the outskirts of the city). So trying to be the good guide he started inquiring where I was from and what I do etc etc… once he heard I was from Kolkata, his affliction for me grew by leaps and bounds … further conversations revealing that he is a true blue fan of our Bangla’s pride…our DADA…our very own Sourav Ganguly….

So a healthy conversation ensued and I had a brief glimpse of his life saga which unfolded quite a few interesting facts… he was a qualified CA, had worked in a professional “Marwadi” CA firm for 3 years before deciding that all that sucks… he also showed off his skills at colloquial language having quite a few interesting abuses to add when he mentioned ‘Marwadi’ (no offence meant to anyone) saying he was underpaid, had to put in extra hours and the boss was more a leech than a boss… sounds familiar? Anyone?

So his next career move was an inspired decision- to move to  the city of dreams- Mumbai, to find a dream  job… he found one…as an auto driver. The money was better than his CA stint… he was his own boss and he could always get more money by extorting the customers… things went well for around 2 years, till about the time when all the Mumbai policemen learned he hadn’t had a license, his auto was illegal and decided to aid his illegal activity by dipping their beak into it… those a$$***s extorted the extortionist so much that bechara ran away from Mumbai…to Pune… 

His money extorting, auto-driving career again blossomed in Pune for a brief stint of around 1 yr…till the time when the Pune police smelled the rat which had escaped the Mumbai gutters… So fed up at not getting a descent income and continuous bribing of the officials for allowing him to continue his saintly profession he returned to his homeland…Aurangabad.

He says he now manages to earn handsome money… *he even tchtched at my pay package*, still continues to drive an illegal auto but pays less bribe. He vows that Aurangabad police are less greedy in comparison…*kudos to u all u Aurangabad cops Sir*… and  considering that he has learnt the tricks of escaping the cops from the dream city…these local ones in Aurangabad can do no harm to him… they are too slow…

So interestingly, while my journey of 5 kms and 30mins (and you think traffic is a problem only in Mumbai and Bangalore?) and 15 rupees came to an end…I felt that there was an important lesson to learn from this guy’s life… 

Does education really have any value? A CA qualified guy as an auto-driver…makes good press right? I guess this trend starts at our premier institutes called the IITs… where typically a mechanical engg works for a bank or a software firm… and continues all the way down to lowly Micobio graduates like me who worked in fields which had no relation to his education as such…. And we still continue to say that education is important…

And what about bribe? I don’t even want to get into that field… how is an auto driver allowed to run an illegal auto in Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad for 7 years without ever being caught? Were there no honest policemen in the ranks? Or is it a coincidence that Rahul has evaded the honest ones so successfully…

Oh and BTW…. to all you feminists… Rahul added that the women policemen are the tough ones… they almost never ask for a bribe… I guess we need more women policemen…and if you can import some from Rajasthan (*they have the prettiest women policemen in India*) then maybe the job of a cop will be more attractive and honest…amen to that….

PS: this is a true incidence…not dramatized…. And Rahul’s isn’t the real name of the autowallah…