Books: Food for thought

My childhood was strongly influenced by voracious readers in the family. My mother, in her leisure time, could be seen engrossed in a book in one hand and a steaming cup of chai in the other. On the other hand, my father, who wouldn’t read books as much, would devour newspapers page by page. Till it did not bear a crumpled look, with a faint stain of the coffee cup, it was understood that he had not yet read the newspaper.

Nanaji (maternal grandfather) left us a rich inheritance in the form of a vast, comprehensive library. From Russian literature to British wit and satire, Hindi classics to Punjabi poetry, the library boasts of diverse literature. And dadaji (paternal grandfather) was an ardent Reader’s Digest loyalist, which meant that subscriptions were meticulously renewed and extended periodically without any delay.

Needless to say, my childhood was marked with Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and St Clare’s and Judy Blumes books long before Harry Potter eclipsed them.

I still read, but not as much as I used to because of lack of time. Marriage, work and children happened, which considerably reduced my tempo of reading. Desperately wanting to get back in form, I joined a local book club on recommendation of a well-meaning friend.

It’s a great club with members from diverse backgrounds who choose one book a month by consensus to read. Most genres I like, others I try to, and some I fail to. All in all, it has been a good exercise which has helped me read a lot more than before, and interestingly introduced me to different types of readers.

Readers are certainly bound by their common love for books and reading. However, they may differ in several intriguing ways.

The Spoiler, I realised, likes to read the last few pages to unravel the plot, and tell everyone about how the book ends.

Next is the Sniffer, a neurotic reader, who frequently switches between books and ends up getting distracted. This breed hardly ever manages to finish a book.

The Stoic starts reading in the bookshop itself from front to back. This reader usually analyses the plot, and even identifies with the characters. The Obsessive Altruist reads a lot and recommends huge reading lists to friends and family.

I belong to the New Mother Reader category. This breed reads a lot — especially the titles not decided upon for the book club meeting. That means if you ask me about classics like Three Little Pigs, Cinderella and Red Riding Hood, I have read them umpteen times. However, the latest Shashi Tharoor has only been read in rare moments of solitary bliss, like washroom breaks or ungodly hours of the morning, when one stubbornly fights the sleep to read, but Tharoor Sahib’s use of English language makes it all the more difficult. So on the day of the book club meeting, I seek help from The Spoiler and manage to string together the plot.

I understand that over time, I will surely promote from my current category and hopefully get back to being The Obsessive Altruist, which I always was. Till then, the struggle to reading continues. The popular joke, “Dinosaurs didn’t read, now they are extinct. Thank goodness the thesaurus survived!” provides the much-needed succour. Read and read more, even if it’s thesaurus or Thumbelina, and save your grey cells from impending extinction!

(The writer is a Chandigarh-based educationist)

First Published: Sep 23, 2018 09:11 IST