EDUCATED people are known by their sense of physical, mental and ethical hygiene.In this context`educated`is not meant in its denotative semantics of `having formal education and educational degrees`, rather stress is on its connotation of `well-trained or well-groomed`. It is quite intriguing that physical hygiene reflects mental or moral hygiene, and vice versa.
The hygienic conditions of washrooms of educational and religious institutions bespeak how burgeoning or shrinking is the gap between what is preached and what is practised in such places. It is a matter of common observation that washrooms of educational institutions, barring some elite ones, happen to be foul and filthy beyond words. One strange thing is that even staff washrooms are no exception on this count.
Washrooms at seminaries and mosques also stink. Though some of them are used as publiclavotaries, those that are solely used by their regular visitors are also disgusting.
What does it reflect? There is something wrong in our directional priorities. At least where hygiene is proselytised, first it must be visible there practically. Education and preaching are apparently focussing on empty words alone.
T.S. Eliot called education the `socialisation of man`. Education must inculcate in its apostles and adherents that one`s actions and words ought to spread innocuity and comfort in society.
The premises where what is disseminated is not practised end up becoming hatcheries of anti-social followers precipitating the degeneration of human civilisation towards jungle life.
One must never do anything that defiles one`s education, profession or the status ofbeinga paragon ofallereatures.
