There are 2 types of students.

Some students follow their master to the hilt. They are the perfect students for a master. They follow the principles laid down by their teacher or the master with devotion. This is especially true in the "field" of religion. The principles laid down by the guru are religiously followed by the students. Those principles are so blindly followed that, the original intent of those teachings would perhaps be forgotten over the course of time. In the field of science, Aristotle's ideas were accepted EVEN by the scholars of those years without challenging until Copernicus, Galileo came along. Newtonian Physics dominated until Einstein came along....

Some students are smarter. They find the best points or the talent of their master which actually was responsible for making the master, and then advance to add their own blend of creativity and carve their own path and write their own destiny. The key point here is that: recognize when you should branch from your master - you cannot just worship your master your whole life- when will you put your own head to use ?

Now why am I saying all this ? I keep watching (or rather , forced to watch) all those reality shows. In one of the reality shows, they judge people based on how much the contestant follows the original song. If the contestant follows the vocals of the original singer accurately, he is judged better. Conformance to the original song is appreciated.

In other reality show, (the judges are of the calibre of SPB, Hamsaleka) they encourage creativity, improvisation.

Somehow I feel this value is more ingrained in the roots of Indian society. We tend to encourage and feel safe of about confirming to accepted ideas, time tested careers, family business continuation and never let a person blossom his creativity. I do not have a solution to this problem. The European countries, I always wonder, how do they have so many contributing citizens in so many diverse fields . It is very seldom that find a German/Swede/Finn who is a zero. They tend to honestly specialize in something. Hmm that is a big topic and we cannot conclude anything ....