Saturday, December 22, 2007

Does literacy matter?

It does not if it is only about reading and writing and not about the education of understanding and following.

I workout in a gym during evening which has 4 treadmills. These poor treadmills run incessantly due to a rush during peak evening hours. So that they are used judiciously, the instruction in front of the treadmill states "Please use for a maximum of 15 minutes at one time". Yesterday when I was ready for running they were all occupied. After waiting for about 2 minutes I checked how much time these health conscious individuals would take to get down. 3 of them were already above the 20-minute mark, with ladies having run for more than 25 minutes. Finally when I got one treadmill, next to it was a girl may be in her late 20's running for the last 30 minutes. She finally stopped at around 37 minutes - yes, I continued to peep into her speedometer with utter frustration and almost on the verge of asking her to get down.

This triggered the question in my mind whether literacy matters or not?

Looking at the above incident it seems being literate is not enough to make things better because though a gym incident does not impact my life or anyone else' for that matter but incidents like this where people take U-turn under a crossed U or throw garbage in front of a dustbin do reflect society's mindset.

I think literacy matters only if it educates us!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very true!

Many more incidents.

1. Smoking under no smoking zone. I've seen it in our cafeteria.

2. Usage of Mobile in restricted zones like hospitals givin reasons like "I'm a busy person you know! I get many important calls round the hour!"

Can go on n on n on! Let 'em get some basic manners right!

ankurg said...

@sandesh

well I had planned to write down a list initially but they all boil down to a single point - people not following instructions.

I quite do not agree with your second point, why ? more on that may be some other time!

Sandesh said...

Think you know that we are not supposed to carry mobiles inside hospitals where you have ICUs, Life supporting systems which gets disturbed with the frequencies of mobile phones.