Life’s important learnings often happen at strange places and it was in a Chinese restaurant that I picked up one myself. Waiting for the meal that evening, I watched with unabashed amusement the antics of two toddlers on the opposite table, each trying to negotiate a Bowl of soggy vegetable soup. The first kid, sitting on the lap of her mother, dipped a lean lemonade straw inside the bowl and tried desperately to sip in the thick solution. Repeated sucking of the straw placing it at varied angles only resulted in a flattened and collapsing pipe without a drop seeping into the mouth. And quickly learning from the unsuccessful attempt of his sibling, the second one thought differently and took a steel fork that’s placed on the table. He made valiant efforts to scoop out the soup with the fork only to find it leak out completely and the child ended up licking the metal instead of drinking the liquid. The mother, giggling at the predicament of the kids, lovingly placed melamine spoons in each of the bowls and the children relished the delicacy with mouthfuls of the soup with its solid contents, eating them with the spoon.

Observing an artist at work later on, I gauged with greater clarity the importance of using the right tool to achieve the desired result. The artist, while painting the portrait of a celebrity model, deployed slender brush and finer strokes to capture the delicate contours of the human anatomy and preferred lighter shades to enliven the nuanced expression of her eyes. But to depict the sweeping drapery and the flowing tress of the woman, he choose broader brush and bolder strokes  and bestowed a casual and carefree attitude to the lady’s persona. The one underlying principle that guided his artistic creation is appropriateness. 

Appropriateness is pretty common sense that we have imbibed subconsciously with regard to our interactions with the innate objects. But that it is the technique that stands as the fine differentiator between effectiveness and otherwise in all inter-human engagements, struck me hard while watching a football match soon after. In the game, the demanding tasks of dribbling and the advancing the ball, outsmarting the opponent and scoring the goals are entrusted to the most agile and the versatile players while the less mobile and inherently defensive play at the back. Though, as members of the team, all the eleven have significant and near-equal roles to accomplish, it’s only when the position of individual player is mapped to his demonstrated skill that the team has a whole stand to benefit. A Lionel Messi playing at the sweeper position would never have become the soccer genius of lightning speed that he celebrated as nor a Cristiano Ronaldo a mesmerising demolisher, ripping through the opponent’s defence had he played as a wing-backer. The already inherent skills are unleashed when avenues are offered and it is never that opportunities presented make a person skilful. 

Yet, historically, it is the failure to acknowledge the genius of some of the brightest human minds and confer them appropriate place in society that has led to great losses to humanity. Socrates was administered the poisonous hemlock for his allegiance to true knowledge and Galileo was put to solitary confinement for declaring the appropriate places of the Earth and the Sun. And Einstein, instead of being honoured for his path-breaking discovery of the relation between mass and energy, was banished from Germany for lifetime. He went to US and joined the Princeton University, and the rest, it is said, is Modern Physics. The defeat of Germany in the World War II could be, to a large degree, linked to losing its scientific community.

While inappropriate allocation of tasks may largely confine to ineffectiveness, not putting the right  resource at the correct place in some cases could produce dangerous dysfunction and might positively be harmful. One of my friends has converted his helmet as a make-shift bag firmly mounted on to his motorbike… and he whizzes on the machine wearing a cowboy hat!! 

Another one participated in a Marathon run with slippers on while a pair of his sneakers was safely secured in his backpack!!  All to avoid a sweaty feet!

BTW try chewing a gooseberry with incisors and you would know what appropriateness truly is!

Yours

Narayanan