Skip to main content

Puppet Show at Workplace



You want me to be creative wearing the rigid straitjacket you’ve fabricated. 
You fix the routine of my each day with sirens that bombard my mailbox.
You started as my leader and turned slowly,
Like a mythical insect drawing nutrition from some invisible god’s ignorance,
Into a gargantuan monster whose shadow bedevilled my footsteps
Wherever I went, whatever I did.
And you chastise me for not being creative.

Can a puppet be creative?

Epilogue: “Being creative means being able to relax into uncertainty and confusion.”  [Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections]

Source
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anmol RawatJuly 15, 2014 at 12:52 AM

    Very well expressed and a good thought.
    Also love the vocab :)
    A puppet can't be creative :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:49 AM

      The vocab is directly proportional to one's emotions :)

      Delete
  2. ManiparnaJuly 15, 2014 at 8:32 AM

    Actually they don't have the right too..creativity is also measured in our modern workplace..a bit of this and a spoonful of that..Oh yes..you're creative..how dare you mix that spice without asking me ? darn your creativity !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:51 AM

      Very right, you are, Maniparna. Everything is measured today. Only the boss can determine how much of each ingredient is acceptable. In Maruti company, I heard, the boss decides when the staff can pee!

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJuly 15, 2014 at 9:05 AM

    Lovely unique side to an expression....creativity flutters wings

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:51 AM

      Glad you loved my creativity, though I'm also metamorphosing into a puppet. Is this a swansong? I hope not. I know how to redeem myself.

      Delete
  4. Anita SabatJuly 15, 2014 at 9:56 AM

    How true, Sir!
    How we stiffle creativity & then demand it :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:52 AM

      Especially in schools? You know it.

      Delete
    2. Anita SabatJuly 15, 2014 at 9:35 PM

      Yes Sir!
      Watched Taare Zameen Par yesterday again & my belief was reinforced...We need more creativity & allowing freedom to our kids to pursue their interests...

      Delete
  5. Rajeev MoothedathJuly 15, 2014 at 10:19 AM

    So very true of the corporate scene! similar sentements I had expressed in my poem"Employee in Knots"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:54 AM

      It's interesting (and more consoling) to know that there are a lot of people who find my poem relevant.

      Delete
  6. Kokila guptaJuly 15, 2014 at 11:30 AM

    Hmm... by venting out feelings... beautifully in verse ! creativity of puppets:)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alok VatsJuly 15, 2014 at 11:41 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alok VatsJuly 15, 2014 at 11:42 AM

    Nicely expressed Matheikal jee. Can a puppet be creative? I don't think so, and I guess this is the reason why companies are becoming less productive these days. I suppose, just because of all these only I wrote that post on why quitting job is becoming the option of serious consideration among young generation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 11:56 AM

      Companies are converting people into robots - mechanical creatures who follow orders or instructions or programmes. Pathetic. I have seen schools where the authority/authorities have to sanction what kind of posters students can or cannot prepare!

      Delete
  9. UnknownJuly 15, 2014 at 1:35 PM

    This is for the first time that I have seen your poetic skills. A puppet cannot be creative. A creative mind is a free mind. If a person is not allowed to think and implement freely he would turn into a robot, a preprogrammed machine which can only execute instructions in a fixed order.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 3:35 PM

      Poetry can come only from emotions, Namrata. I generally control my emotions. Or the emotions are not strong enough for poetry.

      Do the systems today allow people to think and act freely? Rigid structures are being imposed on workers in the name of quality control, profit, productivity, or whatever.

      Delete
  10. UnknownJuly 15, 2014 at 4:35 PM

    Truely said, Tomichan! Creativity and autonomy go hand in hand! Let it bloom and not restrict by instruction. Well written!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 7:11 PM

      Instruction is good and needed. But when, for whom, how much, for what...? Can adults be treated like children and ordered about? I quoted Dr Fritjof Capra in the epilogue. Let me quote him again from the same book: "A machine can be controlled; a living system, according to the systemic understanding of life, can only be disturbed. In other words, organizations cannot be controlled through direct interventions, but they can be influenced by giving impulses rather than instructions. ... intelligent, alert people rarely carry out instructions exactly to the letter. They always modify and reinterpret them, ignore some parts and add others of their own making."

      I come across management systems that want their employees to be unquestioning, unthinking robots. Follow the orders or get the hell out - that's the attitude.

      Delete
  11. Karan ShahJuly 15, 2014 at 5:38 PM

    you have hit the bulls eye with this...bang on!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 7:14 PM

      I can see that many employees today are in the position that Karl Marx described as "nothing to lose but their chains".... Frustration makes us aim directly?!

      Delete
  12. 外人, gaijin...an outsiderJuly 15, 2014 at 6:10 PM

    Very well put Tomichan Ji!

    It's unfortunate that not just majority of our schools but a large section of work environments also do not encourage free and creative thinking, and believe in 'following the norm'.

    Pretty sad utilization of what one should be ideally hired for: 'thought process and brains'. Following norms and standards does not mean that we should not question the status quo and look beyond what is...isn't that the only way to grow?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 15, 2014 at 7:17 PM

      Who wants the growth of the employees? The growth of the firm is all that matters. And if the firm's avowed goals and ulterior motives are different, then chaos ensues. Some choose to be robots, robot-hood is thrust upon some others, and a few manage to find their way out. OUT.

      Delete
  13. NishantJuly 15, 2014 at 11:12 PM

    creativity descends upon us, we cant descend upon creativity :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 16, 2014 at 5:00 PM

      You mean we can't ascend? :)

      Delete
    2. NishantJuly 18, 2014 at 12:43 PM

      when creativity descends we allow ourselves to ascend, it a mutual collaboration, not a single handed job :D

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 18, 2014 at 10:12 PM

      Right, buddy.

      The only problem is that it works in ideal conditions: Normal Temperature and Pressure :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...
2 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

Coffee can be bitter

The dawns of my childhood were redolent of filtered black coffee. We were woken up before the birds started singing in the lush green village landscape outside home. The sun would split the darkness of the eastern sky with its splinter of white radiance much after we children had our filtered coffee with a small lump of jaggery. Take a bite of the jaggery and then a sip of the coffee. Coffee was a ritual in our home back then. Perhaps our parents believed it would jolt our neurons awake and help us absorb our lessons before we set out on the 4-kilometre walk to school after all the morning rituals at home. After high school, when I left home for further studies at a distant place, the ritual of the morning coffee stopped. It resumed a whole decade later when I completed my graduation and took up a teaching job in Shillong. But I had lost my taste for filtered coffee by then; tea took its place. Plain tea without milk – what is known as red tea in most parts of India. Coffee ret...
18 comments
Read more

Truths of various colours

You have your truth and I have mine. There shouldn’t be a problem – until someone lies. Unfortunately, lying has been elevated as a virtue in present India. There are all sorts of truths, some of which are irrefutable. As a friend said the other day with a little frustration, the eternal truth is this: No matter how many times you check, the Wi-Fi will always run fastest when you don’t actually need it – and collapse the moment you’re about to hit Submit . Philosophers call it irony. Engineers call it Murphy’s Law. The rest of us just call it life. Life is impossible without countless such truths. Consider the following; ·       Change is inevitable. ·       Mortality is universal. ·       Actions have consequences. [Even if you may seem invincible, your karma will catch up, just wait.] ·       Water boils at 100 o C under normal atmospheric pressure. ·    ...
13 comments
Read more