Long before Stephen King turned this into a quotable quote, this idea was already nestling within my brain, as I pored over ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Peter Pan’. My reading cauldron overflowed with elves, gnomes, witches, and giants, all of whom materialized solely to provide adventures for children like me.
I was lucky to have been born in a family where everyone read. Those were the days when books were cheap and second-hand books even more so. Every time we travelled to Chennai, Madras as it was then, we would keep aside an entire day to browse around Moore Market, next to the railway station, which was the ultimate readers’ paradise. (We were heartbroken when a fire consumed the whole place.) My parents, my sisters and I would crawl from shop to shop, digging out treasures from countless piles, our hands getting grimier with every purchase. At the end of the jaunt, we would pay up with wide grins, thrilled to bits about the bargains that we had managed to pick up. Of course, my mother was the canniest bargainer, often cajoling the shopkeepers to part with books at a quarter of the price they quoted.
Thus, at a young age, I was surrounded with books of all genres and for all age groups, and given the liberty to read just about everything. That is when I found that to sleep at night, I had to read a few pages at least, a habit that has stayed with me, come hell or high water.
Today, umpteen debates rage over children not reading, because they have many other options and not enough time. Computer games are on top of the agenda, often so addictive that children cannot get enough of them. Social media has also proved to be an enjoyable distraction. Things were easier back in our time because as children, we would wait for it to be evening so that we could run about in the fresh air and play games that involved physical activity – hide and seek, dodgeball, tag and hopscotch.
Unlike computer games, there was no way of playing through the night, and hence, we had no option but to read, which was a real advantage, if you ask me. For not once do I recall being forced to read; in fact, I would wait for a break from whatever else I was doing to be able to finish those few intriguing pages which held so much of mystery and suspense, be it the adventures of Enid Blyton, the classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, A Christmas Carol and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Gothic novels of Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart and later, Mary Higgins Clark or the medical mysteries of Robin Cook, the books of Arthur Hailey, Wilbur Smith, Maeve Binchy and the like. Of course, there were always the rib-ticklers by PG Wodehouse and Richard Gordon if I wanted a laugh.
My grandparents were great influences on my growing years. My grandfather would tell me stories from the Bible and teach me the nuances of classic English poems like ‘Lady Clare’ and Mark Antony’s speech. My first stab at the classics came through an amazing series of comics titled the Junior and the Senior classics of which we had several bound volumes. Unfortunately, the whole lot got filched, and this was much before ‘The Book Thief’ was even written.
My grandmother would narrate the stories of Krishna and Rama, and I remember devouring a bundle of the Amar Chitra Katha series in no time at all. I also read the seven volumes of Krishnavathara by KM Munshi, which showcased the life of Krishna much beyond what was there in the public domain.
All the above books, and countless more, are available at the click of a button nowadays. Most classics are free on the Kindle. However, tastes have changed over the decades and today, children enjoy the genres of fantasy, especially after a poor young woman sat in an attic and let her imagination fly, resulting in a world of magic that encompassed the life of a young bespectacled magician, creating a whole universe of Potter heads. The Lord of the Rings also had a spectacular run of success as it took children on a voyage of fantasy that they could envisage in their mind’s eye. Greek stories also made a comeback with a modern touch as Rick Riordan ‘s Percy Jackson embarked on his own variety of adventures, taking his readers along with him. CS Lewis wanted to bring back the adventurous tales of antiquity and hence, he created Narnia, a land of fantasy that captivated readers of all age groups.
Ruskin Bond, Roald Dahl, Edith Nesbit, Rabindranath Tagore, RK Narayan, Sudha Murthy, Rudyard Kipling, Ashok Rajagopalan, Anushka Ravishankar – these are but a few names in the vast sea of children’s literature. The good humour and the sagacity of Indian literature comes out in its folk tales like the Jataka Tales, the Panchatantra, Folk Tales from India, Akbar and Birbal, Tenali Raman, Karadi Tales and the like.
What can I tell parents whose offspring don’t enjoy reading? My heart goes out to them, of course, because so much has been missed out by those children – whole worlds of words, flights of fantasy and imagination running riot. The habit of reading can be cultivated, but it requires immense patience. Parents who surround their children with books from the very start have the right idea. However, that step needs to be carried forward – a bedtime story before being tucked in, reading at any time of the day when a child comes up with a book, the actual narration of the story with expression, fun and enunciation, and of course, the practice of leaving a story half told so that the child can try and guess the ending – these are but a few steps that gently urge the child towards the practice of reading.
Finally, reading might be seen as a wonderful hobby, but there is no denying that reading opens up the mind, expands knowledge and makes the reader a better judge of human nature and the world around him. A good book is one which not only tells a good story but imparts lessons of good and evil, not overtly but subtly, for no one likes to be preached to. The best lessons are those that are felt with the heart. As a Harry Truman quote goes,
“Not all reader are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
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