Dr. Bookworm:How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Started Loving Reading

I have to accept that I had Bibliophobia, but it’s kind of special phobia, I was really frightened of heavy and long books. I always want to read War and Peace by Tolystoy but the weight and size of the book gave a shiver to my backbone. My competitive nerve always keeps things rolling under my skin to go on. Now after Global meltdown everybody is talking about Atlas Shrugged but my knowledge about this book and John Galt remained restricted to first few pages. Than one of my friends who has largest database of all kinds of babas gave me an address to resolve my phobia. On paper I don’t go to Babas but as you know I am a human being and big fan of The Shawshank Redemption, I thought that if Tim Robbins can go through a tunnel full of shit out of hope I must have to go to this baba out of hope and optimism. And moreover baba’s name looked very much authentic to me “Dr. Bookworm”.

Shakespeare might be right about his theory ‘What is in a name?’ but I believe it defines your personality. I must admit I was impressed by the name Dr. Bookworm. Here is an extract of conversation between me and Dr. Bookworm which burnt my inner soul and converted me into hard core book reader.

ME: Dr. Saab I always want to read classics like Atlas Shrugged and War n Peace, but my hands start shivering even before touching those kinds of books and my mind starts singing ‘Aa ab laut chalen‘. What Do I do???

Dr. Bookworm(exhaling heavy breath): Son it’s not just your problem, it is the problem of 90% readers around the world. And main cause of this phobia is lack of guidance about book reading. But Balak you have come to the best place. (looking towards my hands) Do you go to gym

Me: yes guruji(I was very impressed by his theory so he became baba to guru ji within a minute )

Dr.Bookworm: Why do you go to gym?

Me: I like to have muscles like …like Salman (I want to say Arnold but somehow I was not able to utter his name, may be due to respect or might be I know that my height doesn’t match Arnold…whatever..)

Dr.Bookworm: Don’t go to gym. Just use your heavyweight books. (He displayed his biceps and triceps). You know I am using A Suitable Boy and War And Peace for curling for last ten years. These two books are my dumbbells and they give me peace of mind while re-reading. ( I cultivated more respect for these books and also our health freak baba ). He starts explaining again…”It’s not only mind which get refreshed by books but also your body. You have to seed love about books and it will become a book tree for you.”

Me(Interrupting him): Guru ji sorry, but I need some instant solution to my phobia, please suggest something which suits well to my hectic life.

Dr. Bookworm paused for few minutes and gave me some secret and serious points about books and reading which has changed my reading life. I am sharing his perception for your reading health.

The Rules of reading by Dr.Bookworm:

1. Start reading any newspaper but don’t ever follow them blindly. Use your brain to make opinions and you will find the best newspaper which suits your taste. Again reading is directly related to your curiosity. Curiosity is like lawn grass, cut it at proper time and water it accordingly. Proper care and right direction of curiosity will give you best chance to become a good reader.

2. One most important point, Dr.Bookworm points out, that you must be clear about what’s your motive to read and you must enjoy what you are reading. He pointed out this link (blog.flipgraph.com) to check out 100 reasons to read.

3. This reason is more specific to my problem of big book phobia. His solution was ‘Choose an appropriate muhurat, dedicate a lazy Sunday afternoon to Atlas Shrugged and change your mind set of ‘oh it is a heavy book!!’ Try to feel the entertainment which is wrapped within those pages. Your positive mood about a book will give you initial ignition an acceleration. Any classic is able to hold your mind into its world.”

4. Gather all kinds of interesting information about books you are going to buy/read, like what’s the basic genre of that book and how to do you feel about that genre. That creates curiosity about that book and its genre within you.

Dr.Bookworm gave me a case study about how he completed Atlas Strugged. I am listing major points from his journey.

The Case Study From Blank to Atlas Shrugged:

1. Dr.Bookworm first heard about Atlas Shrugged through his English Teacher in a MBA coaching institute. She suggested a book list which consisted Blink, The life of Pie, Fountainhead apart from Atlas Shrugged to improve reading habit as well as to open up mind.

2. What hooked Dr.Bookworm was the name of the book ‘Atlas Shrugged’. He did not know the meaning of that book and that was the first sign of curiosity within his heart.

