I worked as a lecturer in English at an undergrad college in Shillong
for a few years. Now the post is known by some bombastic appellation, I know.
Professors are supposed to do a lot of things other than teaching, may be to
justify their enormous pay packets. The teaching job is done only for a few
hours in a week. The rest of the time is supposed to be utilised for research,
writing scholarly papers, and speaking at as well as attending seminars.
The novel which I completed reading the other day – Less
by Andrew Sean Greer – satirises these scholarly seminars organised by
universities. The protagonist, Arthur Less who is a mediocre novelist, is
invited to address one of these conferences. On reaching the university, which
is in another country altogether, Less learns that hardly anyone in his
audience understands his language. Moreover, the Head of the Department who has
organised the seminar won’t be attending it. He organised it just for the sake
of getting an opportunity to come to the city where there is a particular
medical shop that sells medicines cheaper and he has to buy some Viagra pills.
The conference turns out to be a huge farce.
I attended a lot of seminars while I was a humble lecturer (not a
bombastic professor yet) in Shillong. Most of them meant nothing. Some of them
were plainly absurd. Learned people would stand on the podium and speak for an
hour or more about something like ‘The virginity of Thomas Hardy’s Tess when
she stands on her scaffold’ or ‘Ovulation: a lap dancer’s secret weapon’. There
would be tea and snacks or even lunch at the end of the speeches. The speakers
and the audience all will get their certificates which will add weight to their
CV portfolios.
The Head who invited Arthur Less to the conference knows the absurdity
of it all. “You and me,” he tells a confused Less, “we’ve met geniuses. And we
know we’re not like them, don’t we? What is it like to go on, knowing you are
not a genius, knowing you are a mediocrity? I think it’s the worst kind of
hell.”
Less thinks of himself as something between the genius and the mediocre.
That’s of no use, however. That is a nowhere-land. Worse than hell? “Are we
consigned to the flames?” The Head asks.
“No, I guess,” Less offers, “just to conferences like this one.”
Mediocrity can be hell if you refuse to belong to it as Arthur Less
does. If you are not a genius, you are a mediocre person though that is not a
very pleasant acknowledgement. Honestly, I find it hard to accept that I am
just another mediocre person. But I know I’m no genius; I’m certain. Nowhere
near it. But mediocre?! O my god! That’s terrible.
Is it? If I sit down under my mango tree (there’s no bodhi tree anywhere
around here and the mango tree provides my “bower”
where I sit occasionally with a friend and sip a drink or two in late evenings)
and contemplate, I realise that the mediocre are a blessed lot not very unlike
Bernard Shaw’s Alfred Doolittle.
If you are mediocre, you can have the cake and eat it too. Your god will
dance to your tunes. Otherwise just shut him up, the god I mean, in a temple or
a church and lock the doors except when you want him to wake up with his
miracles and blessings. Your morality can be just a scarecrow waving a stick like
an old schoolteacher at what you don’t like. You can swindle a whole nation and
call it nationalism. And the nation will not only believe you but also lionise
you as a hero.
It is easy to be mediocre. It is entertainment too. You need to practise
a bit, that’s all.
PS. Written for Indispire Edition 332: Are/Aren't we condoning
mediocrity by celebrating it? There’s nothing wrong in being average unless we
remain content with the status quo and refuse to try getting better! And it
gets worse when mediocrity eclipses meritocracy. Do you agree? #ChallengeMediocrity
So those seminars are actually pointless? Interesting. :P
ReplyDeleteMost of them. As a school teacher, I've attended more useful seminars.
DeleteI have heard many teachers say the same thing. There is less of teaching and more non-teaching activities. That books seems to be interesting. Should check that out.
ReplyDeleteThat's a Pulitzer winner. Not much by way of plot. But the character makes us think about the shallowness of our actions and thoughts.
DeleteMediocrity is never a compliment. All the same, it is not only encouraged, promoted and rewarded but also celebrated in the Indian political and bureaucratic arenas. Geniuses are ridiculed and cut to size simultaneously. That's why we come across poor governance in our country.
ReplyDeleteForget about geniuses, even dissenters are arrested and tortured or even done away with. The very scope for genuine heroism has been made to vanish from the country, thanks to the reign of downright mediocrity.
DeleteInteresting that someone thought of writing about it! :D
ReplyDelete😊😊😃
DeleteWe all realise it at some point or the other... That only the mediocres are the ones who can have the cake and eat it too... Otherwise in that pursuit of being geniuses you may have the cake... But you either have no time to eat it in want of more... Or you are just not satisfied with what you have and leave it in pursuit of more... It's always a vicious circle!
ReplyDeletePursuit of the genius differs much from that of the mediocre and the latter's pursuits are lethal, i think. The genius is driven by genuine passion like arts, science, etc. The mediocre chases power, wealth, etc.
Delete