Creativity flourishes at two kinds of times. One, when you are in a desperate situation.
Piyush Pandey
We must use our past to excite our present and ignite our future.
Creativity flourishes at two kinds of times. One, when you are in a desperate situation. When tried and tested ways fail, one has no option but to innovate in order to survive. It is said that the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur was built to give a livelihood to the farmers during an extended period of drought. This was probably the ancestor of our current employment guarantee scheme. The second is when the going is great and one has that happiness and that extra buck to go beyond a necessity to delight the senses.
Look around and you will see India on the up. The economy is to our advantage, the world is looking for answers from us, and the confidence is on an unprecedented high. And confidence, to my mind, is the mother of creativity. No fear of failure, only a determination to write history.
The irony is that we are creating this prosperity and confidence to buy cheap tickets to Bangkok. What would it be like if we used this energy in inculcating creative appreciation in our children and ourselves. How many of us have thought about a trip to Aurangabad to appreciate the old examples of creativity in the caves of Ajanta and Ellora? Or for that matter how many of us have bothered to take a trip to Khajuraho? I can’t figure out why - is it because Bangkok is much more exciting or Khajuraho bring out our sexual insecurities?
India is a blessed country. It is rich with cultural heritage and examples galore of cultural creativity. From one state to the other there are fascinating forms of music, dance, drama and architecture - things that inspire the creative spark in anyone.
How many of us and our children are aware that Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book was conceived in the forests of Pench in Madhya Pradesh? It is probably cheaper to get there than to Pat Pong and undoubtedly it is a more inspiring creative experience. My take on a creative India is a country where we repeat our own creative heritage, use our past to excite our present and ignite our future; an India which holds its head high by being proud of a creative history; an India where we cheer for the little musician in the streets of Rajasthan or for the old inlay-work artists in the vicinity of Agra; an India which appreciates liberation more than control.
It’s just the right time to believe that we are all creative. All we need is to unleash the creativity and the world will be ours.
(As told to Pritha Mitra Dasgupta)
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