3. He was a vivid newspaper reader and a movie buff. He read an article by Anurag Kashyap about Satya movie and he mentioned that Ramu was inspired by John Hawk of the novel “Fountainhead”. Dr. Bookwarm told me a little information was turning point in his journey to read Atlas Shrugged.

4. Same day Dr. went to local bookshop to get hold of Fountainhead but it was not available @ the book store, so he bought Blink from that bookstore (well he should have tried an online bookstore in India like FlipGraph for grandest offer new and used books ..anyway that is not the point and sorry for distraction )

5. He completed his first book “Blink”. He started searching for Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged next. Blink had created a momentum for his reading journey, but information and curiosity around Atlas strugged made him run fast on reading track.

6. He learnt about objectivity of Ayn Rand before even reading single word of Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

7. He borrowed that book from a friend’s friend and completed it within a week and that’s how he explained how the interest and curiosity around Atlas Shrugged made reading of that book as simple as walking on water.

Armed with all these suggestions from Dr. Bookworm I have completed a number of big, heavy-weight classics including Atlas Shrugged, War and Peace and 4 more.

Well…Thanks Dr. Bookworm for your suggestions

P.S. Inspiration of the title comes from the movie “Dr Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick”

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Equal Music – Vikram Seth

Equal Music – Vikram Seth

This is a fantastic read!!

It’s been years since violinist Michael Holme broke up with pianist Julia McNicholl, but a chance encounter in a London traffic jam sparks their emotionally destructive relationship into life again. How long will it be before bliss veers into catastrophe, and will it take their musical careers and their relationships with their families with it?

“Family” takes on a flexible meaning in this story. Though Michael and Julia are still very much the children of their aging parents, Vikram Seth equates Julia’s American husband and her young son with Michael’s surrogate family, his bickering but devoted fellow members of the Maggiore String Quartet — three wonderfully drawn characters whose company I began to miss whenever the action shifted to one of Michael and Julia’s tainted erotic interludes.

The story is told through Michael’s voice, and while he’s too selfish and oversensitive to be a likeable character, Seth’s artistry lies in making him a sympathetic character, one who resembles many of us a little too closely for comfort. If you’ve ever acted against your own best interests while chasing your heart’s desire, if you’ve ever done anything to screw up the lives of the people you love, you’ll understand why Michael makes the mess of his life that he does. As a child, Michael escapes having his life’s dream crushed only by grasping the slimmest lifeline of hope; the novel’s ambiguous ending leaves us wondering if he can, or will, do so again.

Seth’s descriptions of the process of music making are the glory of this book.

If you’re a player, they’ll seem drawn from life, and if you’re not, they’ll make you wish you were

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A Suitable Boy … interminable book about a rather obscure period of Indian history in the ’50s… without war, without the assassination of prime ministers, without… much in the way of sex… without even a glossary… was successful outside India.

All of Vikram Seth’s books are well-written, his presumption to be a poet first and an author second is demonstrated by his lyrical, simple and eminently readable style that is maintained from the first page to last.

Set in the post-indpendence India in the early 1950’s, it deals with the efforts of a widowed mother looking for a SUITABLE BOY for her daughter…The novel begins with a wedding and closes with a wedding…It is a very colorful novel with accounts of festivals,the exotic food and the rich and flashy lifestyles of the rich Indians and the changing political equations, amidst all this a growing romance between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy.

At the social satire level the story revolves around four deeply intertwined families, three Hindu and one Muslim. The Kapoors represent the Hindi-speaking elite, gaining their ascendancy as part of a new political elite, while the middle-class, Anglicized Mehras firmly believe in the superiority of convent schools, English literature and proper manners. The Chatterjis, eccentric and rather scandalous members of the Bengali intelligentsia, indulge in rhyming couplets and coddle a manic dog named Cuddles, as the Muslim, landowning Khans face legislation that threatens to dissolve their culture and Urdu language along with all feudal land-holdings.

I leave you with a wonderfully accurate quote:

“A SUITABLE BOY may prove to be the most fecund as well as the most prodigious work of the latter half of this century (20^th) – perhaps even the book to restore the serious reading public’s faith in the contemporary novel … You should make time for it. It will keep you company for the rest of your life.”