Skip to main content

Celebrate the World Book Day

Today is the World Book Day and it is a perfect excuse to talk and write about books. Book publishing in India is reaching great heights but the quality of content is miserably falling. We writers have a tremendous responsibility to keep up to the legends of regional literature most of whom we have already forgotten. 

I understand that this is the name of the game. Times change, preference of people change and so do writing styles. But it is quite sad that we dump treasures of literature and start afresh. Here I would like to point to the role of libraries who have failed miserably to preserve literature and stories. As a storyteller myself I am often appalled at the way stories of yesteryear writers are erased from public memory and record. Just because a publisher lost interest and the library didn't care, the writer himself or herself no longer alive or around does not mean we forget all about the literary work. 

This day is also a good day for us to introspect as a society as to whether we want books in our midst or not. For the businessmen amongst us, no longer want to sell books. I hardly see any bookseller in any market I visit. It seems we are only too happy to outsource this to foreign capital backed etailers and that too just a few of them. Most of them are too focussed on selling fashion anyway. In brick and mortar space Crossword is like the last man standing. So imagine my surprise when I found over my last visit, Crossword selling t-shirts. 

When you then look at society's role in maintaining libraries, it is an alien concept. No one wants to do that. No one wants to discuss this. The libraries build years ago now lie in despicable state. 

What this reflects is our utter disrespect for books. India, which is known for its seers and gurus. The propagator of knowledge and yet we have dumped books like a pariah. The books which we are publishing might relate to a section of the youth but are no way an endorsement of upliftment of our society. 

Here is wishing the new level of introspection and a healthy debate on the state of books in India. And also on their rightful place in the Indian society.

____________

On a completely different note, In the Awe of Life is now available in print through Amazon but currently only available in selected countries.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Also read

Does India need communal parties?

I think, it was Tan's post on this blog itself, Republic Day Event, where this question was raised. My answer. YES. we need communal parties even in Independent, Secular India. Now let me take you, back to events before 1947. When India was a colony of the British Empire. The congress party, in its attempt to gain momentum for the independence movement, heavily used Hinduism, an example of which is the famous Ganesh Utsav held in Mumbai every year. Who complains? No one. But at that time, due to various policies of the congress, Muslims started feeling alienated. Jinnah, in these times, got stubborn over the need of Pakistan and he did find a lot of supporters. Congress, up till late 1940's never got bothered by it. And why should we? Who complains? No one. But there were repercussions. The way people were butchered and slaughtered during that brief time when India got partitioned, was even worse than a civil war scenario. All in the name of religion. And there indeed was cr...
40 comments
Read more

Dumb Indians?

Some more thought on EDUCATION. This was originally written by me on my personal blog... but i think this will go very well in this arena too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The fundamental issue that India has and not easily solvable is average IQ being low. India's average IQ is 81, while that of most progressed countries is above 97. China surprisingly has an average IQ of 100. India being a truely democratic country, the government is represented by majority, and majority has an IQ below 70 (IQ distribution is vast in India). Hence you get a government elected by morons, representing morons, and full of morons. And since these morons govern justice system, education system, healthcare, you name it, a person with an engineering degree, or a doctor, or a lawyer from India on average has an IQ of 81 as well. While the requirements of bec...
4 comments
Read more

Trail of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab – A joke!

Who do you trial? Who does this? What is this all about? Is this playing with justice or is it just a mockery of the whole thing? Well, there are lots of questions and I find very less of answers to all these. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab is the only survivor from the pack of Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008 (better known as 26/11). He was captured while he was on a rampage killing scores of people and injuring hundreds, on that dreadful night in Mumbai. There was a lot of fuss in the last few months about him being a Pakistani or his age to be prosecuted in an adult court or with his captivity. Recently, the long awaited trial started and everyone is waiting to see what the court will decide on his fate. Ridiculous! What is there to decide? Hang him!! Simple… Well, I do not want to hang him without getting all the information from him and only after proving that the attackers were all from Pakistan and the whole incident was built up by the Pakistani Army, Go...
12 comments
Read more