Editorial
Creativity is internal, and it derives material from the inner and the outside worlds from where a creative artist hauls out predetermined import. A mystical suggestion it is. It carries social, economic and historical background while culture and heritage continue to exercise imperceptible pressure. Creative puzzles inside hardly ever divulge what these contain before scrambling for expressions indefinite and still known begins and disturbs. Its province is vast, unmeasured and even strange to the creator, who holds it within and outside as well. It becomes recognizable the moment indistinct sketches appear. One attempts to understand its import and origin. One knows it is imaginative and a mere fantasy at first as if a dream, but then, actualities beleaguer.
It happens when one writes or attempts to create a work of art at random without purpose, and still, one feels that adequate inspiration works in the background. It may be some incident or conflict of no substance but if one goes back, one is the spectator of several unique scenarios. Formed in the air indistinct faces or images, these are and one is casually, and thereafter, seriously led to challenging alliance of an intellectual who is in search of his terrain of ‘the self’ in alien districts.
Dr D. Khetarpal is a compulsive creator. He undertakes journey to the unidentified, and thereafter, creates immense uproar in fresh and new lexis, new thoughts, and constructs something hitherto foreign. He shares experiences of words and their meanings. It is an awesome strange land of creativity and a lethal assault on earlier concepts. He displays it in ‘PLACEBO –-the worlds of pain, religion, mysticism and medicine.’ He often spoke of ‘Creativity …’ of a unique bouquet of frightening but engaging thoughts and the result is obvious.
An intellectual and mystical journey into weird lands of experiences fascinates a searching mind. I find these attributes in a genuine author in adequate measure and he is one such author.
A creative venture restricts words or phrases of art, and consequently, fails to communicate the actual experience and thought. What one visualizes is unrivaled in perception but when the creator employs language, it limits and restricts. Language is the choice of the right word, idiom or lexis of particular artwork suitable to the subject. However, one is led to conclude that the creator ought to be conscious of the limitations of the language of art. It drives to resurrect evocative goings-on inside. It gratifies, and obviously, the struggle for expression begins, and so a search for suitable language is essential.
At this stage, to gauge experience is not only difficult but also impractical largely. Experience changes as margins restrict every moment or expand giving fresh connotations when one turns to the inner world. Experience in essence motivates creation, and it carries the burden of heritage and civilization. Understanding of ‘the self’ does not recognize class, category, creed or caste –a land of no ‘isms’ it is. It is sovereign and secular touching borders of collective insight. Its interpretation touches universal consciousness and covers people uniformly with trivial distinctions in degree and merit. Simple it appears to say and so, creativity should recognize limitations.
At this moment, one reflects on mystifying destiny and thinks that the modern psyche is living in convoluted patterns where a man endeavors to find the nature of his culture and heritage under severe attack from expanding knowledge, which is spurious in fragments. To locate roots of the real spirit of man is a huge problem. Multi-dimensional encounters appear definite when a man looks around and feels upset. A sort of quickness has entered life as artificial intelligence assaults with tremendous power. Is man moving away from the spirit of inquisitiveness and self-search? It appears man is gradually marching towards fanatic and opinionated culture of vile prejudice, ego and arrogance. It needs avoidance, and instead a man requires culture of warm relations…a silent objective.
PCK Prem Chairman