It’s tough being a critic

I have heard a number of definitions of a critic in our part of the world — most of them unflattering and unprintable. The accepted definition of a critic is a person who judges the merits of literary, artistic or musical works, especially one who does so professionally. The one which I came across in the Urban Dictionary is: “Someone who has no discernible talent so tries to make someone else as useless as he is.” This is probably because critics are not the most popular people around even when they drop compliments that linger with an auteur’s indulgence.

The fact is, nobody really likes to be criticised, even when the censure is healthy and constructive. But every once in a while, one gets the odd email or telephone call which says, “It’s nice to know that there are still some writers in this country who don’t kowtow to the politicians, foreign governments and the local warlords and say it just as it is.” Brendan Behan, the Irish poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright, once said that critics were like eunuchs in a bordello. They’d seen it done. They knew how it was done. But they just couldn’t do it themselves.



A definition of a critic that I came across somewhere is, “someone who starts a fight and then leaves a room”. Critics didn’t always have an easy time during Pakistan’s golden age which occurred 55 years ago when a review invariably amounted to a eulogy. I don’t know how many people remember that episode which occurred in the untroubled and peaceful days of Ayub Khan. A feature film was made by a nephew of the Nawab of Kalabagh, the Himmler of Lahore, who ruled the Punjab with an iron hand. The film critic of the Pakistan Times was entrusted the task of writing a review of the movie. The script was a bit of cosy contrarianism that couldn’t bear even the faintest intellectual scrutiny. As the scribe didn’t find the motion picture altogether satisfying or inspiring, he panned it in a review. The film-maker took offence. He did what was expected of him at the time: he had the reviewer kidnapped. Things are somewhat different these days where newspapers encourage readers to vent their spleen or present bouquets in the comments section that follows, where all writers, with rare exceptions, receive their share of accolades and rebuke.

Normally, when the Twitterati get shrill about a column I have written, I ignore the comment. Unless, of course, the facts are historically or metaphysically incorrect, then I feel I have to step in. However, in my experience, whether a criticism is good or bad, in the majority of cases, I would like to think it was an expert opinion. Back in the 1960s, when the hot metal system made composing and correcting a cumbersome business, we didn’t get the kind of printed feedback from readers that we get today. There was a ‘letters to the editor’ column and the first dispatch was, invariably, praise for the first leader.

The other missiles customarily followed a regular roster. In those days, people had a strange predilection for falling down open manholes. Some believed that the chaps who planned the various bus routes in the city should be sent to Toba Tek Singh. Those who lived next to a slaughter-house wanted the abattoir shifted next to the chief minister’s house. And some believed that the examinations were too difficult and should be set by the students themselves. When you think about it … nothing has really changed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2013.

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