Can you reason against reading?

Can you reason against reading?

When I took it upon myself to clear the piles of hundreds of books stored in several almirahs and cupboards in my parents’-in-laws house after they passed away, I did not realise that it would be a mournful, almost  heart-breaking exercise.

The dusty books, a few of them even termite-ridden or their pages as brittle as biscuits, triggered severe allergies which needed treatment; but more painful than that was to find ways to ‘dispose’ of the books.There were not only books on history, philosophy, health and well-being, religion and spirituality but English and Hindi classics in literature or translations from foreign languages and most of them in excellent condition. I was looking for people who read such books and could find value in them. I asked some libraries too. The books were too precious to be sold as raddi (rag/scrap/waste) and I had no room in my apartment to keep all of them.

Only two friends came forward to take some of them for personal use or to give them to somebody who could use them. I was fine with the people who said that they did not enough space in their apartments to keep them or the libraries which complained there were fewer people coming because they preferred going online for reading material. But the one answer that made me lose my composure was, “Who reads books these days?”

Why, don’t people read books nowadays? Is reading books a thing of the past? I still have a few friends and members of the family who devour books like greedy, hungry beings, and this book-disposal exercise made them dearer to me. 

Don’t we all remember how one factor of excitement about holidays, free time or journeys during childhood was that we would be able to read books or magazines not prescribed in our syllabus? Books were bought or borrowed for the purpose. Half the fun of buying them was in reading a few paragraphs in the shop first to ‘taste’ the book. They were covered and kept lovingly so that even after several readings they looked as good as new. Armed with a torchlight, we hid from annoyingly disturbing siblings to carry on our journey in the story under the bed/table or ‘hut’ made from razai(quilt).

They were discussed in hushed or heated tones. Friendly bonds were broken if somebody did not return a book or damaged it. Teachers used to give a list of books for holiday reading. A common new-year resolution would be to ‘read at least one book every month’. Why, we would  read all the stories and other chapters which interested us when new books were bought in the beginning of an academic session!

Books made a welcome birthday, farewell or get well present and recipients cherished them for ages. In fact, the whole exercise of which book to give so that it was not duplicated, took much thought and well-crafted strategy in the direction of information-gathering. One healthy curiosity I still nurse is what book our dear friend Lily would send on Mani’s birthday.

People used to mention reading as their favourite pastime/hobby and it was fashionable to carry thick or scholarly books around to impress the others, especially members of the opposite sex. You were known by the book you were ‘seen’ reading or for that matter, the films you chose to see and mention. I remember the look of disdain a Kafka and Camus-carrying colleague gave me when during my Indian Express days once my handbag dropped and a Barbara Cartland slipped out on the floor, exhibiting to the whole desk the utter ‘low’ standard of my reading choice. 

Sadly, like so many other activities, reading is also becoming a thing of the past. Bookstores in towns, even books stalls at railway stations are closing down and magazines are going out of business. People have stopped reading newspapers and depend solely on television as their source of news.

Small children remain glued to mobile phones watching cartoons and other videos for hours as they eat, bathe or fight sleep. Mothers also prefer this mode of keeping the children busy. As far as I notice the old habit of reading bedtime stories is also passé. The common refrain I hear is, “Yeh to bina mobile/TV ke khana hee nahin khata/Khati (He/She does not eat without the TV/mobile) leaving me wondering if they are complaining or boasting about it.

I would be among the last ones to say internet is a bane but after all only a small percentage of internet-users are actually reading. You do not have to conduct a survey to know that with shoulders hunched almost all of us peer into our phones to read not only messages, emails and memes, but to look at videos.

While the feel of the real book in hand is unmatched in pleasure, reading from an electronic device has its own advantages like ease in availability, adjusting the size of the text and carrying it.

Fair enough if you say that everything is available on the internet and there is no need to read a couple of hundred pages of printed word. But there is an art to telling your story. The few second tik-tok video might pull a laugh out of the viewer, but it does not leave the lasting impression of the short story of how the cat took advantage of the two monkeys fighting over a roti and polished off the whole (Tales of Panchatantra).  

Books have been written on hundreds of subjects, all kinds of genres, and in all scripts and languages. Each one, in some way or the other opens up the world for us. New words, phrases, expressions, are fodder for growth of vocabulary. Don’t we all need it for better communication every hour of our waking lives, in our spoken or written conversations, occupations and careers?

While you read, your mind makes an image of what is being fed. Your imagination and interpretation keep your grey cells working. Don’t you sometimes pause while reading to enjoy the image it has painted in your mind and spend a few minutes living in it? (As opposed to television and videos which present things as they are and leave all scope of imagination out.)

If books do not survive, soon we would go out of literature too.  And how do you know the culture of a society without its literature which truly reflects it?

One more thing I like about reading is that it allows me to travel in time. Whether I read fiction- the creations of the fertile mind of a story-teller or the facts and truth in non-fiction about an era or period, both transport me into the time I am reading about.

Even the how-to-do-something books give me ideas about several unrelated things.

Reading is a hobby of the inexpensive variety. One can indulge himself/herself anywhere alone-a quiet library, a noisy train, a classroom full of paper-plane-throwing boys or on a bench in a park under a shady tree. There is no need for any movement or transport, electricity supply, special clothing or place, although if you are curled up in a chair or sitting up in bed undisturbed with or without a soothing drink, it would be very good.

And of course, books are an excellent means for social ties too. Once in a while I hear of a book club somewhere and I am reminded of some good times.

Soon after we arrived in Berlin, Germany, what caught my attention was how as soon as somebody got into a bus or train, they would open a book or take out their ipad and start reading.

In an effort to get to know people and make friends, I joined Willkommen in Berlin, the diplomats’ wives club. I enjoyed attending the functions and participating in the activities, but one of the best decisions was to join the book club run by the WiB and I could not have made a better decision. Every month we were supposed to read a prescribed book and discuss it on the third Tuesday at somebody’s house. While I did wait greedily for the post-discussion spread of goodies on the dining tables with tea, it was also the mental exercise of exchange of views and the feeling of accomplishment which energised me and egged me on. And what a variety of authors we read!

I, perhaps the youngest in the group (besides my dear friend Cynthia Zimba from Zambia), would read the book and just a wee bit about it on the internet and go for the event. But I remember the older and senior members, Eva Stoecker, Cornelia Weihe, Sonny Deckwitz, V Ploetz, Ursula Matussek, Karin Von Joest, Tonne Korssund Eichinger besides several others (nearly all of them German) read the book, some commentaries about it, watched the movie if one was made on it, jotted down notes or took pictures or prints and came fully prepared for the discussion. It was their commitment which made me attend regularly, even give my two-pence input and come back richer and happier. And you should have seen the libraries of some of them!

Trinity College library

Coming to the present, it is a chilly, wet Saturday mid-morning and too cold to knit. Of course, the housework can jolly well wait. So, time to go back to the page I left the bookmark at and carry on. Happy reading!

                                                                                                -Anupama S Mani