Indian Renaissance

[zen]

Needs to happen .... We need folks to write some great books (which get translated to different languages), paint some great pictures, create new ideas (not of cost saving), go clean and grean, create great archicture, make some great films that everyone around the world wants to see either dubbed or w/ subtitles, create great original music From what I recall, one in every 6th person walking the planet is of Bharatiya origin but I don't see much contribution towards arts and culture .... Is this something that needs to be developed at the school level? Ind needs to develop a culture where creativity is promoted and encouraged For example: when you think of countries like - Brazil ----> You hear Samba beats in your brains and visualize someone going past 3-4 players w/ excellent footwork and score a goal - Italy ----> Fashion, High end sports cars, Da Vinci, Great Architecture, Football Yes we are good at math and making softwares. We speak decent enough English for the English speaking countries to set up their customer service call centers but we (as a community) need to be more than that. We need to be a force in arts and engineering. we need to be a research and development super power. All these probably happen when you have a culture that promotes creativity and encourages you to bring your true self out.

[Yoda-esque]

Needs to happen .... We need folks to write some great books (which get translated to different languages), paint some great pictures, create new ideas (not of cost saving), go clean and grean, create great archicture, make some great films that everyone around the world wants to see either dubbed or w/ subtitles, create great original music From what I recall, one in every 6th person walking the planet is of Bharatiya origin but I don't see much contribution towards arts and culture .... Is this something that needs to be developed at the school level? Ind needs to develop a culture where creativity is promoted and encouraged For example: when you think of countries like - Brazil ----> You hear Samba beats in your brains and visualize someone going past 3-4 players w/ excellent footwork and score a goal - Italy ----> Fashion, High end sports cars, Da Vinci, Great Architecture, Football Yes we are good at math and making softwares. We speak decent enough English for the English speaking countries to set up their customer service call centers but we (as a community) need to be more than that. We need to be a force in arts and engineering. we need to be a research and development super power. All these probably happen when you have a culture that promotes creativity and encourages you to bring your true self out.

Great post.The last that India was at the forefront of arts ,science and education was.......4th century AD

[zen]

Those teenagers wasting their time on internet, may be can use that time for something more meaningful like: 1. Write a story, may be a graphic novel 2. Draw/Paint something, learn it 3. Take some great pictures 4. Take a video camera and try to make a short film about something 5. Play Lego with your little siblings so they could learn to be creative as well 6. Play some musical instrument 7. Take singing classes 8. Try to create something out of the junk in your house 9. Preach about going clean and green There is more to life than focusing on getting good grades and dancing to bollywood tunes at weddings, festival and clubs .... I understand you need good grades to get into a field like research and development or be a doctor but you could do the above as a hobby and try to develop a creative culture and encourage creativity :icflove:

[akshayxyz]

The Renaissance was a European cultural movement spanning the 14th to the 17th century. Renaissance is not some 5 year or 10 year 'planned' movement. If one just takes care of his/her 'areas of influence' - i.e. children or students/followers (if you are a teacher/professor/leader) in life and at work place - pass on the right values and ethics - and it is bound to happen in long term, barring the setbacks due to wars/terrorism or other disasters. In fact, we are already going through one, it is just that we cant expect to see the 'effects' on daily basis. For a given set of people - 'renaissance' is nothing but natural progression towards top layer of: [Maslow's Hierarchy of needs] and ground reality is, as a country, majority of us are still in the process of crossing bottom layers. There is small fragment of people who are already there at the top layer. And they have responsibility of guide the people below them and thus facilitate the 'renaissance' at bigger level.

[Yoda-esque]

The Renaissance was a European cultural movement spanning the 14th to the 17th century. Renaissance is not some 5 year or 10 year 'planned' movement. You just take care of your 'areas of influence' - i.e. children or students/followers (if you are a teacher/professor/leader) in life and at work place - pass on the right values and ethics - and it is bound to happen in long term, barring the setbacks due to wars/terrorism. In fact, we are already going through one, it is just that we cant expect to see the 'effects' on daily basis. For a given set of people - 'renaissance' is nothing but natural progression towards top layer of: and ground reality is, as a country, majority of us are still in the process of crossing bottom layers. There is small fragment of people who are already there at the top layer. And they have responsibility of guide the people below them and thus facilitate the 'renaissance' at bigger level.

Thats Maslow's model , isn't it?

[akshayxyz]

^ of course. Sorry for missing out on the reference. edited.

[akshayxyz]

I am big fan of this model. Very simplistic and answers lots of questions.

[retterimp]

brilliant OP. its telepathy, because i was thinking about the exact thing this morning! we're very good at making money, and produce great businessmen, but my theory is that they're good at keeping costs in check and leveraging the huge consumer base, rather than innovating and redefining a particular consumer space in the world. that needs to change. we need engineers who can innovate and establish world renowned brands. the hordes of engineers we produce(including myself) have done almost nothing of note, we're just happy living a decent lifestyle in foreign lands, and sending money back home. but this is because we're stuck in the "Safety" zone in the pyramid above. It will take decades to rise out of that zone since we're too concerned right now with roti-kapda-makaan, but I'm sure we've the genes collectively to match and exceed what happened in Europe. The fact that we invented the number system which is the basis of all science, math and logic today gives me hope.

