The teacher was expounding on the myriad benefits of reading, and trying to get his class of very young children interested. ‘Every one of you has books at home, don't you? Try naming some...’
Every child named a few, only little Johnny at the back of the class kept mum. ‘Hello, Johnny, what about you? Don't you have any books at home? Of course you do... try hard to remember,’ encouraged the teacher.
Little Johnny’s brow puckered with furious concentration. A few seconds passed, then his face lit up. ‘Yes, there’s one,’ he cried, ‘the telephone directory!’
At a more ‘high-class’ level, the affluent housewife goes shopping for her husband’s birthday gift. After-shave, cuff-links, sunglasses, ties, whatever the shopkeeper tries to tempt her with, ‘He’s got one of those,’ comes the dissatisfied reply. On the verge of giving up, the man suggests ‘Why don’t you give him a book, then?’ Pat comes the reply, ‘Oh, but he’s got one of those too!’
I used to think that these were wicked exaggerations, but then I read about a woman coming out of the cinema after watching Tagore’s Chokher Baali, and commenting to her friend, ‘Did you know that the book version is already available?’ And I meet such people all the time these days… the same people who are very proud of being ‘highly educated’, and who have hardly ever read anything in their lives except textbooks and crambooks. How easy it has become to be educated these days. Used to be a time, not too long ago, when no man dared to give himself such airs before three or four decades of concentrated reading…!
Every child named a few, only little Johnny at the back of the class kept mum. ‘Hello, Johnny, what about you? Don't you have any books at home? Of course you do... try hard to remember,’ encouraged the teacher.
Little Johnny’s brow puckered with furious concentration. A few seconds passed, then his face lit up. ‘Yes, there’s one,’ he cried, ‘the telephone directory!’
At a more ‘high-class’ level, the affluent housewife goes shopping for her husband’s birthday gift. After-shave, cuff-links, sunglasses, ties, whatever the shopkeeper tries to tempt her with, ‘He’s got one of those,’ comes the dissatisfied reply. On the verge of giving up, the man suggests ‘Why don’t you give him a book, then?’ Pat comes the reply, ‘Oh, but he’s got one of those too!’
I used to think that these were wicked exaggerations, but then I read about a woman coming out of the cinema after watching Tagore’s Chokher Baali, and commenting to her friend, ‘Did you know that the book version is already available?’ And I meet such people all the time these days… the same people who are very proud of being ‘highly educated’, and who have hardly ever read anything in their lives except textbooks and crambooks. How easy it has become to be educated these days. Used to be a time, not too long ago, when no man dared to give himself such airs before three or four decades of concentrated reading…!
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3 comments:
I do feel awfully sorry for Johnny - imagining a child growing up in a house which has no books apart from the phone directory gives me the creeps. Ouch.
For the other two - gah-bah is all I'll say. But where did you read the one about the two women coming out from the movie-theatre? Maybe it was a joke. Oh dear - better to be sucked down into the deep pits of the Earth, I say. And I'm not exaggerating one bit.
One of my grouches these days is that I can't read more than a book at a time (and sometimes not even that!). I tried reading three books at a time for a brief period in the middle but I couldn't stick to it. The other grouch is related to my terrible memory. It doesn't matter that I want to remember what I read and that I intend to - I just can't remember. This grouch in relation to my memory always reminds me of what my Math tutor (Sir Parameshwaram) had said about people and memories (but I'll leave that for some other time). Suffice it to say I fall in the worst of the memory categories.
Out of a group of fifteen 18 year olds - only five of them have read the Harry Potter books so I found out today. About ten of them were excited about the movie being released but not all of them had read nor were terribly interested in reading the books.
...as for the educated bit: Some 9 months ago, Guha managed to offend a person most terribly when he expressed his doubts regarding a political candidate. Guha had wondered aloud whether this particular candidate had been to middle-school or whether the candidate had learnt anything while there. The chap who was offended said, "What are you talking about?! So-and-so went to college. So-and-so has a college degree. Of course so-and-so is very highly educated."
Once again a very long comment. Ciao for now. Take care.
Shilpi
A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Rudd fans.
Not really knowing what a Rudd fan was, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Billy in the front row.
The teacher asked Billy why he has decided to be different.
'Because I'm not a Rudd fan.'
The teacher asked, 'Why aren't you a Rudd fan?'
'Because I'm a Liberal.'
The teacher asked him why he's a Liberal.
Billy proudly answered, 'Well, my Mom's a Liberal and my Dad's a Liberal, so I'm a Liberal.'
Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, 'If your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?'With a big smile, Billy replied, 'That would make me a Rudd fan.'
..........Bev.
Being a student myself I have an idea about how a pupil's mind works in general.They prefer watching a two and a half hour movie to reading the book version of the the movie.The other day I went to see The Half Blood Prince with my friends.As I had already read the book, I was very dissapointed with David Yate's treatment.On my way back home I was disscussing the way the movie has distorted the facts.I was surprised when they told me that they came to experience the 3d effect.Nowadays I feel lucky that I have friends who can think beyond designer wears and diamond necklaces.It would be great if you write reviews of your latest reads.I enjoy them a lot.By the way this new blog is as good as the old one.
Partha.
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