My right brain was late in coming of age. I started writing at the age of 60. My first book was published in 2019, followed by two more books. Later, I also started writing articles. I was confused. I thought my personal and professional life required me to take rational decisions. I felt that, as the man of the house, I was responsible to take care of the family. My professional life was spent working first as a technocrat and then a senior corporate executive in leadership roles. I considered the left-brained analytical and logical thinking to be the two important aspects for sound decision-making. I could not have been more wrong.

In my earlier years, I, like many others of my generation from the middle class, attributed our lack of creativity to the way our parents made us think along pre-set notions about our career choices. I also insisted upon my daughters to pursue science till their Boards. I agree that our professional studies and career choices were guided by parents. However, it is also true that we did not pause to reflect, even occasionally, about additionally doing something different, except for a game of cards, or a cricket match, or badminton in the club. We were comfortable in the routine. It is only after four decades of our married life that my wife has started looking at other creative options like taking up teacher training in schools for underprivileged children, or learning pottery, or even renewing her earlier interest in painting. The routine also pervades our social life.

My brother-in-law, younger cousin, and I, all in the railway services, did not realise that we had also fallen in the trap, till the time I came to know that my younger brother hesitated to join us in family gatherings as he could not relate to the railway topics under discussion. I find that even my father and younger uncle tend to mostly indulge in talks about the department they retired from almost four decades ago. Most of the time, the social conversation amongst the males turns towards the professional.

The females talk about their household, the children, the recipes. We structure our brains along a straight line, the same way that our elders handed it down, letting the more rational left brain overcome the creativity that we might have harboured. The children are different.We three children used to go out for post-dinner daily walk with our parents. My sister, the youngest, was only 5.

She would be happily telling one story or the other, that we had not read, nor had it been narrated to us by elders. Everyone thought that she would turn a storyteller in later years. It was not to be. Somewhere along the way, she lost that creativity to the monotony of life. I find that her granddaughter is blooming into a confident 7-year-old after joining school, from a shy little child just a couple of years back. She creates numerous games during family gatherings. My daughters also successfully thwarted my efforts. The elder one first opened a preschool and now a start-up on mental health through shared group journeys, and the younger one is a practising lawyer.

Both need a perfect mix of the right and the left brain. They also attend workshops on other creative arts. Few experts say that the concept of the brain having two parts — the logical left and the creative right — is a myth. We use the brain in totality. There could be some truth in this. Almost all our decisions are a mix of logic, analytical thinking, and a creative out-of-box thinking.

Children learn it intuitively. The compelling logic that children put forward with the entire armoury of creativity at their disposal once they have set their minds to possess something is a work of beauty. It is the adults who get illogical when refusing them the object of their desire without offering any explanation. It is this balance that is required to be nurtured by us.

That would be our legacy. We are not perfect; but we can strive to attain the balance between the logical and the creative. The world would be a better place for humanity, if we permit our analytical thoughts and actions to be tempered by the creative empathy and compassion towards all.

(The author worked as electrical engineer with the Indian Railways and conducts classes in creative writing)