[zen]

The Renaissance was a European cultural movement spanning the 14th to the 17th century. Renaissance is not some 5 year or 10 year 'planned' movement. If one just takes care of his/her 'areas of influence' - i.e. children or students/followers (if you are a teacher/professor/leader) in life and at work place - pass on the right values and ethics - and it is bound to happen in long term, barring the setbacks due to wars/terrorism or other disasters. In fact, we are already going through one, it is just that we cant expect to see the 'effects' on daily basis. For a given set of people - 'renaissance' is nothing but natural progression towards top layer of: [Maslow's Hierarchy of needs] and ground reality is, as a country, majority of us are still in the process of crossing bottom layers. There is small fragment of people who are already there at the top layer. And they have responsibility of guide the people below them and thus facilitate the 'renaissance' at bigger level.

From your post, I don't think you understood what's being discussed here, esp. the use of Maslow's theory and statement like "If one just takes care of his/her 'areas of influence' - i.e. children or students/followers (if you are a teacher/professor/leader) in life and at work place - pass on the right values and ethics - and it is bound to happen in long term, barring the setbacks due to wars/terrorism or other disasters. In fact, we are already going through one, it is just that we cant expect to see the 'effects' on daily basis." appear to be out of place. A rich community helps for the type of rebirth that I am taking about (see OP for details), like it would for just abt anything, but it is the artist and the availability of such artist that fuels this rebirth. There are cases where an artist, a painter for example, lives in poverty only to see his painting being sold at premium after his death. The desire to be artistic comes from within. My emphasis is on that, i.e. having an enviornment that drives people to be their true selves and are encouraged to pursue art. Take Bollywood for example, it is a rich commnunity (comparitively), but is it creative enough? Going by the Maslow model, it should be churning out some very original work of art but most of the stuff from bollywood is copied material. This may be a case of business minded ness taking over the artist, which is not what should be happeneing for a rebirth. Rebirth is not caused by people simply doing whatever they do faithfully in the area of their influence but by performing artistic activities. Renaissance in Europe started in Italy not because it had wealth but because it had artistits. The wealth helped encourage the artists but it was not a pre-requiste for fostering growth. To have artists, you need to develop a culture that encourages art, creativity and innovation. Once you have that, wealth can be used as an encouragement. Another point against your Maslow theory is the culture in the subcontinent has been in existence since centuries. We may be a new nation but we are not a new culture. And as someone pointed out the last India (the subcontinent) was at the forefront of arts, science and education was a long long time ago.

[zen]

brilliant OP. its telepathy' date= because i was thinking about the exact thing this morning! we're very good at making money, and produce great businessmen, but my theory is that they're good at keeping costs in check and leveraging the huge consumer base, rather than innovating and redefining a particular consumer space in the world. that needs to change. we need engineers who can innovate and establish world renowned brands. the hordes of engineers we produce(including myself) have done almost nothing of note, we're just happy living a decent lifestyle in foreign lands, and sending money back home. but this is because we're stuck in the "Safety" zone in the pyramid above. It will take decades to rise out of that zone since we're too concerned right now with roti-kapda-makaan, but I'm sure we've the genes collectively to match and exceed what happened in Europe. The fact that we invented the number system which is the basis of all science, math and logic today gives me hope.

Well, we have similar usernames (first four letters) so I can understand the telepathy :P Let me talk about Isreal here. The country has been at war and fighting for its existence since its inception but it is probably the one of the most (if not the most) innovative places in the world. I have read/heard that most of the mission critical R&D work takes place in Israel, while countries like India usually do the service work like customer service. The intel chips, for example, are designed in Israel, iirc. Every time Intel is in trouble it looks towards its Israeli R&D team. If you look at the number of start-up companies, i won't be surprised if Israel has one of the highest percentages based on population. I even read that Isreal was the first country that made plans to go Oil free (to not give benefits to its oil producing neighbors). I guess, they are also building wide spread charging stations for electric cars. People say that if you want new ideas go to Israel! The point being that something seems to be lacking in our culture that's not pushing us hard enough to be creative.

[gs]

brilliant OP. its telepathy, because i was thinking about the exact thing this morning! we're very good at making money, and produce great businessmen, but my theory is that they're good at keeping costs in check and leveraging the huge consumer base, rather than innovating and redefining a particular consumer space in the world. that needs to change. we need engineers who can innovate and establish world renowned brands. the hordes of engineers we produce(including myself) have done almost nothing of note, we're just happy living a decent lifestyle in foreign lands, and sending money back home. but this is because we're stuck in the "Safety" zone in the pyramid above. It will take decades to rise out of that zone since we're too concerned right now with roti-kapda-makaan, but I'm sure we've the genes collectively to match and exceed what happened in Europe. The fact that we invented the number system which is the basis of all science, math and logic today gives me hope.

