STRUCTURE

‘’I like the Structure’’, ‘’focus more on the structure’’, ‘’you have the content but not the structure’’. These are some of the many instructions which we regularly receive from our esteemed writing professor. With due respect to his capabilities and dedication towards his students, I sometimes feel frustrated by his constant exhortations on the need to have a particular structure, and have started to wonder if the structure was all that is needed to judge anything. Yes anything and anyone, as that is what his criterion seems to be of judging almost anything.

Yesterday, while returning back with him on a metro train, we were chatting about anything which came across our way, when one of my friend spoke about his recent visit to Agra’s Taj Mahal, to which my professor said that '' Although, Taj is a great monument but he personally liked Delhi’s Red fort more, because, it has a certain structure''. I brushed this statement aside as his personal opinion and we moved further. I asked him about his most favorite city, to which his reply was ‘’I like big cities like New york, Paris and Los Angeles, in smaller cities I like London the most’’.

London,a small city. I quipped, ‘’are you talking about the same London which is the capital of Britain or some other American town’’? But indeed he was referring to London, the capital of Britain. Then i asked ‘’How come, London is a small city’’? ‘’He said because it looks small, its structure is not like New-York and Los Angeles’’.

Without caring to know the facts, he demoted one of the biggest cities of the world to a small city. I agree, London has a certain architecture which makes it more accessible and well connected, which gives an impression that it’s a small city, but the fact is London is as big as Paris if not NewYork.

These are some of the examples when too much of focus on structure makes you miss the real picture. His emphasis on structure is so intense that it seems to be bordering to obsession. But isn’t the society has also turned up just like that. More than the product, it’s the way you package your product that sells more. Gone are the days when movies used to revolve around a good script backed by strong acting and direction skills. Today, the way you market your movies through songs and dazzling sets often end up pulling the audience, at least for the initial couple of days, and these two days more than make up the entire production cost of the movie. But, does that mean the movie was great?

Same is the problem with media as well. From, being a mirror to the society, newspapers and news channels have become the dressing table of it, where the reader comes to make him happy and trendy. Can this momentary happiness be a substitute to the actual situation of this country, which the newspapers try to bury under the middle pages?

Coming back to our highly respected professor, on one occasion while teaching history of media he touched upon the subject of Iraq war. During the Iraq war how the Whitehouse packaged the myth about WMDs in a manner that the American public started into believing as if it was indeed a crusade.

 I guess structure of a product more so in a creative work is indeed important. But, too much of emphasis on structure at the cost of content could jeopardized the whole product.