I don’t know if you grew up in an age when everything was rationalised, white-washed and made politically correct — but we did not.
If our desks at home were left untidy, we were hauled out of the room, lined up in a row and given a lecture on how lucky we were to have rooms of our own and desks to sit at and work. “Don’t be a slob!” we were told. “Neaten up the mess and make sure that your marks in school justify all the luxuries you have been given!” We came away from the lecture subdued, but thankful that a spade had been called just a spade — not the ace of spades and not the entire deck of cards!
Work was no better — in a public sector bank less than a decade post nationalisation, in what is now known as Before the Computer Era. We did not have the luxury of a cubicle to ourselves or a table to call our own. When we went in each morning, we sat ourselves down where we were told and counted ourselves lucky if we came back to the same chair and the same table six days in a row. There was always someone on leave or someone on deputation for whom we had to “temp” — and there was no way we could do a slipshod job of it because we could not leave until the day book had tallied and everyone was sure there had been no mistakes made. (Having everyone stare exasperatedly at you at the end of a three-hour search for a scrambled number that caused the day book to go off kilter is a great way to settle pretentious egos. Let it happen three or four times in a row and you scramble to get whatever it is that you are doing right the first time ...)
A desk of our own to reflect our personalities took some time coming — and even then we couldn’t dare allow it to become a mess for fear of one missing voucher holding up everyone after office hours.
Therefore, to read recently that a cluttered desk reflects creativity and a clean one shows organisational skills set me thinking ...
When I had a clear desk I had no skills I can recall — only the extra energy to do all the tasks that were dumped on me and ensure that the desk was squeaky clean by end of day. With each passing year, however, as the storehouse of energy got depleted, things began to pile up and here I am today, with every surface around me a total mess — desk, chair, sofa — they are all buried under mountains of paper.
This should be a great environment for creative ideas to gush forth, shouldn’t it? All the raw material is there. Every scrap of inspirational paper, every address to send samples of my work to, every picture to build fancies on ...
Let me test out the theories, I decide. If a cluttered desk is the breeding ground of unconventional thinking, I should be able to create a whole new world with the shambles that surrounds me.
I look for pen and paper — but of course, I cannot find it in all that disarray. No matter, I tell myself. It is the new era of the computer. That’s all I need. So I turn it on but — uh-oh — I haven’t a clue where to sit. Do I plop atop the mess on the chair or do I toss it all aside? And if the clutter that stares me in the face disappears from sight will my inspiration remain? Will a clear space — something that I have not experienced in years — wipe out all thought and leave a blank mind?
Dare I risk it?
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.