In the process, we completely fail to understand the role of creativity in enabling a child’s first steps at socialisation. Spontaneously, she draws herself in the company of the sun, moon, trees and flowers. Her purple sun is not a mistake but a sign of her individualistic expression. As a doer, she discovers the harmonious rhythms of nature, creating them anew with lines and colour. Thus unfurls an aesthetic mindset characterised by openness, and so begins the evolution of human values in her psyche. This was the most profound lesson that veteran artist Devi Prasad learnt in his decade-and-a-half stint as art teacher in Gandhi’s Nayee Talim Institute at Sewagram. He articulated these ideas in his pioneering Art: The Basis of Education.

The child’s entry into formal education severs this creative learning process. She is seen as a little adult, whose instincts have to be moulded and corrected so she can grow into her ‘rightful’ place in society.

In the India of nine per cent growth, where a newly muscular middle class aggressively flashes its biceps of self-interest, creativity too must pay its way. No exploring the frontiers of individual expression in contests replicated on every TV channel; the child must perfect the art of imitating the original, sung by an adult. Often children attempt songs clearly beyond their voice range (as immature young bodies execute sexual pelvic thrusts and gyrations to adult claps in dance contests). But it makes for high adrenalin soap. Belligerent parents challenge judges for marks not given. Children carry the guilt of having destroyed their parents’ dreams (a luscious seven-figure prize, a brand new car). What happens to these youngsters after their two minutes of deftly marketed fame are over?

... contd.