Experiences in late childhood and early adulthood stick fast and long like cyanoacrylate, and would sometimes go on to be fodder for creativity. That is plain, observed logic. But if you are a pedant given to swallowing something only if it arrives with a saccharine coating of high-sounding concepts, here they are for you.
‘Schema Theory’ and ‘Reminiscence Bump’, both from psychology, explain this form of creativity. A 38-year-old architect displaying no signs of pedantry, M. Dilli Babu explains his creation artistique as plainly as possible in any human language. “What I saw as a child I have recreated.”
What did he see?
Garbage being picked by carts drawn by oxen. At panchayats in distinctly rural settings, around three decades ago, one could expect garbage being gathered in a cart pulled by an ox. Manimangalam now might be in the peri-urban bracket, but is still a village panchayat in administrative terms, and back when Dilli Babu was a child, draft animals, precisely oxen, would have been on the conservancy team.
A functional garbage bin. | Photo Credit: Prince Frederick
