CREATIVITY IN ACTION IN INDIA

CREATIVE CHENNAI COPS AND OTHER STORIES

My creativity guru and I have always felt that if bureaucrats who are notoriously procedural are trained to think creatively they will outshine private sector executives in generating useful ideas.

CREATIVE CHENNAI COPS AND OTHER STORIES

This was borne out last week in Chennai. The New year’s eve is usually a time of heightened tension and alert anywhere in the world and Chennai is no exception. Drunken driving, rash motorists, accidents are said to be the norm. The knee jerk response of the police is to stand at vantage points and test car drivers for alcohol .The tipsy ones are fined and even harassed by the police . This is so routine as to be boring to read about .The Chennai police did something totally unexpected. They stopped vehicles and when the driver tested positive for alcohol the cop kindly requested the driver to give him the phone number of a friend .The cop would then ring up the friend and request him to come over and drive the drunk man home safely !!THE RESULT—NOT ONE ACCIDENT WAS REPORTED DURING THE NEW YEAR REVELRY.

Several years ago I came across another instance of creative thinking on the part of civil servants. The Tamilnadu government had constructed thousands of toilets for the poor adjoining their slums. To everybody’s shock the poor people refused to use these spanking toilets and instead preferred their kids to use the streets—as usual A creative civil servant then hit upon a bright idea. He argued that poor people, especially women, like to have a clear view of their kid doing the job and the ‘ modern’ toilets denied them the satisfaction and safety of viewing their kids. THE DESIGN OF THE TOLIETS WAS ALTERED AND PRESTO—It worked.

The Tsunami devastated many parts of south Tamilnadu .It was found a few weeks later that the affected people preferred to send their kids to a private school that charged fees and avoided municipal schools that were free. Flummoxed, a team visited the people around Nagapattinam to understand this ‘ bizarre’ preference. A creative civil servant out thought the routine civil servants and arrived at the root cause of this thinking—the private school was on the same side of the road as the huts of the devastated people whereas the municipal school involved the kids crossing a street with heavy traffic. The tsunami affected families had lost their all including a few kids and were not about to lose their only kid to a fast moving truck. Hence the preference for a private school.

I offer through this column to conduct FREE workshops on LATERAL THINKING to civil servants including the I.A.S. anywhere in the country.

To end on a humorous note the following incident was reported in the local humour pages. On new year’s eve in a city in India a man was fumbling his way into his car late at night. He was wobbly, put the key into the car’s keyhole the wrong way, was entering the car on the wrong side and all- in- all it was obvious to the cop standing nearby that this was a clear case of Driving- under- the- Influence of alcohol. The cop walked up to him, helped him out of the car and tested him. The result ? NO alcohol whatsoever! Shocked, the cop asked him why he had been wobbly when he had not imbibed any drink.

The man replied ‘Sir I outsmarted you .Even as you were watching and then testing me many of my drunk friends drove past you’ ,

Creativity indeed !

K.R.RAVI

WWW.KRRAVI.COM