One batch mate has dropped a short to-the-point mail asking me to confine the facts into one topic. With hats off to her request, I still got to have my say: I just can’t help treading on side alleys. One is connected to the other. Or near enough, anyway.
This time I am trying to edge my subject: reading with the Book Fair season. A fat subject area. I do not want to go into details why a book fair is important on encouraging reading. Sorry for putting it this way: these are nothing but empty talk for me. Especially when you have so many things to think of sideways.
Why read in the first place? Well they say reading makes a perfect man. A funny inbox mail reads: reading makes a man perfect. Nobody’s perfect. So why read?
Professor James Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes fiction is a well-read professor. But all his knowledge was powered to harm the living. Osama Bin Laden is also said to be a well-read scientist. What could he do with his exceptional brain? Reading makes you either a professional or a professor. And some professors are just ivory towers. Is it what we interpret as, or, mean by, ‘perfect’?
The intellectual Dr. E W Adikaram dropped reading towards the last stages of his life. The biography has details on how the philosopher had felt enough of reading and needed time to reflect his readings. This biographical episode cast a spell in my childhood thinking path, and elders got scared that I would drop reading too. You should not get the wrong end of the stick. The Adikaram theory does not prompt dropping reading, as it might be to a lazy reader. His matured decision has a meaning: you shall know what you will read.
Reading whatever falls on your hand is good for language development, but not for the perfection, I think. I bought Adolf Hitler’s biography in a previous book fair, but could not complete the voluminous book. First because of the boring language, and I felt like reading a biography of a notorious politician. You have hair-splitting answers against my stand here. There are political elements in the biography. You can get to know the making of a fixer. You can analyse modern politics with the contents. With many other reasons to justify reading the ‘great work’. May be good for political and social scientists, but not for a simple folk like I. I gain nothing by reading a voluminous biography of a notorious politician written in an archaic language.
So come to think about categories such as religion, literature and medicine. You will get ‘something’. Analysis of such reading may lead us towards a particular type of perfection. Religion brings you the feel of some sort of salvation. Literature makes you forget the real-life drama. Medicine will lengthen the beloved life. And there are many categories that might bring you to the brink of perfection. I have doubts on categories like ‘crime’. Just give this a thought. You are the Jury to choose a category between ‘religion’ and ‘crime’.
Today we live with heaps to read. Internet and Mobiles are worse. Some read papers on the mobile. Now that you have many things to read, even on the go, you got to learn how to read fast. They teach you that faster reading means faster learning. It’s like learning English in 8 days as guaranteed by ‘qualified English teachers’.
Don’t get me wrong in the bottom line. I do not want to spoil your reading habit. Just carry on. But be selective. I am going to stick to my words too this time keeping tabs on my bony wallet.
So happy reading to you all, and keep away from credit cards at the book fair!
