ACTIVITY ON DIVERGENT THINKING
The participants were required to suggest different endings (at least three) to the following incomplete stories. The time allotted for each in 40 minutes.
The whole group was divided into two sub-groups. Each participant in a sub-group was also asked to attempt for one story only.
Some of the selected 'ends' are quoted here;
STORY NO. 1 Read the following short incomplete fable and write three different possible endings. One day Subash was standing at the top floor of his house. It was pitch dark night. Cool breeze was blowing. The temperature of the atmosphere was about 27xC. Around 11.30 P.M. he noticed a bright object in the sky. After sometime he noticed that the bright object was coming towards his own house at a very fast speed. He was taken aback, for a few seconds. Constantly increasing light intensity and temperature forced him to think of the situation with seriousness.
STORY NO.2 Read the following short incomplete fable and write three different possible endings. Dr. Bose was a diligent and skillful scientist. He was considered as an expert in the field of biotechnology. Once he thought to do some wild experiment and depart from scientific method. He collected a mature unfertilised egg from a female rat and isolated one gene from its genome without finding out the functions of the gene. He transplanted the isolated gene of the rat into the genome of a human egg and fertilised this egg with a normal sperm. He developed the resultant zygot into an individual with the help of tissue culture techniques.
RESPONSES FROM PARTICIPANTS
STORY NO. 1 "SUBASH'S ASTONISHMENT"
First possible ending : Subash was awfully perplexed. As he saw the bright object approaching, he thought, it could be a missile from some other country ready to attach India. Nothing could be thought for the moment, but later he tried to think about how that missile could be directed in another direction to some other place so that his country could be saved. The RADAR system in the surrounding cantonment must had failed. Immediately, he woke his uncle who was a Brigadier in army. He also realised the seriousness and telephoned everybody in the Unit-to get into safe positions where the attack of the missile was not expected. But as it was coming closer, its tail extended and finally is disappeared. Every body realised that it was a meteor which is also called a 'shooting star'. Everybody in the Unit thanked Subash for being vigilant and for his presence.
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Second possible ending : It was an unusual experience for Subash. After few seconds he controlled his nerves. The object which was coming towards his house passed from there and slowly it disappeared from his sight. The object was going at a fast speed and fire was coming out from its tail. He was thinking and thinking till be went to bed. "What it could be and what could be its intention?" The phenomenon haunted his mind in his sleep. In the morning when he got up, he narrated the whole incident to his father. He was very curious to know about the incident. His father gave him the newspaper to read the headlines from the front page. It was regarding the successful test launch of India's intercontinent missile from Sriharikota, ISRO space centre, which is not far away from his place. This made India the sixth country in the world having this technology.
Third possible ending : The object could be a flying saucer from outer space. What actually could have had happened is that Subash saw this huge bright object coming towards his house at a very high speed. At first it seemed as if it might crash with his house but suddenly its speed slowed down and it landed some where on the earth near his house. The next day when Subash told all this to his friends and relatives they did not believe him. He was not able to convince anyone. This forced Subash to think that what he saw was a dream. However, to prove his point, he decided to find out about this and read different books. He came to know that similar things had already been noticed in different countries. Some people have also photographed these bright objects called flying saucer. It was a unique experience for Subash.
Fourth possible ending : Subash screamed with horror and found him in his bed full of sweat. He had seen a bad dream - a nightmare. He narrated the incident to his parent.
STORY NO. 2 "DR. BOSE'S EXPERIMENT"
First Possible ending : The immediate effect of Dr. Bose's experiment was not quite exciting as the little new-born girl had just the same characteristics of a human being. However, the world was astowned to know that this little, sweet looking girl had a cute little tail. Wherever she went, the tail dragged behind her like the lamb of Mary. It set the other children laugh and play and put the girl into embarrassment. But this did not continue for long as the little girl started thinking of a novel idea. She started being proud of her tail-rare, new feature of human beings. She decorated it with colourful ribbons and flowers. Other children started envying her, feeling jealous of her. They stared asking their parents to fix one for them. Thus Dr. Bose was cursed by all the parents for having done this experiment on only one individual and not on all.
Second Possible ending : As a result of Dr. Bose's experiment a bonny baby boy was born quite normal in all respects, very much human. But as months ticked past, the baby started to crawl and it was a great fun and pleasure for everyone to see this little one crawling till the day they realised that he should had stopped crawling and learnt to sit, stand and walk. But not This little master would not do any of those but just kept crawling and that too very swiftly. He was growing gradually but his crawling did not stop. It was all fine till it was time for him to board a bus or sit some where. Even when he could get in, people awfully stared at him as he had to occupy a lot of space. One great film director happened to see this creature, exposed him to the world through his film. It turned out to be an award winning
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film bringing a lot of fame. There was a great demand for this person from circus people. A great scientist improvised a vehicle for this person so that he could drive it comfortably. There on, he had a comfortable life floating with money because of his novel characteristic.
Third possible ending Dr. Bose was very happy to see the new individual - a female human baby with no structural deformities. The child started growing and to Dr. Bose's utter surprise the feeding habits of the new individual were very different. She used to nibble the grains etc. lying on the floor. When offered a piece of bread or biscuit, she would hold it in her two hands and bite it with the teeth. It was a test tube baby. The mother of the child got worried and tried to consult the doctors. Later the D.N.A. investigations revealed that the child was having rat's gene. She was extremely upset when she came to know what Dr. Bose had done,
Fourth possible ending : The baby that was born developed weird characteristics. In fact initially the baby seemed to be normal but after five or six months he started developing strange teeth structures. He started developing most fidgety behaviour. He would try to jump from one corner to another.
As the winter was approaching, Dr. Bose had thought of the changing weather and thinking that the little one would feel cold. Much to his surprise on return from his work, one evening, Dr. Bose got a shock of his life. He found the whole blanket ribbled away in pieces, the blanket that was to cover him was there in the form of rag - cut into pieces by the sharp teeth.
Oh ! Dr. Bose what on earth, have you created?
Fifth possible ending : The individual that was born seemed to be perfectly normal. Oh! yes he was apparently normal. Dr. Bose anyway thanked the God of nature for no sooner he had realised his mistake. He thought of the consequences, had the baby born with abnormal characteristics. soon forgot about it thinking that the gene was a recessive one. The child grew up to be a smart gentleman, but Dr. Bose had yet to face the wrath of nature. A time came when this smart handsome progeny of his got married. Dr. Bose did have some affection for him. In due course of time the young wife gave birth to a little baby. But what was this the child had small rat like ears instead of the normal ones. The plight of the three knew no bounds. The baby's father - Dr. Bose's tissue Culture son was all out to kill him, but good sense prevailed and Dr. Bose was spared. He cursed the moment when he had shared his secret with his son. The father took the child to the doctors, but they too had no answer to this strange problem. Alas ! the child had to live with 'this physical stigma through out the life.
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