WHEN YOU WANT TO READ, AND CANNOT! BLOGCHATTER HALF MARATHON 2023
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“Oh, I used to read so much when I was younger. I have no
idea how I got out of the habit!”
“I try and read every night, but my eyes refuse to stay open!”
How often have you heard people say this? How often have
you said it yourself? Pretty often, I am sure.
The fact is that as we grow older, and life catches up
with us, we become busier and busier, till we are dashing around like headless chickens.
(Where did that gory expression come from?)
As William Wordsworth once said so aptly (the Romantic
poets did know a thing or two!)
“The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
Life does have a habit of coming in the way of our
passions, forced as we are to earn more than we learn. Childhood is that
blissful age when we have time to do all the things we love, from playing to
eating to reading. There are no responsibilities apart from getting good grades
in school and once that is achieved, one’s parents do not trouble one overmuch.
It is when the going gets tough that the habit of reading
sneaks away, replaced by a whole pile of tasks that need your immediate
attention. By the time you have realised that books no longer form part of your
daily recreation, it is too late. The reading elves have deserted you. Sad, but
true!
What do you do now? Is there any way to get back to the
path where you were, when you were devouring books like a book ogre?
I did go though a rough patch when I was buzzing around
like the busiest bee ever, trying to find a method in my madness, juggling
about a full-time job, a hectic social schedule and managing home and hearth,
along with a little daughter. Of course, luckily, I had a husband who helped
with the chores. Days went by when I would not be able to read a page because I
was exhausted. Slowly, as a routine formed, I began to mull over how I could
get back to reading. Then a bulb went off inside my head and I found myself
getting back on track, slowly but steadily.
First, I began to pick up smaller books with few pages,
short chapters and light themes. Or out and out thrillers that were so gripping
that I could not put them down. They stuck by me like the Old Man of the Sea who hitched
himself on Sinbad’s back. I read not more than a couple of pages initially, and
then began to stretch them out a weeny bit.
I read only books that held my interest. When I was
growing up, I tenaciously held on to every book I began, refusing to let go,
like a pup with a toy, till I had reached the last page. I no longer tested my
patience. The moment a story grew dull or a character tiresome, I would shut the
book and confine it to some dim corner where it would languish till it fell to
pieces.
I also picked timings when I could just relax, lounge
around on my favourite armchair and take some time out to read. This was mostly
in the afternoon hours when the whole world took its siesta or at night after
dinner when the barn owl would hoot (or was that only in horror stories?),
leaving “the world to darkness and to me.”
This was also the time I read several anthologies. Short
stories tended to hold my attention since they were, obviously, short, crisp
and intriguing. They were also varied, like a buffet of dishes which whet the
appetite because they all taste different. Every short story had one central
idea and just a few characters, which made it easier for me to wrap my head
around them.
The strange thing was that even though I had paused my
Read button, I kept writing right through. After a couple of years in
which I continued in this strain, I suddenly found myself able to go back to
reading the way I used to earlier. Looking back, I feel it may have been
because I did not give up completely on books but kept delving into them,
little by little, so that I could sip rather than gulp down the contents.
To all parents out there who despair of getting their little
ones to open a book, here are some ground rules that worked for us. Today my
daughter and my granddaughter are voracious readers, the latter already reading
‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ at the age of seven, and loving it.
When our daughter was little, we would buy her colourful
story books, with just a line or two of narrative. She would read the lines
painstakingly and savour the illustrations.
At bedtime, I would read her a story, sometimes stopping
at the most interesting part, so that her curiosity would nudge her to wonder
and imagine the rest.
At bookstores, she was allowed to buy books for birthdays, special occasions and for good behaviour. She soon began to pick up her favourite books and soon had quite a little library of her own. When she became a mother, she promptly looked for creative ways to make her daughter, and then her little son, love books as well.
Today there are so many reading devices available like
the Kindle, the Tablet and of course the laptop. Books have become more
expensive and take up more space especially in tiny flats. Hence, new Gen kids prefer
to do everything on their devices, and are extremely tech savvy. There is no
denying that one can download a whole library of eBooks on a device which makes
it easier to cartload around. They also cost a great deal less than print
books.
Jeanette Winterson once said, “Books and doors are the
same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.” Makes a lot
of sense, doesn’t it?
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This post is a part of the Blogchatter Half Marathon 2023.
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