FTCCI Members Learn the “Creative Way of Doing Business”

 Hyderabad: The Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FTCCI) conducted a day-long creative workshop, “Explore Your Creativity” at Red Hills, Lakdikapul, for art seekers, students, hobbyists and professionals.

Musician Jaywant Naidu, an FTCCI member himself, presented a paper on music, while B. P. Acharya, IAS (Retd.), Chief Advisor to FTCCI, cartoonist and poet, joined visual art expert Jyotiramaya Pattnayak, artist Manohar, choreographer Prithvi Raj of Steps Dance Studio and Kuchipudi dancer NSL Praveena in a live portrait exercise led by Pattnayak. The closing minutes had two final images, Pattnayak’s live sketch and Acharya’s cartoon of Donald Trump on American Independence Day.

“Empathy doesn’t come out without creativity. If you have to be empathetic, you have to understand somebody else’s issues and then you have to be creative,” said Acharya. He had shown an earlier TED talk on empathy in governance before speaking to the workshop. The talk came from his years in government and his experience of training nearly 2,000 officers. “Sympathy means feeling pity or feeling sad for somebody’s suffering. Empathy goes beyond that. It tells you to act beyond sympathy and see in what way you can help the person.”

Musician Naidu is the member who gave the workshop its main form. “We are trying to put together this creative event so that working professionals and students get an opportunity to understand how music, dance or visual arts can be a small part of their life,” Naidu said, adding that FTCCI had tried this format for the first time and wanted to take shorter versions to communities and corporates.

“In rhythm, there is mathematics. In one clap, you have two, three, four, five, six or seven,” he said, explaining his session. “When people speak or put out advertisements saying ‘come and learn,’ that is different. But when people personally experience an art form, it is very different.”

The visual art session replaced explanation with a task as Pattnayak made the audience attempt live portraits themselves. “A sense of art is needed everywhere. If you do not have a sense of art, even placing things properly in a house becomes difficult,” said Pattnayak.