Mediocrity is not simply the absence of brilliance. It is the acceptance of work that is routinely below the expected standards of any profession or institution especially when compared to its erstwhile face and grace. This is not an accusation nor a claim that excellence has disappeared from our region but an observation accumulated over years. Merely being adequate is often treated as being exceptional. The distinction between competence and excellence has become increasingly blurred.

For instance, a doctor who qualified the medical entrance exam more than twenty years ago cannot live with that craze indefinitely. If he has stopped continuous learning and researching, he is going to be a liability for whichever institution he gets in. Medical science changes constantly. New treatments emerge, diagnostic methods improve, and old assumptions are revised. 

Ask an elderly person, and he will tell you how the table of Dr. Ali Jan would be buried under international medical journals. He read them religiously to stay abreast of the medical world. That habit kept him a living, magical medico throughout his life and an example even after his death.

He was not alone. There were scores of such professionals across all domains and disciplines. A mathematics teacher could teach languages with equal command. A simple clerk who would only be a matriculate from Punjab University used to be well versed with accounting as well as the technical language of official documents. He could perform assignments that a modern day post graduate might hesitate to undertake, and could draft a file with a precision and command of language that many highly qualified officials today would struggle to match. His formal education may have been modest, but his practical knowledge, discipline and familiarity with the workings of the institution made him remarkably competent.

Even the moderately educated people absorbed communication, comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar simply by listening to newsreaders and reporters. Their reports were comprehensive yet crisp. Words did not trip over one another or repeat themselves unnecessarily. Grammar held its ground. They spoke with seriousness and sobriety, without the need for theatrical exaggeration.

Today, a weather report sounds like: “Aaj jo hai mausam jo hai, kal shaam se jo hai, woh dekhne ko yeh mila hai ki jo hai behtar hoga.”It irritates us much the same way as........

© Greater Kashmir