It is a companion that can never be parted with unless one intends to. It is a source of knowledge one can bank on. It helps one to de-stress and get connected to a different part of the world.
It is all about books and the feel good factor that it brings to its ardent readers. National Library Week is just an occasion for those who want to celebrate the reading habit. Denizens have found major evolution in the reading culture among all age-groups. Though e-book, Kindle Format 8 and tablets happen to be the present norm of the day, love for books has not really faded away.
Mahider Ganti visits different places every week, not virtually travelling but flipping through pages. “I prefer holding a book rather than an electronic device. As the smell of the book and the environment it creates not only de-stresses me but also connects me to a different world altogether,” he claims.
Reading influences a person’s attitude and thought process. For Pallavi reading has become part of life. “Though my day is packed with many household chores, reading is something which I cannot live without. I have been a voracious reader right from my childhood. I could see a visible change in the number of libraries mushrooming in the city compared to the last two decades,” she said.
At the age of 84 M. Varahalu Chetty of Book Centre still flips through fiction whenever he finds time. “The demand for books has risen considerably for the last five decades. Earlier, it was only students and teachers, who used to visit the bookstores that too only to buy textbooks. Now the readership has increased among all age-groups and reading helps one to think and analyse,” he said.
Even the younger generation are now preferring to read. Tanvi Lele is just nine years old but can finish off reading 200-page book within a few hours. Inspired by her mother, she has picked up the reading habit at the age of five. And Tanvi’s love for reading not only groomed her to be a bright student in the class but also helped her be more confident and organised for her age.
