The world is very convenient these days with the way the internet has spread. It is easy to say something, never be accountable for it and just vanish away into darkness. Of course, as a writer at any level you have to accept what comes at you without really being too influenced by the nonsense. ‘Always take the sensible views and leave what falls at both extremes’, is what I tend to believe works best. There is no reason to react to someone who just wants to say ‘You Suck’ with user name ‘mastedon34829’ and there is surely no nead to put it on your resume when ‘MrAwesome’ says ‘You are brilliant’. But apart from that what is really the place of a critic in the modern world?

One of the first stories I remember of how criticism can kill even the greatest of minds was when I heard the story of one John Keats. By now it is pretty well known how some ‘self-proclaimed’ intellectuals judged what they thought was really bad poetry and castigated the great man for his work in a ruthless fashion. The consequence was not so much his pen stopping to flow but his heart ceasing to beat. (That along with rejected love, partly) But, it made me always aware of what I said, not that I’m a top notch critic, but because there are people who take every opinion too seriously.

A critic’s job is indeed very, very easy. We just sit and judge and are most often at no risk of being judged by others. We bring out the keen glasses and the sharp knife to dissect whatever we see. Over a period of time, the attentions shifts from observing the work to searching for faults. The focus is firmly set on how one can out do other critics by scoring the point. When we rave, we make it big and when we disagree we shout that out too. Yet, we never worry too much about the people we end up degrading just to get our daily jobs done or to fill up the words in the ever-growing print or electronic media.

What is more surprising is how we now have two distinct sets of judging things. One is the ‘critically acclaimed work’ and the other a ‘popular/commercial version’. Apparently, even if your work is accepted by 90% of the world, if the critics say it’s bad, then it’s not really work of art and you have not created something really impressive. So, let me understand this. I make a movie, 90% of my audience likes it and just because few snobs who never want to go with the flow hate it, I am not really a good movie maker? Who are these few critics and what makes their opinion more valuable than others opinion? At the end of the day, one person is still just one person.

One must realize that all our criticism put together is still not as valuable as one ‘badly’ put together idea. It is not opinions that drive the world, it is actions. I share this with my fellow critics not to belittle them as without a hand to correct, there is no direction towards tomorrow. But that hand must correct mistakes, not destroy dreams by unleashing all their excellent, eloquent skill. Our responsibility is to improve- not condemn, suggest constructively- not write off budding ideas, to encourage little nuggets and see them grow- not nip ideas in the bud.

I share this view not because everyone is cynical, but the anonymity of the internet allows you to take out your frustrations where they do not belong. I share this cos the best budding ideas first pass through our hands, the hands of the bloggers, writers and reviewers on the net. People create and we spread the creations across the planet. One need not glorify everything and one surely need not hold back with criticism. But something with a positive step forward is a lot better than saying ‘this is just not good’. We too have a responsibility, no matter how small or big we are.