Reading habit

Is book reading declining in India, especially among young people?  This quizzical thought is quite too common for any ardent book lover. Over the last few years, with the advent of digital distractions, it's a rare sight to see a teenager engrossed in reading. Once upon a time, parks or bus stands, or railway stations were resplendent with people who adapted their leisure time for reading. 

And those places would draw readers to buy the various magazines at the outlets specifically opened for bibliophiles. Now, the mags or periodicals or novels seem to lose their sheen. Coming to the Telugu scenario, many good weeklies like Andhra Prabha and Andhra Patrika have gone out of print. Literary mags like Bharathi and Rachana are nowhere to be seen.

Surprisingly, the 2009 national youth readership survey revealed that 80 million youths have been buying books in our country. But the sales of vernacular books seem to be getting slower compared to English books. With the protege of the convent-educated lot, almost in every state, English fiction and non-fiction books are gaining a strong hold.

 It's an inevitable phenomenon. Amith Tripathi, Chetan Bhagat, and other new-age writers have made a niche for themselves. Veterans like Sudha Murthy, and Ruskin Bond have become favorites for our children. The present youth are not able to say anything about our vernacular writers, even those who have won Academy Awards. 

Recently, I got this experience when I tried to elicit a few words from a college goer about the "myraavana" Telugu novel, which has won an Academy Award. It's heartening not to know the best literature happening in our language. Who is to blame? The habit of reading other than textbooks should be created right from school age.

 Bringing good books into English is necessary. E-books can not be complementary in terms of printed books. Excessive reading of e-books on smartphones damages eyesight and brain function. Even Elon Musk and Steven Spielberg prefer printed books to read compared to e-books.