Why do I read?

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A few months back, a friend had asked her bibliophile friends to write about what hooked them to reading. Here is what I had replied back then..


Fans of the late Jagjit Singh might recognize the following lines by Nida Fazli

Dhoop Mein Niklo Ghataon Mein Nahakar Dekho
Zindagi Kya Hai Kitaabon ko Hata Kar Dekho

A rough English translation, at the expense of losing the rhyme, would be: Head out in the sun, get drenched in the rain: look beyond books if you want to experience life)

For about three-quarters of my life (till about the age of twenty four), I took these works literally. I was not averse to books, but reading was limited to newspapers (I started reading them at twelve and gave up by fourteen, they just didn't excite me anymore), textbooks (I memorized them front to back to be able to tackle any potential questions in the exams) and General Knowledge books.

I felt reading was a waste of time. The only genuine experiences one could have were by interacting with the real world. By some unlucky coincidence, there was a bunch of girls in school who were avid readers and snobs of the first grade, and I ended up correlating the two.



Things are different now. If I haven't picked up a book for a few days, I feel wasted and edgy. I read pretty much anyplace, anytime. I read at the dinner table at home (I agree its bad manners), I read in buses, trains and planes, I read while waiting at the doctors' clinic and I of course I read in the loo and before going to bed. I even flip through a few pages waiting at traffic lights, or when there is bumper-to-bumper traffic - if you are in Mumbai, it happens most of the time. Thankfully, though there is a ban to use cellphones while driving, there are no restrictions in using your Kindle!

There was no particular reason why I picked up reading. It just happened. The year 2004 was a tough one on the personal front for me. On a business trip, I ended up at the local library since I had nothing else to do, or perhaps, because I was unable to think up of something fun to do. Amongst a bunch of novels written by modern authors like Sidney Sheldon (for the longest I thought the author was a woman), John Grisham, Alistair Maclean etc, I picked up a copy of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

All I can say about that experience is that, had I picked up any other book to kill my time other than this one, I might not have picked up another book for a long time, until I found myself lonely at another drab hotel for a boring business meeting.

Somewhere in the middle of the book, when Siddharth meets Kamaswami, the merchant, the latter asks him "And what is it now that you've got to give? What is it that you've learned, what you're able to do?". And Siddharth replies "I CAN THINK. I CAN WAIT. I CAN FAST". What does a man who has nothing can offer! The statement felt so empowering, that it would not leave my head soon. A few days later, I was having dinner with a friend and I started raving about the book. This guy takes out his cellphone, thrusts it to my face, with the words "Think! Wait! Starve!" as his screensaver!

A great book can practically change the course of your life!

The next book I picked up was Pirsig's masterpiece about the metaphysics of quality "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Eventually a bestseller, it was originally rejected by 121 publishers, which is a Guinness World Record. Can you imagine being rejected so many times, with lines like the following:

"In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."

A great book (and very often a good friend) reminds you to enjoy the finer aspects of life.

I then stumbled upon "Diary of a Young Girl". The question to ask is not if there has been a better memoir written by a 15 year old girl, but if a better memoir has been written by a person of any age, of either sex. The portrayal of the troubled relationship with the mother, the strong bonds with the father, the passionate kiss with the neighbor's soon, the pain of living in hiding, the constant fear of being captured: it seems I read about it yesterday. The book is one half of the reason I am fascinated by the Dutch (the other one being van Gogh, the Amsterdam nightlife notwithstanding). I don't believe in reincarnation, but I feel like I was friends with Anne in another life.

A great book gives you courage. It connects you with someone in a special way that is very different from real life. It reinforces the belief that quite often, there is no relationship between age and maturity.

I seemed to be on a roll. I then picked up "To Kill a Mockingbird". What a simple yet supremely profound book! "Shoot all the bluejays you want, but remember its a sin to kill a mocking bird". A line etched in my memory forever. A book that is a must read (and I dont use the words lightly) for every age, and needs to be reread again and again. Characters and moments that stay with you forever: the instance when Scout realizes her father, who she considered as an upright but sedate man, was the "Deadest shot in Maycomb County". The concluding line from Heck Tate "I may not be much Mr Finch, but I'm still Sheriff of Maycomb County, and Bob Ewell fell on his knife". The book has such a brilliant portrayal of life in the South that if you see the movie, you get a feeling that you have visited Maycomb in the distant past.

Reading gives a chance to live a different life, almost literally. When you read "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (those who think its a children's book havent read it or are totally missing the point), you are Huckleberry Finn. You feel adventurous. You feel outlawed. You feel the world is your playground. You realize, even if it is for a moment, that the best things in the world are free. That you are the master of your destiny. In one of the chapters, Huck remarks, "Mary Jane had more sand in her than any girl I ever seen". Everytime I want to describe a plucky young woman who I admire, I use the word sand even today, such is the imagery of the book.

I love to travel. It takes me to many places, and meet very interesting people. You see various monuments, and a good guide does a fine job of explaining how people lived during such and such time, and the museums will display what they wore. You can visit beautiful castles and admire the architecture, but to fall in love with Elizabeth Bennett, you have to read Pride and Prejudice. To understand the brutality of the colonial period, you have to be terrified of Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness. Unless you are in the armed forces, how will you really understand the futility of war until you read Catch-22, all while having a hearty laugh. And speaking of a Catch 22, unless you are in armed forces, you cannot understand the futility of war. And if you are in the army and realize it, then why are you there in the army?

Steve Jobs' legend seems to grow with each passing day. In his famous (will it perhaps become immortal?) Stanford speech, he talks about connecting the dots. Reading sometimes has connected dots for me in an umimaginable way. I recently read Zen Mind: Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. The next one was Jobs' authorized biography, wherein Jobs states that Zen Mind was one of his favorite books.

While the pleasures of reading fiction are unlimited, there is a lot of reward in reading non fiction as well. Well written non-fiction books are not just about knowledge or self-help, they are a form of art too. Speaking of Art (with a capital A), one of my favorite books is the "Story of Art", unanimously considered the best starting point to understand art through the ages. It would be nice to attend a course on Art, but what about the bankers who get four weeks of leave a year and the boss frowns if you use more than three?

In this day and age of heavy propaganda and manipulation by the media, what we usually receive via newspapers or Television is anything but the truth. (See my blog "Why I stopped reading the newspaper", which was written after this one but I put it on the blog earlier). Reading a well researched book can be a potent weapon against forces of communalism, racism, superstition. Carl Sagan's bestseller "The Demon Haunted World" is one such example. Of course, a book can be used just as well to rouse people to war or genocide, but in general the higher the prevalance of the reading habit in a society, the lower would be its tendency for destructive behavior.

Reading is an all weather, any time of day, any place activity. You dont have to depend on anyone for it. Whether you are happy or sad, whether it is quiet or noisy, whether you feel like a million dollars or have a bout of cold, nothing can stand between you and your book. Even the blind can access the pleasures of reading through audiotapes or Braille books. Even if you forget to carry a book, just download one on the Kindle App on your iPhone (Steve Jobs again!). One of the most frustrating things for a lot of people is to wait for someone who is late for an appointment. At times I get so immersed while reading, I hope the person doesnt show up at all.

The bottomline is: what do human beings want out of life? Love, pleasure, adventure, travel, friendship, knowledge, mysticism, stillness, activity, romance.... Is there anything except reading that ticks all the boxes?