I Hate To Count

The other day in one of my classes I conveyed to my students that I hated to count them 1,2,3,4,5 & 6. I told them that I considered counting them an insult. A disgrace. It is against their dignity that I count and equalize them with numbers. I told them that they did not amount to digits. God knows how many each one of them is equal to. Human beings are not items to be counted. We should not count them. We should count upon them.

Just the contrary of the above happened to me. The PPI worker told me that they did not need waste their time convincing me for voting them as mine and a grass cutter’s (they used its Urdu equivalent) vote counted the same – one and one. They stood up and left asking me that I should meet their President if I wanted to find out more.

On further reflection I realized that they were right. They needed the latter more as he will not question them. He will not hold them accountable for their (in)actions. He will only bow in respect. I also noticed that we have all those qualities (i.e. arrogance and impatience) in our leaders the exactly opposite of which should be found in them.

I hate to count because the individuals are not statistics, which is exactly what they have become. This is not what they are created for – to add to numbers. They are, however, getting buried under the debris of our faulty education system. ‘Education’ was, in fact, meant to rescue the individualities. Devoid of critical thinking it is doing just the opposite.

I am not satisfied with the brilliance of a few. I am concerned about the non-brilliance of many more. Again, we have to develop an eye to see what is not happening more than only noticing that which is happening. I am reminded of a couplet by Hafeez Jalandhari:

chalt-e phirt-e hu-e murdouN se mulaaqaateiN heiN

zindagee kashf-o-karaamaat nazar aatee hai