Not everybody is born with an appreciation for literature. One is either born with it or not. This faculty can be honed and taken to heights with exposure to the best kind of art, especially if one is lucky enough to get a good guide comparatively early in life; but no guru can make an individual who is devoid of artistic sensibility to suddenly start appreciating prose and verse. You either have it or you do not.
But that is quite all right. Nobody chooses to be born with a particular set of characteristics, any more than anybody can choose which parents to be born to. So, it is all right if your strength is mathematics, medicine, engineering or shopkeeping in any of its various forms but you cannot tell a Ghalib couplet apart from a Wasi Shah’s offering to save your life. You could very well still be a better human being than those with a discriminating interest in the finer things of life– well, probably not if you are a shopkeeper, but pretty much any other vocation is included. The trouble begins when you not only start taking too seriously your opinions on a subject that requires exposure to and appreciation of quality literature, but you also start dispensing the same passionately.
To paraphrase Jon Eliya, there are plenty of those who insist on writing when they should be reading instead. Add to this group a much larger demographic of those who, while they do not write anything of their own, are compulsive critics of the work of others. Because (like the first group) they have never bothered to read any literature in their life (not the good sort at any rate), they usually make a fool of themselves on account of their utter unfamiliarity with the various literary devices and norms. In an article some time back, I remember asking a rhetorical question regarding a certain group of persecuted people whether they were children of a lesser god. In the comments section, pat came this reply: ‘Don’t you know that God has no children?’
Primary school teachers tell their charges not to use, in their assessment and criticism of classics, the first-person singular for a very good reason. For they do not want the latter to develop the habit of venturing into opinion before they have considered a work thoroughly on its own merit. Although some of those charges carry that advice into areas it does not belong to (opinion pieces, for example), a vast majority does not heed it at all, with the result that the ensuing criticism is usually nothing more than a series of half-baked opinions. The original text is read very superficially, if at all; half of it having passed completely over the head while the other half having been grossly misunderstood. The problem has assumed much larger proportions after the advent of the social media.
Creating or appreciating literary writing, then, is not for everybody. Those without that capacity would do well to desist. For there is no shame in not belonging to the category of those blessed by Providence with that talent. So much for writing as an art form.
Writing as a craft, on the other hand, is a whole different story, because it can be learnt by anybody. It is merely a matter of learning a list of Do’s and Don’ts; or alternatively reading a couple of nonfiction works carefully. Especially in the word processor era, there is no excuse whatever for messing up the basic syntax and grammar. But the number of folks who manage to do it is mind boggling.
Few things in life are too small to make a difference. Everything is tied up with everything else. Excellence is a habit– a way of life. It is either there or not. It is not something that can be switched on and off at will. So, if an individual is less than careful in how he uses his words to express himself, he is probably not very careful in his science or engineering either. Few men hold themselves to high enough standards of excellence. With most of them, this consciousness is missing altogether.
What makes the state of affairs even more astounding (and sad) is the fact that educated folks are guilty of it as much as anybody else. Anybody who needs to assess and grade university students’ presentations and theses, or is at the receiving end of their emails, experiences the torment on a daily basis. The students are either indifferent to howlers; or are resigned to the fate of it being beyond their capacity to communicate their ideas any better. There is little scope for improvement in either case.
Some of the engineers and the science guys justify their less than satisfactory communication skills by saying that it is the content that matters. No doubt the content matters. But they fail to realize that they only have words as the vehicles for communicating their content– to date, nobody has managed to invent anything other than language to express ideas and thoughts. The content is supreme, but the way it is presented matters too.
Incorrect syntax can easily alter the meaning of a clause or a sentence from what was originally intended. Even when an error does not alter the meaning, it often requires unnecessary amounts of effort on the part of the reader, thereby diminishing the impact it creates. A typo, or a missing space after a comma (for example)– whether results of carelessness or plain ignorance– more often than not end up reducing the technical estimation of the work as well. Because for most readers, a lack of meticulousness in seemingly small things renders meticulousness in bigger things (content) doubtful too.
And justifiably so, usually. Because few things in life are too small to make a difference. Everything is tied up with everything else. Excellence is a habit– a way of life. It is either there or not. It is not something that can be switched on and off at will. So, if an individual is less than careful in how he uses his words to express himself, he is probably not very careful in his science or engineering either. Few men hold themselves to high enough standards of excellence. With most of them, this consciousness is missing altogether.
