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        Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his masterpiece of a book titled 'Creativity' starts with the question: 'What is creativity?' According to him creativity is some sort of mental activity, an insight that occurs inside the heads of some special people. But this assumption is misleading. If he means by creativity any new idea or action that is valuable, then we cannot simply accept without scrutiny or question a person's own account of the criterion for its existence. There is no way of knowing whether a thought is new or a concept is new except with reference to some known and accepted standards and there is no way of declaring whether it is valuable until it passes the test of social evaluation. Therefore, creativity does not happen inside people's heads, but in the interaction between a person's thoughts and the socio-cultural context. It is a systemic rather than an individual phenomenon. Creativity brings into existence something genuinely new that is valued or becomes valuable enough to be added to the culture of a nation and its society.

        The term 'creativity' is a very generic term and covers a very vast ground. It refers to very different entities, thus causing a great deal of confusion. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that there are at least three different types of phenomena that can legitimately be called by the name of creativity. The first usage, widespread in day to day conversation, refers to persons who are interesting and stimulating - in short, to people who seem to be extraordinarily clever or agile or bright. One noted for his brilliant conversation, a man with varied interests and a swooping mind, may be called 'creative' in this sense. The point to be noted is that unless they contribute something of permanent significance, it is better to refer to people of this kind as 'brilliant' rather than 'creative'.

        In the second usage, the term 'creativity' can be used to refer to individuals who experience the world in new, original, novel and untrodden ways. Their perceptions are fresh, judgements are insightful, who may make important discoveries that only they know about. In view of the highly subjective nature of this form of creativity, it becomes difficult to deal with it in a methodical manner for communication no matter how important it is for those who experience it.

        The third use of the term refers to great men of destiny like Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) or Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who have changed our culture in some important or vital respect. They are the creative ones without qualifications. By virtue of the fact that their achievements are by definition 'Public', it is easier to record or write about them.

        Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi declares with conviction that whereas some of the people who have had the greatest impact on history did not show any originality or brilliance in their behaviour, except for the accomplishments they left behind. He says that Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most creative persons in the third sense of the term outlined above, was apparently reclusive and almost compulsive in his behaviour. If you had met him at a cocktail party, you would have thought that he was a tiresome bore and would have left him standing in a corner as soon as possible. To quote the clinching words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in this context: 'Neither Isaac Newton nor Thomas Alva Edison would have been considered assets at a party either, and outside of their scientific concerns they appeared colourless and driven. The biographers of outstanding creators struggle valiantly to make their subjects interesting and brilliant, yet more often than not their efforts are in vain. The accomplishments of a Michelangelo (1475-1564), a Beethoven (1770-1827), a Picasso (1881-1973), or an Einstein (1879-1955) are awesome in their respective fields - but their private lives, their every day ideas and actions, would seldom warrant another thought were it not that their specialised accomplishments made everything they said or did of interest'.

        What are the traits that distinguish 'creative people'? If we have to put it in one word, what makes their creative personalities different from others, we have to call it 'Complexity'. By this I mean they show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contrary extremes - instead of being an 'Individual', each of them is a 'Multitude'. Like the colour white that includes all the hues in the spectrum, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. The great American biographer Carl Sandburg's (1878-1967) description of the personality of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) becomes very relevant in this context: 'Not often in the story of mankind does a man like Abraham Lincoln arrive on earth, who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect'. We can say the same thing about all great 'creative individuals' who have influenced world history, world culture and world civilization.

        We can illustrate in terms of ten pairs of antithetical traits that are often present in creative individuals. In such human beings these opposing traits are seen integrated with each other in a dialectical tension. Firstly, creative individuals have a great deal of tireless physical energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest. They work for long hours with great concentration, while projecting an aura of freshness and enthusiasm. Secondly, creative individuals tend to be smart and also naïve at the same time. Thirdly, we notice in creative individuals the extraordinary combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility. Fourthly, creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy at one end and a rooted sense of reality at the other. Both are necessary to break away from the present without losing touch with the past. Albert Einstein wrote an essay in which he said that art and science are two of the greatest forms of escape from reality that humans have devised. Great art and science involve a leap of imagination into a world that is different from the present. The rest of society often views these ideas as fantasies without relevance to current reality. The whole purpose of art and science is to go beyond what we now consider as real, and create a new reality.

        Fifthly, creative people seem to harbour opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion. Sixthly, creative individuals are remarkably humble and proud at the same time. They are aware of the fact that they stand, in Isaac Newton's words: 'On the shoulders of giants'. Seventhly, creative individuals to a great extent escape the rigid Male and Female gender stereotyping. When tests of masculinity/ femininity are given to young people, over and over again it has been noticed that creative and talented girls are 'more dominant' and 'tough' than other girls; and creative boys are 'more sensitive' and ''less aggressive' than their male peers. Eighthly, creative people are often found to be both 'traditional' and 'conservative' on the one hand and at the same time 'rebellious' and 'iconoclastic' on the other. Ninthly, most creative persons are capable of being both 'passionate' about their work and at the same time being extremely 'objective' about it as well. Lastly, the 'openness' and 'sensitivity' of creative individuals exposes them to 'suffering and pain' yet also a great deal of 'enjoyment'.

        These ten pairs of contrasting personality traits seem to be the most telling characteristics of creative people. All great creative people often describe the auto telic aspects of their work in terms of exhilaration that comes from the pursuit of truth and of beauty. They seem to describe the joy of discovery, of solving a problem, of being able to express an observed relationship in a simple and elegant form. For them, it is the 'pursuit' that counts, not the 'attainment'. Of course, this distinction may seem to be misleading because without occasional successes, any scientist can also get discouraged.

        According to Nobel Laureate Physist Subramanyan Chandrasekar (1910-1995), what makes science intrinsically rewarding is the everyday practice, not the rare or uncertain success. To quote his brilliant words describing his own motivation: 'There are two things about me which people generally don't know. I have never worked in anything which is glamorous in any sense. That is point number one. Point number two: I have always worked in areas which, during the time I have worked on them, did not attract attention. The word 'success' is an ambiguous word. 'Success' with respect to the outside? Of success with respect to oneself? And if it is a success with respect to the outside, then how do you evaluate it? Very often outside success is irrelevant, wrong and misplaced. So, how can one think about it? Externally you may think I am successful because people write about some aspects of my work. But that is an external judgement. And I have no idea as to how to value that judgement. Success is not one of my motives. Because success stands in contrast to failure. But no worthwhile effort in one's life is either a success or a failure. What do you mean by success? You take a problem and you want to solve it. Well, if you solve it, in a limited sense it is success. But it may be a trivial problem. So, a judgement about success is not something about which I have ever been serious about in any sense whatsoever.'

        A great and creative scientist like Chandrasekar does not study nature only because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing and life would not be worth living. Such men seek the intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts and which a pure intelligence can grasp.