Mediocrity Begets Mediocrity

Recently, I was gifted the book ‘you are trending in my dreams’ authored by Sudeep Nagarkar. Being a compulsive person, I find it almost impossible to drop any book before completing it; however bad it might be. But, that did not stop me from dumping this book midway (the compulsive people out there would understand my agony). Tagging the book mediocre would be a downright Understatement. Mind you, this book, with all its grammatical errors, stereotypes, clichés, guilty pleasures & everything lackluster, was supposedly a national best seller.

The curse of mediocrity

I would say, the author Sudeep Nagarkar is not sailing alone on this boat, where mediocrity is not only accepted but celebrated. Some of the admired authors in India; the likes of Chetan Bhagat, Ravinder Singh & Amish Tripathi fall under the same tag, ‘mediocre’ (sounds harsh, but is the truth). These authors, who aced the bestseller lists in India, are poorly received elsewhere in the world. On the same lines, Indian authors who are critically acclaimed world over are practically non-existent outside the literary community in India. Even though this problem not being endemic to India, it's more pronounced here than in rest of the world. 

Sudeep Nagarkar rides the fad of ‘new age urban romance’ novels, to write few ‘cheesy’ (at best) romance novels and the media proclaims that “The Marathi youngster has taken the world of Indian English Novels by storm”; a typical example of media glorifying mediocrity in our country. 

Most of this can be attributed to the subjective nature of art. After all, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, right? Unfortunately, we have to accept that, through no fault of theirs, the majority of the Indian population is mediocre when it comes to appreciating art. But, the sheer number of people who make these books a commercial success is precisely the reason why mediocre writers thrive and are proud about the same. They believe they are sparing the masses by reducing (to be read as degrading) the quality of writing.

Making an average look like a grand success, just for the sake of promoting the book, is a dangerous practice. What it does is, to set a wrong example to aspiring writers, who end up accepting mediocre as the standards and deteriorate the collective quality of the art itself. In turn, the quality of reading does not improve outside the literary circle. This process of mediocre writers feeding off mediocre audience will soon become a vicious self-sustaining loop if left unchecked. And the media, only seem to be aggravating the problem.

The worst part is when someone points out the mistakes, instead of accepting and working on it, they go on the defensive. Even the readers, who are supposed to be a demanding audience, come to the author’s defense saying: he did his best at his level, one can’t expect Indians to write with the same quality as foreigners and so on. These petty excuses and unquestioned acceptance provide these authors with the license to stay mediocre; no one's expecting more out of them and they know that there are people who'll defend 'whatever' they write to make it a grand success. 

For the above reasons and the exact same reason that art is subjective, the onus is on the creator to up the quality. Authors should realize that art is as much about art itself, as much as it is about the audience. At least in our nation, authors should take fame with a pinch bucket of salt, for this reason. All said and done, there’s nothing wrong with being mediocre if that’s what one wants. On the other hand, what is absolutely unforgivable is, celebrating mediocrity; Mediocrity always begets Mediocrity.