The Art of Invention
The Art of Invention
School.
As I entered Kindergarten, I would always come across this one weird uncle with a grin smile ask me, "Eshtu kg kanappa neenu?"(How many Kgs are you) and expect me to answer LKG or UKG.
All I remember about Kindergarten is wearing neat uniform to school, carry a cute lunch bag with food but instead eat mud, come back home, sitting on my uncle's shoulders. Cool days.
Here curiosity is directly proportional to your age and this law worked well till actual school started.
I was given color pencils at home, so I would try to recreate anything I saw, in the best way possible. So did I try to do when my teacher at primary school told me to do so. But what I was instructed to do so was different. Now, Fun Fact: You ask any kid studying in any primary school in any part of India to draw a scenery. All they would do is draw : (imagine this)
2 attached mountains.
One sun rising exactly between it and rays projected out using vectors.
A river flowing parallel to the base of the mountain.
A nearby kuttcha house comprising of two windows, 1 chimney (poor resident-no money for gas), and one door to which a road starts.
Two trees around it.
And 4 birds flying in the air, either drawn as a V,W,M.
That's all.
Anything else I drew would be considered wrong and my drawing would be wrong.
Now, the topper of the class be considered outstanding for drawing the shadow of the mountain on the river. Deep analyzing skills at a very young age, so genius student.
Killed my creativity and curiosity.
At middle school, I did show my creativity in my handwriting. Yes, I did have a beautiful cursive handwriting until this one English teacher stepped into the class. She, as per the instructions of the board, strictly explained us this one method of writing which actually sucked. At least for the sake of the English notebook, I had to fake my handwriting and so did the other friends of mine did. We were also told to maintain a one finger space between each word, and she would send a student to check whether everyone had followed the finger-space rule. This either induced Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder in obedient students or leave a few corporal-punishment marks on the non-obedient students. Maybe, when people say that Indian schools kill creativity, I could agree.
Talking about Inventors, I always wondered what an Inventor would be like. Is that even a profession? How cool is it? Maybe inventors have a cool life thinking about ways to solve a problem.
Talking about inventors in India, let me count a few, I don't know.
But why? Maybe our society in a way trains us to be mediocre. If we all went on trying to obey every rule or a norm and try to impress everybody you always end up being a person without creativity(simply put).
Now sometimes, when you have to create something, you need to break a few barriers or laws.
Just yesterday, Elon Musk sent an electric car to Mars. How many people reading this blog, imagined a car drifting on the martian soil? I honestly didn't.
So guys, on a positive note, if you know you think differently, it is no bad, keep it like that unless it is productive. I you want to try to invent something, do it. It may not only be an electronic instrument, you could invent a language, an attire, an origami toy, or even a blog like this, but just keep trying to use your unique and cool brain. There is a reason why you have it in your skull.
If you find this informative, do try to educate people around you. Who knows, where the next Alan Turing or Einstein will be introduced to the world.
Sai Govardhan
