Recently Uttar Pradesh Government has made news paper reading in schools compulsory.
There can be no better initiative than this for children.
Hindustan Times reported as under.
‘In an effort to cut down students’ screen time and promote reading habits, the Uttar Pradesh basic and secondary education department has made newspaper reading mandatory in government schools across the state.’
It says further ““Regular reading helps students improve vocabulary and language style, while various types of articles and editorials help them develop writing skills. Reading diverse perspectives and analyses helps students develop critical thinking skills and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, making them more discerning in the age of fake news. While they may stick to their favourite topics, reading newspapers also exposes them to subjects like science, culture, and sports that they wouldn’t otherwise explore. This ‘accidental learning’ broadens their scope of knowledge. Compared to digital screens, reading physical newspapers improves concentration and patience”
Attention span
The biggest challenge for all if us including adults is that our attention span has reduced drastically due to advent of social media. Short messages, whats app and 90 seconds videos have made us impatient. We gulp down the content and do not digest it. This is like swallowing food without chewing it. Obviously, that will not nourish your body but instead give you an upset stomach and ulcers in your gut.
If you observe carefully, people who consume content on the mobile screen get a head ache-like stomach ache- and depression or weird feeling like you get ulcers in the gut or upset stomach. You get an upset mind! You hardly retain anything and it flushes down like loose motions.
Reading is elixir of life
Fast food came about as people wanted to eat on the go. This was tasty and unhealthy. Fast content is something like that- you view your screen while talking, while walking and in some cases while driving. Nothing sticks to your brain.
Let me give another analogy.
If you go as a visitor to a foreign land or even a different town, the tourist bus can whizz past all crucial points, but you always want to spend time at each spot; that is how our brains work. For instance, if you go to Paris, you would like to walk down the shopping streets looking at every shop, inadvertently absorbing each detail at your own leisurely pace. Whenever I go abroad, I walk a lot to see things, experience each moment and that stays with me.
Start with baby steps
Initially, one must start reading simple, short books on topics that attract you. This will help you get into a habit of reading without putting you off. As you go along and develop a liking, you can try your hand at little more complex topics. It is not a bad idea to start with comics and short stories, as they are very interesting and can be finished in a short span of time.
Reading a book is more gripping than watching a film based on the same story. One primary reason is that a book allows you to imagine according to your imagination, whereas a movie is the director’s interpretation. For instance, walking through a dark, scary street can be shown in one way in a movie, but you can imagine it in a dozen different ways.
‘Palki Sharma, a very successful and popular TV presenter calls her show Vantage as a story telling show. She says she is very fond of reading and books have made ever whatever she is today!’ she has been reading books since her school days and see where she has reached.
Do not drown in videos.
They may be fun but are killing your mind slowly. Videos are usually disjointed pieces of debris floating through cyberspace. This format feeds and confuses your mind, that part of your brain that swings from idea to idea with no pattern or discipline, like a monkey going across trees in a Tarzan movie. Conversely, a book is a format that focuses your mind on a single topic for a reasonable amount of time. Video is processed by a human brain sixty thousand times faster than text, says Psychology Today magazine. It bypasses your cognitive mind and drives straight to your emotions, encouraging lazy thinking.
As there is a physical limit to your physical capacity there is a limit to your mental capacity too. For instance, you can never run 100 m in 5 seconds. There is a natural threshold. The world record for the men’s 100-meter race is held by Jamaica’s Usain Bolt with a time of 9.58 seconds, set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
Reading, on the other hand, is interactive and more absorbing. You have to form mental pictures and focus on translating shapes on a page into ideas in your mind. This medium makes you a robust, more disciplined thinker regardless of what you read.
Great and successful People Read a Lot Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Abdul Kalam and Nehru read many books, and they were influenced by authors like Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens and many more.
US president Barrack Obama says that books played an indispensable role during his presidency and throughout his life. ‘At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted’, he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally ‘slow down and get perspective’ and ‘the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes’.
President Roosevelt read two books a day and John F. Kennedy, who had a phenomenal reading speed, was also a voracious reader.
An avid reader, JFK could read approximately 1,200 words per minute, nearly ten times the average. In fact, he would reportedly read six newspapers every morning at breakfast,
cover to cover. He groomed his reading skills throughout his life. As a boy, due to constant illness, he was constantly stuck in hospital beds; almost by divine providence, books became his escape from such gloomy circumstances.