Excellent OP!! It really bothers me that we as a civilization have not contributed anything noteworthy in the last several decades (centuries?) to art and science. Our education system must be seriously impaired in that case!! As someone mentioned earlier, the gurukula system produced some geniuses in the earlier centuries of this millenia. Art and science are not two isolated fields. One influences the other. Art leads to innovation which leads to scientific inventions and vice versa. Just to quote a simple example, an Apple iphone is as much a piece of art as a scientific marvel.

[zen]

From what I understand, schools and businesses in India are open 6 days a week. This iprobably shows where more emphasis is being laid. Why not give 2 days off to pursue your hobby or do something else. A kid going to school for 6 days in a week is more likely to be working in some office doing mundane work when he grows up. And then he/she has tuitions on top of that. There is a need to promote arts and sports in schools. Education should be more practical rather than mostly theoritical. People take pride in knowing that their kids can say multiplication table till that of 20 but there is less outside that like has the kid created a model plane or car. What musical instrument is he playing? The list goes on.

[kabira]

^things are changing. Lot of schools are focusing on creative thinking, lateral thinking. So things will get better. But our government should also focus on research and even big companies should set up R&Ds.

[coffee_rules]

Why is it important for Indian art and culture to be appreciated globally to prove itself? There are a lot of achievers in art and litreture that others don't understand, doesn't mean it's not valuable.

[zen]

^things are changing. Lot of schools are focusing on creative thinking, lateral thinking. So things will get better. But our government should also focus on research and even big companies should set up R&Ds.

Good to know that .... I have read abt how (his style) Aristotle taught his students including Alexander the great. May be that's one of the good ways to teach and learn as well.

[Yoda-esque]

How is it that we were at the forefront of all disciplines during the gupta reign? Sample this : Astronomy,Math,geometry,chemistry,surgery,architecture,learning. I guess its got to do with the govt as well..whenever there has been great governance a country has always risen up..

[zen]

Excellent OP!! It really bothers me that we as a civilization have not contributed anything noteworthy in the last several decades (centuries?) to art and science. Our education system must be seriously impaired in that case!! As someone mentioned earlier, the gurukula system produced some geniuses in the earlier centuries of this millenia. Art and science are not two isolated fields. One influences the other. Art leads to innovation which leads to scientific inventions and vice versa. Just to quote a simple example, an Apple iphone is as much a piece of art as a scientific marvel.

Good points!

[zen]

How is it that we were at the forefront of all disciplines during the gupta reign? Sample this : Astronomy,Math,geometry,chemistry,surgery,architecture,learning. I guess its got to do with the govt as well..whenever there has been great governance a country has always risen up..

yup, Govt role is important, esp. in shaping up the education system where the focus is on striking a good balance .... In school, we usually have a cramming culture where we forgot almost everything once the exams are over and since we spend 6 days in school, there isn't much time for hobbies Another major area is R&D and engineering, I don't know what incentives the Indian govt. is taking but we usually see old technology in India whether its trains or manufacturing or probably even military. There are so many areas where we need to invest be it energy sector, infrastructure, modernizing our manufacturing process, reducing pollution, cleaning up and building up the water resources, etc. Coming back to promoting Art, iirc, countries like Ireland had abolished income tax on income earned from art. That made a lot of artist settle in Ireland but I don't know if this move helped more people to take art in Ireland :P .... But never the less, the invent was there to promote art as an occupation Indian families need to wake up and encourage their children to be creative and innovative, strike a balance b/w art and science

[yoda]

You cannot be what you are not. You are what you are! If you change yourself to portray who you are, then you become something different from who you really are. Trying to emulate the west is the worst thing we can do if we want to maintain our own identity, unfortunately that's the path we are taking.

[punjabi_khota]

Well, we have similar usernames (first four letters) so I can understand the telepathy :P Let me talk about Isreal here. The country has been at war and fighting for its existence since its inception but it is probably the one of the most (if not the most) innovative places in the world. I have read/heard that most of the mission critical R&D work takes place in Israel, while countries like India usually do the service work like customer service. The intel chips, for example, are designed in Israel, iirc. Every time Intel is in trouble it looks towards its Israeli R&D team.

No. It happens in the US. This is just blind Israel worshipping. Something like a disease widespread in Indians.

If you look at the number of start-up companies, i won't be surprised if Israel has one of the highest percentages based on population. I even read that Isreal was the first country that made plans to go Oil free (to not give benefits to its oil producing neighbors). I guess, they are also building wide spread charging stations for electric cars. People say that if you want new ideas go to Israel! The point being that something seems to be lacking in our culture that's not pushing us hard enough to be creative.

Electric stations for charging vehicles . This idea is about 30 years old.