Haribol Acharya
Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.
— Virginia Woolf
I cannot imagine of a world without books and reading materials. Now thanks to unprecedented technological advancement books have different connotations; it is not merely a paper-book. Books have been digitized, visualized, audiolized, and often presented through graphic adaptations. Personally every day I read books, newspapers and magazines on my laptop or mobiles. Sometimes weeks go without touching paper-books, though some of my friends opt for paper-books I choose e-books for a variety of reasons. No matter whatever mediums or devices I use overall books give the quintessence of the meaning of life. Or else life would have been for me an unimaginable bore.
There are innumerable minds that contribute to the making of who I am socially, culturally, economically and to conclude intellectually as well. Mental capacities keep on burgeoning with age and experiences, conversing, reading and writing. We know Devkota, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche’s masterpieces and in making materialize these great literary masterworks literarily in a world of writings we cannot imagine without giving credit to so many dead and living writers, thinkers and philosophers. Even Shakespeare was purportedly well versed with the work of Montaigne, a great French essayist for inspiration. And Shakespeare had drawn on Greek dramatists like Sophocles, Euripides and the like for the technique of dramatization.
The West is ahead of us, the Asians, on so many fronts not because they were superior genealogically. They are advancing economically, economically and technologically just because they have a tradition of reading books. Philosophers, economists, scientists, technicians hail from genres and generations of book-readers.
A question may crop up. Why should we read after all when we have so many other pursuits, hobbies or things that can engage us all the time? The single most beautiful thing about reading for me is I believe reading helps me understand the world much better and clearer. By reading books I can understand some of the great events that happened in the world in the past or new progressions going on in a plethora of domains whether it is literature or astrophysics or genetic engineering or on socioeconomic fronts in the world today. Man through reading can broaden his mind and transcend narrow socioeconomic, cultural, racial frontiers and help people overcome their limitedness in terms of where they are born to embrace the larger truths of the world against bigotry and chauvinism.
Reading has indeed been changed in a world of newer technical devices; the internet has changed the way we understood books a few decades ago. Today books is not a paper book alone; the digital media has given readers an easy and access to a world of e-books, audiobooks and online newspapers and magazines.
English has helped me to navigate across national, cultural and linguistic bounds and borderlines which has made a vast array of writers accessible to me with tremendous ease and effortlessness. After reading Dostoevsky particularly the Brothers Karamazov or the Prophet of Khalil Gibran I was not the same person I was a little while ago. Reading transforms the reader. The Brothers Karamazov goes deeply into the psyche of man if he can immerse himself in the book, and some psychologists say Dostoevsky knew the science of psychology better than them.
The span of life is short and as such I am very choosy when it comes to reading books since there are innumerable books and it is not possible to read them all in one’s lifetime.
A substantial amount of all that I know comes from my predecessors, from my parents, and the rest of my Gurus, society etc. Now I realize that what I inherited from them is a tip of the iceberg. If there were no books in my life I could not have understood human nature, their joys and woes, their difficulties, their challenges and predicaments in my life. Through books I could know how humans are advancing in exploring the universe sending rockets and satellites to study other planets. How today genetic engineering has been studying stem cells that can help to prolong lifespans and Neuralink, a neurotechnological company founded by Elon Musk that develops implantable brain computer interfaces that works on connecting the human brain and computers or other electronic devices. In other words he has already got an approval to insert chips in the brain. That can enable the human brain to internalize a vast spectrum of knowledge, technology without onerous studies.
At this epoch in history we enjoy the access to any knowledge or information instantly in an hour which was impossible only three decades ago. That is why the habit of reading advanced me and the rest of readers meteorically. Today my mobile phone is more powerful than a supercomputer a couple of decades ago. My mobile phone can make accessible to me a big library of books wherein I can read any number of books freely and in some cases through payments of modest amounts.
Today we are far more fortunate to have an access to any piece of knowledge, and I could never have read the number of books I enjoy reading today, and would not have written to the extent I am writing if it was not for electronic devices.
I cannot imagine my life or the value of living without books today since books expands me, my territory beyond geographies and socio and political frontiers. Through books I can know how women are oppressed in Afghanistan, and how the war between Ukraine and Russia is killing people ruthlessly and the impact the war has put on the people living far and wide. How the Indians in the Americas were brutally slaughtered like beasts by the colonizers, could not have been within my knowledge range if I have no passion for knowledge and reading habits.
Fostering the culture of reading can help us in understanding humanity and human situations problems far better that enable us to do something no matter it is a big country or small wherever we are living. Through reading we can understand each other better so that we can come to aide when people fall into predicaments in their lives.
The single most beautiful part of reading culture is it connects us globally, emotionally if not physically. We can read the mind of the people sufferings in wars, in holocausts, in droughts, racisms etc. It is the cultivation of reading habits that is helping me to stay up – to – date with whatever is taking place within and without socioeconomic, cultural and geographical boundaries. Reading is enabling me to feel juvenile even I am maturing in terms of age in my life.
