Reading habit and world awareness
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Sifat Siddiquei
THE definition of 'pleasure' is undoubtedly inconsistent---Joy might find playing snooker at BBC enchanting while Keya might be thrilled around her cutlery works. These pleasures when practised on a daily basis take the form of habit. No man on earth is deprived of a habit----whether starting from planting mimosas to ending up smoking. Some of these habits can be practiced that receive appreciation and encouragement, while others can confront contempt and loathing.
But of all habits that is to be borne and cherished most is the habit of reading!!!
Reading might bring one greatest means of happiness during his leisure hours. Opening a book is like unbolting the door to another world of fantasy or reality; stalking towards experiences, perhaps impossible while relaxing at home, and revitalising under complete enigmas!
Whenever I start reading a book, it is as if I am entering another life, existing among characters from I know long before and intermingling in a society that is so different from mine. Sometimes I even reach the verge of weaving my own thoughts and dilemmas with the story, expecting the outcomes to be exactly as to my anticipation. How many times have I travelled through the ice-scooped mountains of Switzerland; felt the glowing sunshine over-splitting the red-tiled roofs on my skin or got carried away towards the lively woken up palms, eucalyptus and coconut trees. Holding a steaming coffee mug in one hand and a healthy novel in another, whenever I take a walk through my garden, the immense spectacles inside the story steal my mind, deleting all my dark thoughts like cobwebs and open my time like a poem being written in the air.
A book can be a beautiful source of vivid colour in a monotonous life. The sight of a profusely budding book-self can be translated into dozens of glowing jars of enlightenment hanging from the branches with rich informative preserves ready for hot toast. The collection and arrangement of a neat book-shelf symbolises the identity of an individual and shows one’s literacy level and taste. Whether it is geography or zoology, each is a reinforcement of pure acknowledgement. One might carry an army from Trojan War in his brief case or witness grand verdicts of internationally recognised bureaucrats simply on his lap. They are not simply a couple of pages that one flips with his fingers----they are the informative periods that clays a child into a man with holds.
Now-a-days, various replacement for books and journals have been installed at the markets. Assignments now do not need the spontaneous necessity to go to the nearest library for an encyclopedia; rather to browse in the Internet or press a floppy inside the CPU. These might have temporary persistence for the 'cut-and-paste' methods, but not for true advancement. Teenagers now are more prone to the short-cuts of scoring bingo rather than breeding the actual bonanza. The percentile of basic education is now getting deteriorated. Newspapers are thought as archaeological documentaries and novels as indecipherable anargram. Thus 'Limited knowledge is dangerous' is a principle that is less practiced than before.
In a world full of anonymities, a regular reader is never an odd among a conversation involving either business, finance, custom or technology. A personality that is most applauded among general is the one who not only escalates the knowledge blessed by God but also his people with it. World becomes a more understandable and easy place for him to survive.
Thus on the wings of tranquility and delightment can be achieved power and engagement only through a simple habit of reading!
Sifat Siddiquei is an A level student in Maple Leaf International School, Dhaka
THE definition of 'pleasure' is undoubtedly inconsistent---Joy might find playing snooker at BBC enchanting while Keya might be thrilled around her cutlery works. These pleasures when practised on a daily basis take the form of habit. No man on earth is deprived of a habit----whether starting from planting mimosas to ending up smoking. Some of these habits can be practiced that receive appreciation and encouragement, while others can confront contempt and loathing.
But of all habits that is to be borne and cherished most is the habit of reading!!!
Reading might bring one greatest means of happiness during his leisure hours. Opening a book is like unbolting the door to another world of fantasy or reality; stalking towards experiences, perhaps impossible while relaxing at home, and revitalising under complete enigmas!
Whenever I start reading a book, it is as if I am entering another life, existing among characters from I know long before and intermingling in a society that is so different from mine. Sometimes I even reach the verge of weaving my own thoughts and dilemmas with the story, expecting the outcomes to be exactly as to my anticipation. How many times have I travelled through the ice-scooped mountains of Switzerland; felt the glowing sunshine over-splitting the red-tiled roofs on my skin or got carried away towards the lively woken up palms, eucalyptus and coconut trees. Holding a steaming coffee mug in one hand and a healthy novel in another, whenever I take a walk through my garden, the immense spectacles inside the story steal my mind, deleting all my dark thoughts like cobwebs and open my time like a poem being written in the air.
A book can be a beautiful source of vivid colour in a monotonous life. The sight of a profusely budding book-self can be translated into dozens of glowing jars of enlightenment hanging from the branches with rich informative preserves ready for hot toast. The collection and arrangement of a neat book-shelf symbolises the identity of an individual and shows one’s literacy level and taste. Whether it is geography or zoology, each is a reinforcement of pure acknowledgement. One might carry an army from Trojan War in his brief case or witness grand verdicts of internationally recognised bureaucrats simply on his lap. They are not simply a couple of pages that one flips with his fingers----they are the informative periods that clays a child into a man with holds.
Now-a-days, various replacement for books and journals have been installed at the markets. Assignments now do not need the spontaneous necessity to go to the nearest library for an encyclopedia; rather to browse in the Internet or press a floppy inside the CPU. These might have temporary persistence for the 'cut-and-paste' methods, but not for true advancement. Teenagers now are more prone to the short-cuts of scoring bingo rather than breeding the actual bonanza. The percentile of basic education is now getting deteriorated. Newspapers are thought as archaeological documentaries and novels as indecipherable anargram. Thus 'Limited knowledge is dangerous' is a principle that is less practiced than before.
In a world full of anonymities, a regular reader is never an odd among a conversation involving either business, finance, custom or technology. A personality that is most applauded among general is the one who not only escalates the knowledge blessed by God but also his people with it. World becomes a more understandable and easy place for him to survive.
Thus on the wings of tranquility and delightment can be achieved power and engagement only through a simple habit of reading!
Sifat Siddiquei is an A level student in Maple Leaf International School, Dhaka