It was a cold morning in London. I had to clean the trash before the arrival of dustman. I got up and grabbed the trash bag. As I loaded the bag in the bin the door slammed and I did not have the key with me. I was in misery and decided to seek help from a friend in the next block. I was attired in a lungi and the passers were amused. To them a lungi was a skirt. That was in the seventies. I guess this would not have mattered today. The world has so much changed. My mother lamented that boys now wear dupattaas, girls have discarded them. These were her comments at a wedding reception where boys were attired in shalwar-kameez with scarf wrapped round the neck while most girls did not have dupatta on them. In those days we read books and now we hear them. One can spend hours immersed in books of all sorts on paper, audio or video, shifting gazes in turn as the eyes or ears or the mind get tired.
We are a nation of book lovers as can be seen from the crowd that throng the annual book fair. Most books sold are works of fiction. That is normal as anywhere else in the world. Yet, there is a need for books of other kinds to reflect on national thinking, from national to global affairs besides subject areas such as Philosophy. Publisher's reluctance to print such books is understandable. Yet these are books that propel a nation forward. Compared to other places in the world we lag behind in this area of activity. This can also be seen in our daily life such as a stroll on the high street. There is no book shop other than those selling school texts or pulp fictions. Curiously, there is no bookshop at our airports either, though it is a common practice everywhere in the world. These places benefit from impulse buying as passengers board the aircraft.
It is said that education is the backbone of a country. This in our case is fractured as can be seen from the ranking of our universities in the world. Could access to books be one reason for this fracture? Consider our universities that are the supposed cradle for creation of books and their use. There is hardly a bookshop in any of the them. A prime reason is the price of books, mostly published in the west, that the students cannot afford. Students either download these books or use photocopies. Such books, if available at the university libraries are again older editions. The same goes for the local publications as alternative sources provide these books cheaper. This was a lament of a local publisher as he was not able to sell his books in spite of being texts in a taught course. Yet, in the midst of this melee there is a glimmer of hope such as Pathak Shamabesh, where one can browse books in a relatively comfortable environment. The place houses many of the supposedly expensive books, even recent editions. This is a bold effort and should be supported to make them perform better. Universities have a role to play in this regard for the sake of their students, if not general readers. The place can be helped, with resources besides books, to make them easily accessible and comfortable. This can get as close to Foyles of London. Universities can help in many different ways from involvement of their faculty to bursaries. They may even pool resources to promote festivals such as book of the year. Such festivities can foster a culture of learning through promotion of books in our life. This is cultural literacy that is at best weak in the country.
On my flight back home from London, I bought a book at the airport bookshop. It was a business book titled 'Only the Paranoid Survive'. The author was an innovator and successful entrepreneur. It is amazing how the role of knowledge creation is being taken away by people outside the university. In other words, the universities are led in their areas of expertise i.e. creation of knowledge. This is good though the universities could feel lightened. Luckily this has not happened as universities such as Cambridge are now willing partners with them through Science Parks, for example. This is besides consulting that abounds in universities today. That is co-creation of knowledge and has much benefited the world in general. We need to wake up to the reality of these changes to partner with the stakeholders. Going back to my flight, the airhostess was keen on the book knowing that I was a university professor. She was a part-time MBA student. I gifted her the book as I had finished reading as I reached my destination. That was dissemination of knowledge, Socratic in a way. That was reaching out.
chowdhury.igc@gmail.com