ON EXTENSIVE READING
Jawaharlal Nehru,Ex-Prime Minister of India is a bibliophile and voracious reader. It is reported in one of his biographies that in spite of his busy schedule he read about 500 pages a day. Is it humanly possible to read 500 pages a day? Yes, it is possible and how I'll explain now.
Every paragraph will have a topic sentence and as a rule, the first sentence or the last sentence happens to be the topic sentence. The voracious readers read the first and the last sentence and make out the content of the paragraph. This is possible only for intelligent, inquisitive, intuitive and immersive readers. Hence it is practicable that such readers read 500 pages and more a day.
We will take Bacon’s Essay On reading as a piece of corroborative evidence for such extensive reading abilities by certain individuals. I quote this part of Bacon’s essay from On reading to substantiate the fact that it is always possible for voracious readers to read extensively after understanding the facts about ways to read different genres of books:
……Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy and extracts made of them by others, but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things…..and thus goes the essay on reading.
Further in this modern era, audiobooks have become the order of the day. One can listen to the content of the books on the go. It is possible one reads or rather grasps the contents of 20,000 odd books in 20 years as claimed by a political leader from Tamil Nadu, India.
If not a voracious reader maintain reading as a hobby otherwise excessive TV viewing coupled with diminished reading will make you lose a very important faculty in the brain called VISUALISING. Lack of reading habits can significantly erode the human brain's capacity for visualization. Regular reading nurtures cognitive processes, fostering a robust ability to conjure vibrant mental images from text. Excessive TV viewing makes one an ‘IDIOT’ suggesting passive engagement that hinders critical thinking and imaginative visualization. The decline in reading and the prevalence of mindless TV consumption can contribute to the erosion of this vital cognitive skill, VISUALISING. Beware It's imperative to recognize the impact of these trends on our capacity to visualize and comprehend complex concepts.
A conscious effort to strike a balance between quality reading and selective TV consumption is crucial in preserving and enhancing our ability to mentally create, explore and interpret the world around us.
HAPPY READING & HAPPY LEARNING
