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

Comments

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The vocab is directly proportional to one's emotions :)

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 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. How true, Sir!
    How we stiffle creativity & then demand it :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Especially in schools? You know it.

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

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

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

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 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. 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. 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. creativity descends upon us, we cant descend upon creativity :D

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

      Delete
    2. 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

Coming-of-Age Poems

Lubna Shibu Book Review Title: Into the Wandering Multiverse Author: Lubna Shibu Publisher: Book Leaf , 2024 Pages: 23 Poetry serves as a profound medium for self-reflection. It offers a canvas where emotions, thoughts, and experiences are distilled into words. Writing poetry is a dive into the depths of one’s consciousness, exploring facets of the poet’s identity and feelings that are often left unspoken. Poets are introverts by nature, I think. Poetry is their way of encountering other people. I was reading Lubna Shibu’s debut anthology of poems while I had a substitution period in a section of grade eleven today at school. One student asked me if she could have a look at the book as I was moving around ensuring discipline while the students were engaged in their regular academic tasks. I gave her the book telling her that the author was a former student in this very classroom just a few years back. I watched the student reading a few poems with some amusement. Then I ask...

How to preach nonviolence

Like most government institutions in India, the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has also become a gigantic joke. The national surveyors of India’s famed antiquity go around finding all sorts of Hindu relics in Muslim mosques. Like a Shiv Ling [Lord Shiva’s penis] which may in reality be a rotting piece of a Mughal fountain. One of the recent discoveries of Modi’s national surveyors is that Sambhal in UP is the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of God Vishnu. I haven’t understood yet whether Kalki was born in Sambhal at some time in India’s great antique history or Kalki is going to be born in Sambhal at some time in the imminent future. What I know is that Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu that is going to put an end to the present wicked Kali Yuga led by people like Modi Inc. Kalki will begin the next era, Satya Yuga, the Era of Truth. So he is yet to be born. But a year back, in Feb to be precise, Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple dedicated to Kalk...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...