I Think, We Need To Educate "...."

He found me in my “deep” thoughts, asked in his usual soft voice, “It is cold out here, is something troubling you? … I..I mean, I wonder, if I can be of some help?” … I didn't even notice, when he got there, feeling embarrassed, I re-positioned myself, and tried to appear normal, replied, “Oh, good morning, (trying hard to remember his name, but failed as always)... yeah, it is really freezing-cold out here (finding the question mark still hanging from his curious face, I tried to laugh), ..Ha-ha, you know, my troubles love to grow… they do not like any austerity or down-sizing!” … and and then tried to show some manners “Thanks a lot for offering help”... (and then tried to be a little bit funny -which I have never been successful at- to give the normality some gravity of expression...“No worries, man! ...You know, what? my relationship to thinking, is the kind of relationship, that health-conscious people have with oxygen. In order to get relaxed, they practice deep-breathing, and go for walking to get some fresh-air, and upon returning home, they try to fill themselves up with “anti-oxidants” to stop those oxygen with free-radicals, that they fear are actively ageing their cells. I do the same with thinking. I practice deep-thinking to get relaxed, and when the thoughts start worrying me, I try to get rid of them with South-Asian melodies.”… as I finished my rationalization, I tried to see the results of my "funny-efforts" in the form of some sparkling in his eyes...but instead of wide open eyes -as sign of fun- his eyes were narrowed, and by his expressions were signaling to me that, he is more curious than just fun-loving guy. My brain hurried to get in defensive position for his next question… And, as was expected, he asked, “Hmm, so, what was you struggling with,....was it an early morning relaxation by some deep-thinking, or getting rid of worries by melodious-memories?”... (Ah, these curious people!!! they don’t get impressed by funny-efforts at all, and make you feel that everything is just a problem to be solved..may be, I also have learned to be stubborn at times,- though, I hate to be- so, I tried to give my “sense-of-humor”, a second chance to amuse him)..."ha-ha, it was totally opposite of them. Actually, I was sugaring-up my brain by some silly ideas… I don’t know, if you have heard the story of that shepherd, who is laying in his cozy-barn, seeing his well-fed cattle relaxing, asking himself, I am sleeping in this warm place and so are my cattle. What about those wild animals, who have to spend all night outside in this freezing cold? Alas, my barn is so small, and the wild animals are countless, shy and unfriendly. What should I do to help them? He keeps thinking and fails to find any solution. Tired and helpless, he falls in sleep… I feel, I am not different to that shepherd. I keep thinking about my "people”... and then, in order to make sure, he has gotten my point, I soon corrected my last statement, “Well, it is not much of thinking, but rather worrying”... (a little pause-I think, he was trying to come up with a to-the-point question, as his face was signaling that, some sort of serious thought-process was going on in his head-)... “What exactly you are worried about mostly?”... boom! I wasn't prepared for the precision of the question, and I tried to escape answering it, “Just ask me, what is not worrying me, as the list has no ending”... “OK, let me ask it this way. What was worrying you, this morning?” …I thought, OK, let me take off my guards, and tell him, about the thoughts that were running in my mind. He might have his own opinion about the subject, and that would be interesting to know, “Well, most of the mornings that I pass the street behind us, there is a kindergarten, and I see the teachers line up the children, and take them out to teach them very basic things, for example, everything that are the sides of roads, from traffic signs, signals, how to cross the roads, bus-stops, facilities in the town, and how to interact with people on the streets. In short, they teach children, how to live and behave, before they teach them how to read and write. I take great interest in it, as despite appearing not much important is actually, the most important thing. Learning how to behave, knowing your rights and respecting others’ rights is something, that makes not only your life easy, but also other people’s lives easy.” … “That is not a worry. That is just a realization of something, that people long have devised and implemented” he appeared to be eased off… I hurriedly added more details to defend my position, “I mean, one is needed to pass traffic rule exam, take a safe-driving class and pass the road test, befor he/she is able to put a car on the road… It is in the interest of the driver and in the interest of everyone on the road, then I wonder, how is it possible that people run public institutions, like madrassahs, mosques, schools, organizations and ministries without any kind of proper education, and without showing any kind of efficiency?”... I guess, he got some of my points, “Yeah, Occasionally, I come across the reports from your country, and it is really sad”... I got a chance to explain it
in a little bit more detail, “Since 2000, we had almost 8 years of a military-civilian democracy, and it didn't

work, and then we had 5 years of civilian-democracy, and it is not working either. We had Imran Khan’s Pop-Mullah mix “revolution” through general election, and Tahir-ul-Qadri’s “revolution” through sit-in protests in the capital city with no net results on the ground. There are some basic problems that why things do not work. The problem is with the people, and with the system. I strongly believe that the whole society, including me, need education in knowing our rights, ways to protect it, and respecting the rights of others  more than literacy, just like those kindergarten children. For people who run any organization, and public office needs to pass the test, like drivers. It is in interest of everybody.” I stopped to see his reaction to my layman kind "utopia", of analogies, and over-generalized solutions… “Although, I am not much familiar with ground realities, but no one can deny the importance of education. You said that nothing is working, so do you have some thoughts on the system?” ... I felt that, his curiosity had lighted again. And, I was assuming that he knows much, so I don’t have to go into details for everything, and just need to point to the direction, and he will figure out, how this utopia will unfold. I just gave an outline, “Although, I am not saying that it is going to solve the problems in few years, or even it is going to work, but there must be a starting point. As I see no other checks, because neither military, nor supreme court proved to be a check on degrading-governance, except the people, I favor some sort of direct-democracy. For the whole decade government remained indecisive over action against terrorists and their supporters, creating more provinces, and ….blah blah blah. If there is a mechanism where people could ask for referendum, it will solve the indecisiveness. Otherwise, elections, noisy debates on media, sit-in protests and suo-moto-actions do not make some progress towards solving the problems at all.” … “You have some points here, but I am not sure, how they will look in practice, especially, in a country, where minorities are increasingly under more pressure. Direct democracy may put their survival in danger, you know…” I was sharing his fears, “I agree with you” and we both were standing there, with no clear idea,… and I guess, now, he had some idea of how, some of my worries were looking like… I took out my cell-phone from my pocket to check the time and said, “The bus should be here in 2-3 minutes”...