CORONA DIARIES 31: No Holding Back The Creative Drive; Critics Can Wait

The chief enemy of creativity is good sense, said Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter and pioneer of cubism. It is heartening to note that most friends have abandoned good sense to get creative during the long lockdown. They are singing, while good sense would suggest that they don’t. They are making funny videos, dabbling with poetry and writing stories and delving into culinary adventures, all in robust defiance of good sense. The infinite boredom of life in confinement has helped them overcome inhibition and indulge in so far secret fantasies. The social media has allowed them an audience and they collect smileys and other encouraging emojis as reward.

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction, said the great painter. Friends have been following that with an appreciable sense of sincerity. Destruction in this context means finding flaws in or reimagining an existing work and turning it into the way it should have been. So you have ghazals of Jagjit Singh or Ghulam Ali or songs of Kishore Kumar and Mohd Rafi re-rendered in new styles. The result may not be palatable always and often feel like the original subjected to third degree in a police station, but that’s the beauty of creativity. Creative souls hardly have patience for nicities of respect. If they respect something too much, they cannot grow beyond it.

Thank technology, after thanking the lockdown of course, for the explosion of creative energy. Without online apps designed for every fantasy — StarMaker for singing, translating apps for converting ideas into several languages, apps to prepare videos, for example — talents would lay buried. It has democratised creativity and opened scope for new players, who would otherwise stay undiscovered, if not to a big audience, to friends at least.

Not, it must be said, all of what floods the online space is appealing, but why bother? It is only those who are brave and with a devil-may-care attitude come out and express themselves. Isn’t creativity all about these two traits always? And when did ever wheat come without chaff!

THE SOUL SINGERS

“How besura these fools are? I wonder what made them think they could sing. They would even try ghazal and classical without batting an eyelid,” said a friend about songs posted by his friends on social media, sign of faux exasperation clear in his tone. Faux because he loved his friends and wouldn’t stop listening to and commenting on whatever they posted. The comments were invariably appreciative in nature because he didn’t want to hurt their feelings. “Not that they care. They would sing come what may.”

That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? It makes you wonder. Singing is not about the voice, it is about the soul. Not many get it. Some experts believe the primitive man sang before he learnt speaking. He expressed the moods of the soul through noises that had no support of words. Efforts to impress an audience and the grammar of music came much later.

“But what’s your problem?” You ask, “Why are you cribbing about friends’ singing?” He whispered, “I want to sing too man, like them. Just can’t muster confidence.”

CRITIQUING, THE THANKLESS JOB

Critiquing must be an exercise in subtlety. Particularly when the ownership of the piece of work under review — a song, a poem, a short story, whatever — involves friends. In that case, the options get limited to thumbs-up, clapping and smiling emojis. The brave souls who take the role of critic rather seriously and delve into nuances usually come to grief. Full-fledged wars within one’s social media groups over negative criticism are not rare. People quit in a huff and are coaxed back after a few days of cooling off. Their hurt is understandable since comments are read by all in the group and others might be enjoying these in secret and laughing their hearts out.

“Saala, when did you become an expert? In college you were the dumbest student,” read one reaction brimming with anger. The critic was full of good intention, at least he himself believed so, while discussing throw and pitch aspects of a song. His knowledge, of course, borrowed heavily from reality shows on television.

Being a critic is a thankless job. “I have been all over the world, and I have never seen the statue of a critic,” says Leonard Bernstein, American author, composer and conductor. That’s how bad it is. The best advice: Stick to happy emojis.

OUR BIT OF CREATIVITY

Why should creativity be confined to social media walls? Talent surely needs a bigger platform and wider audience. Imagine the pre-YouTube world when gifted people went unnoticed just because there was simply no way they could get noticed. Traditional spaces in all creative fields were occupied by established players, and they would encourage no competition.

To unlock the creative imagination of our readers, we at www.odishabytes.com have started a contest called Corona Creativity. The response so far has been amazing. If only we could afford to be more greedy and accommodate all entries we receive! Keep them coming please.