Ever since I can remember, people have been admiring art from afar and frowning at it from near. They have been visiting exquisite museums to ogle at the Mona Lisas and the Last Suppers, but throw a tantrum when their own sixteen-year-old girl decides to pursue a course in BFA.

They have been visiting exquisite museums to ogle at the Mona Lisas and the Last Suppers, but throw a tantrum when their own sixteen-year-old girl decides to pursue a course in BFA. They have been attending rock concerts, paying horrendous amounts of money for the tickets, but struggle to reach for their wallets when their ten-year-old gets a crew cut and asks for a guitar. And they are always the first to order the latest bestseller novel from Amazon but frown when their primary school going son innocently states that he is going to be an author.

And all of them have only one thing to say while reprimanding the young ones and bringing them towards (what they feel) is the right track:- “It’s only good as a hobby. Art has no future!”

Having gone through parts of this treatment, That statement got me thinking. What exactly it is about ‘Art’ in general that makes the grown-ups (Who obviously have our best interests in mind) go haywire.

Before we begin, Let me clarify  I have to agree with them on one important point: If looked upon from a probabistical point of view, only about 1% of artists become truly successful and the others often struggle to make ends meet. So From a parent’s perspective, that is a perfect argument against letting his progeny pursue the right-brain dominant fields in the world. That if you dare to do that, then you chance of success is almost 1%

Well now that argument is taken care of, let us do one massive paradigm shift.Every year, about 1200000(12 Lakh) students appear for the prestigious IIT entrance exams in our country. OF them, only 9000 manage to get in. Mathematically, that is a success rate of  0.75% < 1%. Now, get me one set of parents you know who will not have encouraged their kids to try for the IITs saying that: Chances of failing are 99%. (Replace IIT’s with any other premier institutes for keeping generality.)

I don’t see that how come it was that parents who were so optimistic when thinking bout the IIT Entrance exams suddenly became so cynical when art was considered. So on a subconscious level, I began to think that this success rate was not what made the parents scowl at pursuing young artists.

Then what is it that evokes their displeasure? Is it competition? I don’t think so. About 15 lakh engineers pass out in our country each year. About 50000 Doctors are produced and 3 lakh MBAs accompany them. Now compare these numbers with persons who are writing a manuscript with the hope of getting published or those who are jamming away endless night, with the aim of producing a music record. And the scale inversely in favour of the professionals. Today, being an engineer or an MBA will make you face more competition than if you decide to pursue filmmaking.

So what is this problem with ‘Art’? What makes success as an artist much harder than as a professional when the simple flow of logic is stating otherwise?

It is at this point, that i get it. A parent will not want their daughter to be an artist due to the same reason why he won’t want her to be a bar-dancer.

Let me explain the meaning of the above statement. Unlike professionals, your success as an artist depends on one nd one thing only: The number of people who love you. The more, the better. This is totally different for professionals. You may call a certain doctor an asshole behind his back but still stand in line to get to his clinic because of his wonderful diagnosis. But you will never listen to the music of a composer you hate or read the book of an author you are just disgusted about. And that is what i think is the problem of ‘art.’

As an artist, you can never be sure of how your creation is going to be taken by your audience. Will they love it? OR will they hate it? An artist can never conduct market research. HE can never predict whether what he/she is going to create is going to be loved or not. And it is because of this ineherent uncertainty in the lives of artists that causes those stern looks from the Mom when her little daughter paints the wall or the little boy uses the cuttlery as his drums.