Ms. Jackie Kennedy said, “Well, he read in the strangest way. I mean, I could never read unless I’d have a rainy afternoon or a long evening in bed, or something. He’d read walking; he’d read at the table, at meals; he’d read after dinner; he’d read in the bathtub; he’d read – prop open a book on his desk – on his bureau, while he was doing his tie”.
Before they got married, Jackie says he used to give her books to read. He was an intellectual motivator in a way.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, had read hundreds of books. Abraham Lincoln, who could not get too much formal education, made it up by reading books and was self-educated. Many CEOs and senior executives in the corporate world read a lot.
Winston Churchill possessed an exceptionally large and powerful vocabulary, using words as “weapons” in his renowned oratory and prolific writings, which spanned millions of words, allowing him to articulate complex ideas with vivid imagery, powerful rhetoric, and historical depth, famously advising “short words are best, and old words are best of all”
Build Your Road to Success
Make it a habit to visit the best bookshops and libraries and buy books for yourself. Build a small personal library and be proud of it. Your parents will never say no to this. Read newspapers and magazines which are available very easily. Excellent second-hand books are available at a throwaway price, which can cut your budget drastically. You are so lucky that so much of content is available in good print and good font size/style. It is no more the case where you cannot get a good printed content or need to read a shabby writing.
There is an old saying ‘Likhe Moosa padhe khuda’ which roughly translates that if one writes in shabby way only God can read it. This is not applicable today. When you read your expression improves. You must also practice writing- typing all the time makes you forget cursive writing. The president of India has such a beautiful handwriting- sample this below. Online stores also give a good discount, and one can look at millions of books sitting at home.
The busiest and most successful people read, read and read. Warren Buffett reads five hundred pages a day. Bill Gates Reads Fifty Books a Year. Successful people are selective about what they read, electing to read educational books and publications over entertaining literature. They also tend to fixate on reading about other successful people and their stories.
Elon Musk taught himself to build rockets by reading. The costs to build a rocket were prohibitively high, so Musk concluded he could do it himself after reading how to do it. He was driven by a specific goal and a desire to acquire specific knowledge. He didn’t stop until he learnt what he wanted to learn. Perhaps the successes of others are enough to jump-start your lifelong reading habit. Happy reading!
Bollywood Bookworms
Shah Rukh Khan is a book hoarder. In an old interview, he even said, ‘I read anything and everything. . .I read three or four books at a time. I go to bookstores when I’m in London or America. I get a coffee and keep browsing for hours—something I can’t do in India’.
Saif Ali Khan is also a book reader like his sister. Just like his sister, on many occasions, Saif is seen reading a book at his place. He even has a personal library at home, which shows how much he loves reading.
Twinkle Khanna, too, is an avid reader. After her acting career, she turned herself into a successful author. She is not only a bestselling author but also an avid reader. Knowing the importance of reading, she has also incorporated the habits into her kids.
What Books to Read? Don’t Get Stuck with One Genre
You must read different authors because every author has a writing style, and you get to learn different expressions from different authors. If you don’t read, you will not be able to write. This is important not only for the first job but also as you move up the promotion ladder. Read Different Genres You must read racy novels, thrillers, mysteries, autobiographies/biographies of great people, history and
classics; the list could be endless.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. . .The man
who never reads lives only one”. —George R.R. Martin
Read Magazines
It would be best if you should read for fun, too—anything you are fond of, such as gossip, health, automobiles, travel or even food. You should not be serious all the time. All these magazines give you a lot of information and help build a better grip on the language.
But to build intellect and core knowledge, read India Today, CSR, Manorama Yearbook, The Week and Businessworld. Read newspapers you like; read the Edit Page main articles; they give a great perspective on current affairs.
Call to the Government
Education is a state subject in Bharat. Each state has to take a call. If you want to be the ‘vishwaguru’ first learn, and only way is to read. Reading newspaper- in vernacular – should be made compulsory in all schools. Let this come from HRD ministry too.
I as a director of a B school started this. ‘You cannot enter the class without a newspaper- it was your passport.
It did wonders to the MBA students- just 20 minutes a day was enough.
“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances.” — Winston Churchill
With inputs from author’s book
