In Defence of the Uncreative

In defence of the non-creative Indian are two overlapping propositions: one, that except for a few stray examples, being non-creative is more profitable for the vast majority; two, creativity is self-destructive while being non-creative is constructive because you are following an established route and all you have to do is walk.

To take up point number one, let us remember an instance in the life of Nana Patekar, an unsafe man to be around considering his reputation for slapping people on the sets. Patekar, most people will not know, was once upon a time a student of JJ School of Arts. In 1991, after he had made it as an actor, he was asked to be part of the institute’s annual day celebration. Later, late into the night, in his newly bought Mercedes he dropped a former professor home in the western suburbs, and then seated in the middle-class house, made conversation with the rest of the awestruck family. He pointed to the professor and said, “I am where I am because of people like him, otherwise I would have ended a wastrel. I was a violent person. I once banged a professor against the wall.” The wide-eyed audience, which included the professor’s wife, two daughters and son, also learnt how when Dimple Kapadia came to the sets of Prahaar with her sari two inches below the navel, he immediately put a hand out and pulled it to respectable limits. Here was a man for whom the normal rules of everyday life didn’t apply. And this you saw in Prahaar, an offbeat cult movie he directed, one which stood out like a good thumb in a mangled hand during the prime days of the masala movie. Prahaar was a super hit, and yet Patekar never made a movie again. It is difficult to work with such a man, and which financier or distributor would take gambles on something he will never comprehend in his non-creative brain?

Now take the most successful filmmaker living in Bollywood today, Yash Chopra, and imagine him trying to fix Dimple Kapadia’s navel line in public without her permission. Most definitely, he won’t. The reason he won’t is also the secret of his superlative success. He knows the recognised boundaries so well that within it he can weave his ordinary magic. Once he arrives at a formula, the intelligent non-creative Indian will milk it because nothing more is needed. Whereas some minds will soar beyond the point where land is not visible, it is a foolish thing to do because most certainly there will not be new ground to land every time they take off. 

A limited intellect will stay rooted and end up employing people like Nana Patekar. We therefore infer that creativity is unprofitable.

For the second proposition that being non-creative is constructive to one’s own development, let us take the first among equals in all of India, our President Pratibha Patil. Can any of her 1.2 billion subjects think of a single extraordinary thing that came out of that illustrious staid mind despite her being in public life for most of her lifetime? Thus we have our syllogism: she became the President; she has no creativity; and therefore, she became the president because she has no creativity. There is, however, one remote indication that even she can have unusual insights. It comes from an ndtv.com report when she was still in the running for president. She was at a Brahma Kumari conference, when the sect’s long dead founder decided to arrive. 

Mrs Patil was quoted later as saying: “The Baba came into the body of Hriday Mohini Dadiji. I did not know that he still talks. I thought he will say something and I will listen. But he had a chat with me and put me into difficulty. He also made me very lucky.” Before you snigger at the naïve non-creative Mrs Patil, remember she’s the President and your sniggering is being done from whichever lowly station you occupy.

Take any field and lop off one or two names from it, and you will be hard pressed to find anyone breathtakingly creative. It took a novelist named Malcolm Lowry 20 years to write Under the Volcano while he was drinking himself to death, and every page of that book has the 20 years of suffering on it. If Chetan Bhagat took 20 years to write a book, it would still be Five Point Someone and would sell just as much. So why would he want to team up with angst and agony? If Rahul Dravid, like Douglas Mariller, decided to scoop every ball of every variety behind the wicket keeper for a six, instead of wall they would call him fence. He has wisely remained  stolid, playing exactly like how he did when he started. For every AR Rahman, there will be a retinue of Pritams carving out his legitimate plagiarised turf.

To the average Indian, the safest bet to a life well lived is being content in one’s own non-creativity. For, once you turn on that switch, there is no telling the navels it will offend.