Don'T Ask Me About My Education

From time to time, people ask me About my education. Only then, I remember I have no degrees or diplomas. I attended no university either. I hated textbooks and exams. I still do. That's bad education, they say. But they don't know I was taught by a book No school could afford to teach from. There was a street Connecting south and north of my town. It divided the market into two halves. One half on the east and The other on the west. Another street bisected it At the centre of the bazaar, Below a flyover. And, the crossroads was the battleground Of the southern and northern gangs. I belonged to the southerners. The southern stretch of the street, From the humped bridge to the edge of the crossroads, Was my book containing all lessons. I needed no falling apples To understand gravity. But from metallic sounds of falling coins On the tin-bowl of a blind beggar, Who sat in the shade of a fig tree, The only tree left in the township, Singing love songs Plucking rusted strings of his old guitar; I learned about hearts with different gravities. I was tutored by the street About the equator, latitudes and longitudes, When the gangs crossed borders and Engaged in fierce battles, fought with Knives, chains, iron-rods, baseball bats and catapults. I gathered ways of politics and diplomacy While debating with the rich and famous Who bought luxurious goods from big shops, Without raising an eyebrow, But bargained over price of five oranges With an old woman selling fruits on the sidewalk. I felt the brunt of economics from its ultimate core When a pickpocket who was beaten black and blue, By a mob, handed out to me a list of medicines He promised his ailing mother, When he left home with holes in his pockets. You can ask me anything about History and literature. I won't run away before sharing some knowledge, For I've seen the wars, the nazis, the concentration camps, The French Revolution, Pearl Harbour, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the communists and socialists, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara; and also Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Robin Hood, King Lear, King Arthur, And other kings and their queens; In the two bioscope halls of the street. Well, candidly speaking, I even sat in one of the theatres Holding rose scented hands of my (own) flower girl, Watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, On a forgotten Sunday. So, don't ask me about my education.