In those good old ‘Lucknowi’ days of homilies and colloquial phrases, one popular one for young school going children was ‘Padhoge likhoge banoge Nawab, kheloge kudoge hoge kharab’ or simply put, if you read and write (and study) well, you will become great and only play will make you bad ! Many years & about five decades later these words seem to have lost their significance despite the fact everyone, meaning parents, educators and institutions feel the need for imparting proper education to the youth.
Building strong academic foundations through developing proficiencies in ‘Reading, Writing, Arithmetic (three basic R’s in schooling) are not really needed to secure high marks in most exams & have been replaced by use of clever apps, mobile binging and computer gaming as leisure activities for kids of today. The joys of reading ‘classics’ in different languages such as ‘Treasure Island’ ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Gone with the Wind’ (English), delightful Munshi Premchand stories (Hindi) or Tagore’s poems (Bengali), and writing long essays and showing off one’s keenly acquired vocabulary (to parents, teachers, friends) is past prime time, as artistry of Test Cricket is by advent of T20s !
Good writers are what they are because they can write fiction as well as expound on relevant contemporary subjects. So prolific author and commentator, Chetan Bhagat’s brilliant centre-piece in yesterday’s TOI comes as a breath of fresh air as he candidly lays threadbare the growing chasm in the academic armory of our educated youth and also relates shortcomings inter alia to worrisome decline in reading habits in general ! Humorist Mark Twain famously said “Classic is a book people praise and don’t read.”
Is everyone out of touch with reading books ? Surely there is a class of ‘book-lovers’ and readers of all ages (and we don’t mean book-worms !) even if they are elite in a sense. We can recall that as young students we would frequent book stores to find the right book & wrap it up as a friend’s birthday gift but that’s a bit passé now. Imagine our surprise when on our Anniversary our Son and daughter-in-law presented us with two beautifully bound English Classics. They knew for sure that at least two die-hard literature buffs like us would read them (second time over) ! It’s such a fine thought …
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go” said Dr. Seuss, American children’s author, poet and, animator. One way to encourage our young ones (apart from being a good Grandma/pa who can tell bed-time stories ) is to gift them great books and show a world that’s got hidden !
Working on Living 