READING CULTURE IN INDIA
Reading books, newspapers, novels apart from the regular academic books would build in a wide range of knowledge in an individual. It helps an individual developing his or her vocabulary, usage of proper grammar where most of us fail to do in our write-ups. It helps to get information about the present world by reading newspapers and articles, imagination, creative thinking, fantasizing about a particular storyline, interpreting a situation, figuring out a solution for an issue, etc would be wholly satisfied by a persistent and happy reading individual, reading habits in an individual is dependant upon the social background, parents, type of education, exposure to television, smartphones, tabs.
In recent times we see many of our young Indians not in an aspect contributing their quality time in reading good books but engaging their precious time in other kinds of stuff. There are a plethora of other kinds of stuff diverting youngsters from reading, engaging in online gaming apps, status updates, video making, surfing all day on online internet platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc, binging movies in Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc have included in their distraction. Many of the individuals feel better watching a three-hour movie instead of a book based on it, who knows the taste of reading a book by the way. As all of us are very busy engaged in many of the entertaining programs and pieces of stuff like this similarly, some people’s perspective is to why should they spend much time in reading books rather than watching a movie which serves as a part of entertainment and refreshment. The point is to read a 200 to 300-page book. It takes around 1 week, but at the same time watching a movie just spares some 3 hours on the whole. Also, there is a wide range of the population in India who are below the poverty line who could not afford a meal per day rather how could we expect them to buy a book and be involved in reading. Hence economic aspects also play an essential role as to how people in it develop the habit of reading books.
Before the internet era most people, especially students, teaching faculty, researchers, etc, would engage themselves in reading a wide range of books to find out a particular answer or a solution or just by their curiosity over a subject, through which they would gain a lot of knowledge about a specific topic. There would be a wide range of patience in acquiring knowledge regarding a particular topic, but over years due to the advancement in the technology. All the answers are available just in one tap to a question, off-late it has been damaged the mode of referring a book for a particular aspect by all of us. This has been followed throughout the school and college life of an individual which makes them vulnerable to the mistakes committed in their English language usage. Many of the schools in India have their state’s regional language studies as their subject language, which causes difficulty in coping up with the English language. At any cost learning, a foreign language amidst a wide range of other regional languages causes a lot of problems also loses interest in choosing a subject matter of interest in taking up an interesting book of some language and engage in reading. In recent times books have been replaced with online ebooks, e-resources contents where there is an ocean of knowledge of the particular topic of choice, where most of the students of the lower middle class or others are not accessible to this mode of reading. Which causes ignorant individuals to over-reading a book of their choice.
The tradition in the education system of pen and a book and the chalk and the board have been slowly whipping out in recent times, which are replaced by the laptop, mobiles, tabs, and computers among the students in learning. The exposure of the book knowledge among the students has been declining day by day. As there are instant study materials provided by the teachers to their students, which makes them less involved in taking up a book for studying.
The literacy rate in India is about 74%, which says, not all of us have access to educating themselves, there is a vast population in India who are below the poverty line or even below that who are striving for necessities day by day. Many parents focus their children on making them read books that are relevant only in their academics rather than, giving a good storybook and encouraging them to read it. Parents play an important role in a child’s upbringing a whole, parents have to encourage children to read books at an early childhood itself which makes them become a voracious reader, which makes them critical thinkers, responsible adults who can bring out the solution to a problem in a manner through their intuition developed due to reading the books over the time. With time books become a best friend to an individual giving the individual all sets of moral values, ethics, which an individual should have to face this world without fear in it. Youngsters of recent times spend more time on their subject-related textbooks, which does not give them much of the interest and time to read storybooks and novels.
Even though there is the majority of the population does not engage themselves in a reading habit, we need to thank the authors like Chethan Bhagath, Durjoy Datta, and Amish Tripathi who all by their most creative minds have changed the habit of reading among individuals by their most relatable, and creative storylines in their book series. It has gained a lot of attention among the youth to get back in their reading customs. The average number of hours spent by an individual reading per week in India is much greater than any other country having a high literacy rate. The number of soft copies of various ebooks purchased online in Kindle is more in India than 10 times comparatively in purchasing the hard copies of the books. This tells many of the youth of our county are better involved in reading books through online or offline mode.
The gradual changes happening in the Indian culture of reading books is not been so much into the view as there is an equal number of the population among youngsters who are ignorant in their reading habits, due to a lot of distractions popping over the internet every now and then. So it becomes the duty of every grown-up to teach the kids about their priorities in their lives, which would help them to become better individuals.
Moreover, we could develop the habit of reading in the future generations by changing the library system, which includes both the ebooks as well as the offline ones, which would be easily accessible by them at any instant. The habit of reading books should be cultivated in the individuals right from the lower classes of their education so that it would be developed by them in future days. The reading of basic English books which includes the most interesting stories written by well-known authors over time would actually make an individual get used to take up a book and get involved in reading.
-By Shivani Setty, SDF Batch 14, St Joseph College, Bangalore, Karnataka
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