Scene: (The high school boy, Raj is trying to kill time on a lazy weekend. He finds a drawing book, it reminds him of something. He picks up a Lego set, tries to build something unsuccessfully. He picks up the pencil, colors and begins to design a structure on paper. Long back, he had observed interior decorator doing that, so he tries to emulate. He is not a great artist, but attempts to draw a shape of airplane, that he wants to build using LEGO. His mother walks into his room and frowns..)
Mother : What a waste of time. This won't take you anywhere. Better focus on your studies. Final exams are round the corner. Start studying. Your cousin stood first in class and you just managed to get through your last exams. Stop this nonsense, start studying...
(Raj closes his drawing book, clears up the mess. He picks up the science book, pretends that he is reading.)
The story of Raj is common in most of the households, who want to see their kids growing up to become an engineer or a doctor, without knowing whether the kid is interested or not. These careers give social status to the family and each generation is trying to put pressure on next generation to pursue their career in these fields. The art related subjects were/are most neglected ones in our school academics. The students are conditioned to give step-motherly treatment to them. Passing marks in these are enough. Very few teachers who teach these subjects take extra efforts on students, who are weak.
The most common ones taught in school are drawing, painting, music and dance. There are many students like Raj, who ignored these subjects in their school, thinking that, these are useless. Eventually they end up knowing that these were important ones and skills that had to be developed at very early age.
Let's revisit the story of Raj again. He grows up and joins an engineering degree course in mechanical engineering. He finds that drawing is the most important subject in his course. There's a happy realisation for him that he will have to do well in all drawing related subjects like machine drawing, engineering drawing etc, to pass his course. Even if he is good in Maths & Science, he will have to do well in drawing subjects too. His classmates who had lesser grades in their school are able to do well because they have better skills. Raj has to spend hours to improve his drawing skills in his latter stage of career. Others who had developed their skills earlier are now saving time while studying other subjects.
There are many such instances where knowledge of art have spiced up the professional lives of the people. One of my CEO of previous company had brilliant aesthetic sense. His dad was a painting artist and so he picked up those skills at an early age. My ex-CEO was MBA from prestigious university, but what made him the outstanding manager was the way he created his keynotes. There was an artistic touch to his communications that impressed his clients. He never needed any graphic designer to pep up his thoughts. His ideas flowed freely with simple illustrations in his presentation, thereby saving his time, while selling his idea to the clients.
Another example I would like to share is about one of our acquaintance, who had topped from prestigious medical school of Mumbai, (wherein more than 2 lac students appear for entrance test & aspire to go for).
One of the secrets that she shared was that she loved drawing and painting in her childhood. She used this skill to sketch beautiful diagrams in her anatomy subjects and the rest was history. She is still pursuing her skills in her free time.
Knowledge of art open ups large number of career options like Architecture & Design. The kids who are trained in art can explore new fields, instead of just traversing the beaten paths of engineering & medicine. Even if they chose career in conventional domains, they won't be studying all the subjects taught in the school. They will need the art skills to publish their thoughts aesthetically on their answer-sheets in an illustrative manner. It will help them express it better than writing volumes of pages explaining the concept.
With all of this said and heard,
Request to all the parents to paint your kid's life & make it colorful. Fold it in different shapes, to broaden their imagination. Add musical tunes to their life, make it melodious. Allow them to dance. Let them play different games, to make them mentally & physically strong. We will end up directing blockbuster kid's life, that will be remembered forever!
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