Onion enlightenment

Sometimes I ask myself, am I doing what I want to. Is it the right thing to do? All I do is stare into a piece of paper, draw a few lines and move onto the next sheet as if my work had no soul.

“Raj!”

Someone called out my name with anger, an anger which was on par with Zeus’s thunder. I woke up from my day dream and looked around to see who it was. I saw my editor marching up to me, he always had issues with my caricatures, drawings and my interpretations.

“You were asked to draw two men discussing about the price rise of vegetables, instead you draw an onion being worshiped in a temple!”

I was staring in disbelief and asked, “Isn’t that more interesting, than to see two people talk about price rise? I thought it would be comical without losing its juice”.

“Remember, you came to me for the job, I gave it to you so that you could make some money. Don’t try to be over-creative, just draw what I have in my head. That’s your job”. He tossed my creativity into the bin and walked away.

I was indifferent rather than feeling disappointed. This wasn’t the first time he had such a comment to make and it surely wouldn’t be the last. I was staring at the busy street, happened to see a street artist at a distance. I walked to what he had sketched on the road and began to laugh at the sight of it. This man like everyone else was affected by what was most important to him. I introduced myself as the artist of the daily paper, and appreciated his imaginative way of depicting price rise by sketching the supreme lord Ganesha worshiping the vegetables.

He asked me, “Is there anyway I can get a job in your daily paper using this drawing?”

I thought for a while and asked him. “Which is more important to you? Money or your creative thinking?”

“My creative thinking of course! The money I make through this is sufficient”, was his reply.

I smiled, tossed a five rupee coin to him and walked away from my office for good.

Tagged: creative, enlightenment, jobs

Posted in: I WRITE