Tehelka – a magazine I admire – so much so that it’s the only magazine I bother to read. The rest seem so shallow. But last week I came across their cover story on the phantom reader. (link)
It starts with “Our survey finds that Indians read books not for pleasure but for self-advancement. Given our writers, can we blame them, asks GAURAV JAIN” (link)
What’s wrong with that? I see nothing wrong. It is not for us to question why someone is reading. I might even propose that most of us do not even know why are reading. I am purely happy to note that we are. Some where in his essay I got lost in the maze of his words. I am sure what he wrote was amazing, it’s only that I got a bit lost. I might not be the representative of the top of the pyramid, but I am surely not at the bottom. It took some immense concentration for me to catch a few of his words.
Sample this “But reading contemporary Indian writers in English leaves you with a feeling that there remain stubborn layers of butter paper between their prose and the actual life they’re trying to describe. It is really a problem of foggy realism. They remain too mannered and fey to excite their verbal life with an original voice, to drive language hard, to mint indigenous metaphors, and provide little catharsis or pleasure to the reader. Aiming for vividness, they stop short at vivaciousness. Worse, the weaker ones sink into preciousness, petulance, grogginess”
Sometimes I wonder if some of us sit on top of the elite pyramid and pass too many moralistic judgements. If the guy is reading, just let him be. In my classes I have always held the view that people must read… anything is ok. Find your genre and read. I typically don’t like fiction, but that doesn’t make me wonder why my wife wants reads Chetan Bhagat. She reads her magazines, does that mean she reads as a lesser mortal. Just read. It’s ok.
Read this para – again I think the writer is on a plane, a hot air balloon perhaps.
“there are consequences for a culture where writers keep vomiting out family and wedding sagas. TEHELKA’s English book readership survey found that what Indian readers seek most in books is a kind of newspaper – their top reasons for reading are self-education, improving their English and gaining knowledge and data. The Indian reader is, above all else, functional in his approach. For him, a book is just another lifestyle accessory — a mobile phone for the mind (emphasis mine) — and he likewise decides how it might be paisa vasool. The likes of Paulo Coelhos and Robin Sharmas provide him mental balm for a life of material tensions. There is no problem with reading for inspiration, aspiration or improving skills – it’s with having such a pedestrian threshold for exaltation and language. The cost of these simplistic books’ popularity is a thinning of imagination and public debate”
I am happy that peopel read. thats it. Nothing more nothing less.
But Tehelka being Tehelka will get other writers in and have a wide variety of views.
Turning the page I got some pearls of wisdom – here is from Amitava Kumar (link) –
“I HAVE little taste for those readers, or writers for that matter, who want to be pundits. When you meet a person like that you realise that he nurses a secret ambition to be described as someone who has read everything. This kind of reader will always try to sound knowledgeable, moral, balanced, and always, very reasonable. Such a reader will never parade his or her prejudices.
Can you imagine a mind like that? That mind would appear to me like a clean, well-scrubbed pot, very large in size, of course, but also quite empty of anything real. I’d rather sit down for hours with a dented spoon.
I’m not celebrating simple-mindedness or ignorance here. I’m talking about honesty. Of course, one runs a grave risk in calling for a degree of comfort with a lack of knowledge or expertise. Have you looked at the readers’ reviews — though review is exactly the wrong word here — posted on Amazon? You quickly realise from looking at them that the parading of prejudice is an ugly act. The display of any kind of stupidity usually is.”
And the best one - from Arun Mani (link) – “If there is one thing that is cause for some celebration it is Chetan Bhagat having topped the readership surveys …….. This outbreak of maturity is not to be sneezed at. Those who eventually tire of Bhagat will stay and look for narratives that allow them to ask more searching questions of the wisdom that they receive. If that happens, the day may yet be won for reading.”
I agree with both of them. Completely.
For the record as a marketing person I have some huge problems with the survey and the quantification etc etc (link here). The last para should give you a clue - METHODOLOGY: A survey conducted by Ipsos Indica for TEHELKA in nine cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh, Shillong, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram and Ahmedabad). Sample size: 1,152 people. The respondents were interviewed outside leading bookstores. Apart from this, in-depth discussions were conducted with readers, book reviewers and bookstore owners.
Did you get the clue? If not, forget it – it does not matter. The survey is only good enough to give you a smallish insight in the mind of a yuppie reader. Don’t look for deep searing insights into reading habits of India
Here is an interesting Q&A with Ram Advani (read it here) – “My job is to interact with them and a small bookseller can do that which is a big advantage. You come across a man who is so shabbily dressed you wonder what he is doing in the shop but the way he looks at a book, the way he browses tells me that the man is serious. If a man is waiting to meet his girlfriend he looks at a book differently and sometimes the most unlikely character will show an interest in a subject like gender studies say. These are the joys.”
And also the last word by R Sriram who quotes from Chris Anderson – “Many of our assumptions of popular taste are actually artefacts of poor supply and demand matching – a market response to inefficient distribution.”
Just for kicks I close from the last line from Gaurav's essay "Meanwhile, someone explain to our utilitarian compatriots that if they don’t learn to risk and empathise, how will they be sly?" - I did not understand line this at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment