Address and Interaction With Students of St. Berchmans College, Changanacherry

Creativity adds beauty to Human Life

I am delighted to address and interact with the students of schools of St. Berchmans College, Changanacherry. My greetings to the Principal, teachers and students of this college which has a unique tradition of making every student in the campus to be a success story. Your institution has been rightly accredited by NAAC as a college with potential for excellence. I would like to discuss the topic ?Creativity adds beauty to Human Life?

Creativity

I was thinking about creativity.

1. How it is created?

2. What is the source?

3. Is it genetic? Or

4. By learning, can it be created?

Dear Children, can you tell me three important events which happened during the last two centuries that changed the human life in this planet? Any one of you?

CHARLES DARWIN, who propounded the theory of ?Natural Selection?. He made us think differently about how the evolution of human being took place. Thomas Alva Edison, who invented electricity, which is, indeed revolutionized every field of science and technology and human life. Electricity is indeed the foundation for the growth of human life today. Mahatma Gandhi, whose Ahimsa Dharma movement against racial discrimination in South Africa and fought against British rule in India through non-violence. These three events of 20th century are the results of creative mind.

Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work. Like, Sir CV Raman looked at the sea and the sky, and questioned why the sea should be blue? This led to the birth of Raman Effect, he found the blue of the sea was due to the molecular scattering of light and was not a case of reflection of the sky in water as most people imagined.

One of the major breakthroughs in science in the 20th century that had an everlasting impact on the human kind is the most celebrated work of Einstein. Einstein explained, for the first time in 1905, the principle of the inertia of energy as a universal law. The famous energy equation E=MC2 was given to the world. This equation has become the basis for converting matter into energy ? giving birth to a new avenue called the nuclear energy for producing electricity to light up our cities and villages.

After this event, Einstein looked up to the space and saw millions and millions of galaxies and he noticed that we belong to one of the smallest galaxy. In the smallest galaxy, sun is the smallest star. In this smallest galaxy, we have 9 planets and the planet in which the human race lives is an insignificant planet. But yet we have all types of lives, including human life. This led to creative astronomers like Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler who had given a new dimension to the world of astronomy. Today we take it for granted that earth is a globe, orbiting around the sun, and the sun orbits in the Milky Way. We are not alone. Human race is not a unique race in the universe. All the technological advancements we have today are the outcome of scientific exploration of scientists of earlier centuries. At no time, man was beaten by problems. He strives continuously to subjugate impossibility and then succeeds.

Now I would like to talk to you about the Evolution of enriched societies.

Evolution of enriched societies

We have multiple societies in every nation starting from agricultural society, industrial society, and information society leading to knowledge society. During the 20th century, societies underwent a change from the agricultural society, where manual labour was the critical factor to the industrial society, where the management of technology, capital, and labour provided the competitive advantage. The information era was born in the last decade. Networking within the country and with the other nations and the software products drove the economies. Some of the nations including India utilized this opportunity. In this decade we are just entering into knowledge society era.

The uniqueness of knowledge society is enriching the information society with innovation and value addition of products. The knowledge also enables value addition to the other three societies. In knowledge society, knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital or labour. I would like to discuss with you how we can work together to make our societies enriched by knowledge and transforming them into knowledge society.

Knowledge can create a comprehensive wealth for the nation and also improve the quality of life, in the form of better health, education, infrastructure, and other societal needs. The ability to create and maintain a knowledge society infrastructure, develop the knowledge workers, and enhance their productivity through the creation, growth, and utilization of new knowledge, will be the key factor in deciding the prosperity of this knowledge society. Whether or not a nation has developed into a knowledge society is judged by the way, it creates and deploys knowledge in the sectors like ICT, Manufacturing, Agriculture, Services, Education and Healthcare.

Societal transformation

The whole purpose of education in a country like India is to develop and enhance the potential of our human resource and progressively transform it into a knowledge society. The knowledge society will be a society producing products and services that are rich in both explicit and tacit knowledge, thus creating value added products. The real capital of this knowledge society will be its knowledge workers. The society will be highly networked to create knowledge intensive environment along with enabling process to efficiently create, share, use and protect knowledge. Our education system should re-align itself at the earliest and promote creativity and innovation among youth and equip them with skills to participate in the societal transformation, since these characteristics will be needed in producing, finding innovative applications and marketing in a competitive environment. Kerala is the right place for creation of knowledge society since it has the highest literacy rate in the country.

Conclusion: Indomitable spirit and Forgiveness

I met a great personality who was responsible for the freedom of South Africa. He is none other than Dr. Nelson Mandela. Particularly for the young people, you can learn two big lessons from this personality. They are indomitable spirit and virtue of forgiveness.

Cape Town is famous for its Table Mountain; it has got three peaks called Table Peak, Devil Peak, and Fake Peak. Between the peaks it was a beautiful sight throughout the day, sometimes dark clouds and sometimes white clouds embracing the peaks. Table Mountain is very close to the sea coast of the Atlantic Ocean. We traveled by helicopter to Robben Island from Cape Town in 10 minutes by helicopter. It will take 30 minutes by powered boat to reach the Robben Island. When we reached the Island, except sea roaring, the whole island was silent symbolizing the thought: this is the place the freedom of individuals was chained. We were received at the Island by Mr. Ahmed Kathrada, a South African, who was a co-prisoner with Dr. Nelson Mandela. What surprised me was, in a tiny room where sleeping and all human needs have to be fulfilled. It has to be remembered that Dr. Nelson Mandela, who was 6 feet tall was imprisoned in that room for 26 years - fighting against the apartheid. The major part of his life was spent in this silent Island. He used to be taken for quarrying in the nearby mountain for a few hours in bright sun. This is the time his sight got damaged. In spite of his body being tortured he revealed to the world his indomitable spirit. This is the time he evolved a manuscript of freedom in tiny letters every day, when the jail wardens went to sleep. This small tiny lettered manuscript finally became the famous book of Mandela "A long walk to freedom".

It was a great event for me to meet him in his house in Johannesburg. Dear friends, I would like to share with you, when I entered Dr. Nelson Mandela?s house, I saw his three dimensional form with cheerfulness: the mighty man who got the freedom for South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid. And also a person when he became the President of South Africa he gave the people freedom to move, freedom to live in South Africa to those people who specialized in apartheid and ill-treated and put him the jail for 26 years. Dr. Nelson Mandela accepted them as equal citizens. I felt that I am touching the hand of a Mighty Soul. When he started walking he used to have a walking stick, he discarded the walking stick; I became his support - walking stick. Dear friends, a big lesson that we learnt from this personality Dr. Nelson Mandela which is explained in one of the Thirukkurals written 2200 years before.

which means, for those who do ill to you, the best punishment is to return good to them. I am sure that the students of this college can definitely learn the lessons taught by Dr. Nelson Mandela through his action.

My best wishes to Berchmans College, Changanacherry for success in their mission of promoting value based education to the students of this region.

Ten point oath for enlightened citizenship

1. I will love whatever profession I take up and I will try to excel in it.

2. From now onwards I will teach at least 10 persons to read and write those who cannot read and write.

3. I will plant ten saplings/trees and ensure their growth.

4. I will go to rural and urban areas to reform at least five persons from the habits of addiction and gambling.

5. I will take responsibility for removing the pain of ailing persons.

6. I will participate in the mission of realizing the economic strength of India by combining it with an education with value system and by transforming religion into a spiritual force.

7. I will not support any differentiation on account of community or language.

8. I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life.

9. I will always be a friend of the mentally and physically challenged and I will work hard to make them feel normal.

10. I will celebrate the success of my country and my people.

May God bless you.