The creator and the created

Hi,

Read some of Manoj Das' Oriya short stories (translated, of course) over the weekend. Almost each story had a strong East-Indian flavor. As I was reading through his works, I was surprised to know how an innocent piece of work can transcend regional borders.

I shared this thought with a friend. We could almost instantly compile a list of Indian works that we felt had transcended regional borders, and had managed to compete with localized contents. Our list had Hrishikesh Mukherjee's comedies, Munshi Premchand's works, V.C.Kandekar's tales and Siyaram Saran Gupt's classics. The common thread in their works appears to be:

1. Being inspired by something very basic and the ability to multiply the effect

2. Willingness to share the best with others, in a manner others can relate

3. Creating something that is better than one's self

The above traits appear to have helped the creators to manage decent commercial success as well.

But, assessing the life of Paul Gauguin or Van Gogh, the traits they possessed appear a bit twisted. They fare as under:

1. Being inspired by something basic, and stay inspired by it for its own sake. Remaining unaware of how much it has become a part of you.

2. Willingness to share the best with others, in a manner "suiting" the creators.

3. Creating something that is better than them.

This latter breed had lacked recognition and hence had little / no commercial success. This state of mind is best captured by Gauguin's following quote.

"I shut my eyes in order to see".

Alas! he could not make others see what he saw - at least during his lifetime.

Vijay