Thinking out of the box

I remember how excited I was in class 5, when my drawing teacher asked us to draw and paint a parrot. I was very excited and drew the parrot sitting on a branch with some leaves. And to avoid too much "green" on the page, had painted the leaves "red". I was given a B grade saying the colours weren't right. Wish I had the knowledge then to tell my teacher that leaves could be red, and shown him in 1990 the autumn colours you get to see in the US. So ended up with a B grade for "thinking out of the box".

As a software engineer, you get to attend hordes of meetings to solve "issues" (which never seem to end). And the words you would hear the most are again "Think out of the box solutions. Think different". After having successfully killed the creative spirits in a human being when you were a child, here you are being forced to bring back those skills to save your job and earn a living. Wouldn't it be better if those "skills" weren't killed, but nurtured? This week watched a lovely Hindi movie titled "Taare zameen par" followed by an article by a school principal. Wish man knew how to understand himself and hone his skills better.........

I miss those days, when learning was fun and less competition. I remember the standard statement from my dad when I would be a little dull (more often than not) with the progress report in my hand and standing in front of him waiting for his signature, "It doesn't matter to me if you get 100 or fail in a subject. If you have understood the matter...that is all I ask for." Those were the days of "Speak n Math" and "Speak n Spell". And now its mostly PS3, Nintendo n the lot. Its about competition, who scores more. Who becomes a doctor or an engineer and who ends up becoming a teacher in a school!!!! Only wish, the brightest and the best of this generation can do some bit of teaching in their lifetime to help the next generation atleast be kids when they ought to be and better citizens when they grow up.