Illiteracy redefined

At a local train station in Mumbai. Commuters know that when a train arrives at a station they must allow those inside to get off before they board the train, but more often than not that knowledge is thrown aside. - SANTOSH HIRLEKAR/PTI

As technology increasingly becomes a part of public life in our cities, the protocols that come with it are all too often ignored.

THIS has, let it be said at the outset, nothing to do with literacy in the conventional sense. It has to do with the use of the word in the context of modern technology, equipment and devices. The young are often surprisingly familiar with these devices, but they baffle older people; computers, for example, and, particularly, the games played on them, and the new generation of mobile phones, which has a bewildering array of uses far beyond making or receiving calls.

The ease with which some youngsters use these devices is truly awesome; they know what they can and cannot do with them. Asking them to explain is of little help as they use a language appropriately termed techno-babble. That, however, is not the point. The point is that they not only know the protocols, to use a word they often use, but they also respect them even though some of them know how to bypass or ignore these protocols.

Living today has a great deal to do with some kind of technology or the other. The machines and devices designed to make it easier to cook, wash clothes, clean the house, and so on, come with their own set of protocols, which one ignores at one's peril. Consequently, a great deal of time has to be set aside, if one is prudent, to pore over the instruction manuals that come with these devices.

There was a time when all one had to do to drive a car was start it, depress the clutch, shift into gear, release the clutch and press the accelerator. Now there are cars with automatic transmissions, devices that beep if the seat belt is not fastened and red lights that flash to indicate that the handbrake is still engaged or that some other function was not performed. In other words, one drives with a lot of assistance, almost as if one were being moved about in a wheelchair.

To take this a little further afield, in a literal and figurative sense, rice farmers know that when the rains start they have to sow the seeds so that the seedlings are ready for transplantation when the rain really comes down and fields are full of water. Then the long wait begins for the rain to end and for the crop to ripen so that it can be harvested. Seasoned farmers are able to sense the changes in weather and determine the right time for transplantation. It really is not too different from the knowledge of how a smart phone works, and as with the phone, one has to respect the protocols involved.

This brings one to the main point. As technology becomes more and more a part of public life in our cities, the protocols that come with that technology are all too often ignored, not because people are unaware of them but because they just cannot be bothered. It is as if their comprehension goes just that far, and beyond that instinct takes over.

The people who use the Metro system in Delhi, for example, are to a great extent those who are used to living in a metropolis. They know that when a train arrives at a station, they must allow commuters who are inside to get off before they board the train. But more often than not that knowledge is thrown aside and a hideous tussle ensues between those trying to get out and those trying to get in. Elbows, shoes, heads, bare hands, everything is used to force one's way in or out.

Spitting is the norm both inside the train and on the platform. There are signs warning, pleading and advising people not to do so, but they do it anyway. Any remonstration is met with abuse and even violence. The standard question asked when anyone remonstrates is Who are you? Would farmers transplant seedlings when there is no sign of rain and the fields are dry and parched? Naturally, they would not because some protocols are non-negotiable.

Some years ago, the Metro in Kolkata was the city's pride and joy, and anyone littering it, leave alone spitting in it, would become the centre of the collective wrath of fellow-commuters. I have no idea what the present condition is, but the tales one hears are not happy ones.

The impressive expressway linking Delhi and Gurgaon has a toll plaza where, initially, there were separate lanes for those who were paying cash and for those who had smart tags. The result was chaos. Motorists in the tag only lanes argued violently with officials over their right to pay in cash, and often traffic was backed up for over a mile. After a few months or so of this chaos, the people managing the expressway meekly made provisions for tags and cash to be accepted at all booths.

Rice seedlings transplanted in the absence of rain will die, and no amount of argument will bring the rains sooner. Not following the protocols on a computer will make it crash, and arguing with it, or the manufacturer, will not bring it back to life. The expressway protocols were fatally negotiable. Had the tag only lanes had no officials nearby and cars that got stuck in it stayed stuck for hours, if not for the better part of a day, eventually motorists would not have ventured into those lanes without a tag.

It is not a question of mechanical enforcement of protocols. They can be enforced by people too in hospitals, schools, on the road and everywhere else if they are determined enough. The problem is our fatal attraction to compromise: to give a VIP preferential treatment, to bend rules. The result is chaos, a chaos to which we have, sadly, grown more and more accustomed.

Fortunately, farmers know how non-negotiable the protocols they live by are and they abide by them and their produce comes to the markets. The universal recognition that some protocols are inviolate, no matter how grave the consequences, should be a goal for society generally.

Consider how Orpheus, frantic with grief at the death of his young wife, Eurydice, sings with such poignancy that Hades agrees to alter the law of death and send Eurydice back provided that this being the non-negotiable protocol Orpheus does not turn back and look until she is out of Hades' empire.

But Orpheus cannot resist. The consequence is described in one of Rainer Maria Rilke's most moving poems:

She was already loosened, like long hair, poured out like fallen rain, shared like a limitless supply. She was already root. And when, abruptly, the god put out his hand to stop her, saying, with sorrow in his voice: He has turned around'- she could not understand and softly answered: Who?' Far away he stood and saw the god of messages Silently turned to follow the small figure already walking back along the path, her steps constricted by the trailing grave-clothes, uncertain, gentle and without impatience.