When I was about ten years old, I witnessed something that has stayed with me for more than six decades.
It was the winter of 1964 in Srinagar.
Dal Lake had frozen solid during Chillai Kalan, Kashmir's harshest winter.
My aunt held my hand as we walked across the frozen lake. I still remember the excitement... and a little fear.
What if the ice cracked?
She had packed revdi (jaggery candy) and peanuts. Even today, that combination takes me back to that unforgettable morning.
Then I noticed a gentleman standing some distance away.
He was wearing a suit.
In his hand was a closed black umbrella.
At first, I wondered why he was carrying it on such a clear day.
Then I realised...
He wasn't using it as an umbrella.
He was using its pointed end as a stylus.
The frozen Dal Lake had become his canvas.
Facing the snow-clad Shankaracharya Hill and the majestic Himalayan peaks beyond, he was sketching the landscape directly onto the ice.
No paper.
No easel.
No limits.
Only imagination.
As a ten-year-old boy, I stood there fascinated.
I have forgotten countless things from my childhood.
I never forgot that artist.
Looking back today, I realise he wasn't just drawing a landscape.
He taught me a lesson without speaking a single word.
Creativity does not begin with better tools.
It begins when we learn to see familiar things differently.
A frozen lake became a canvas.
A closed umbrella became a pencil.
Perhaps that is what innovation has always been.
Not creating a new world...
but seeing new possibilities in the one already before us.
The accompanying image is an AI recreation based on one of my most vivid childhood memories of walking on the frozen Dal Lake in Srinagar during the winter of 1964.