Lack of bookshops in many areas of New Delhi

Now, all of you are aware of India as a country that is growing at about 9% per annum. That sounds great. I attended a National Policy Conference on Microfinance recently, where I learned that while our growth rate is about 8-9% per annum but poverty reduction is 1% per annum. So, there's an anomaly there. I understand that the present government, as well as the earlier governments of the last six decades since the Indian independence, have found it very difficult to reduce povery in an effective manner.

But what about the present efforts? What about the present allocation in the budgets? What about creating a stronger civil society? I know that government cannot be faulted for everything.

But there are some facts that would surely shock anyone. For instance, do you know that there are a number of areas in the Indian capital, New Delhi, which are completely devoid of good bookshops?

Let us take the case of South Delhi, the so-called premier disrict of the city. If you move from Badarpur Border which is one end of South Delhi and touches the Delhi-Haryana border at Faridabad and if you move from there towards Sarita Vihar, which is supposedly a prime area [with flat prices starting at Rs. 5 million [$130,000] for flats which are about 1000 sq feet]--> in that distance, from Badarpur Border to Sarita Vihar, you have certainly covered about six kilometers [four miles]. Now, if you moved from Sarita Vihar to the New Friends Colony complex, Sukhdev Vihar, Ishwar Nagar you are essentially speaking about exceptionally premium areas, where you have flats as well as pretty good bungalows. The bungalows that you have in these areas would start at least at Rs. 50 million [$ 1.25 million] for plot sizes of about 300 sq m.

By the way, you have something called the New Friends Colony Complex, where you also have the Surya Hotel, which is sometimes called Sofitel Surya or the Best Western Surya, which is a five star hotel. You even have a new multiplex there. And in this complex, you have McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Subway, and you also have Indian coffee chains such as Barista and Cafe Coffee Day. So, this isn't any god-forsaken place. It is certainly a prime location.

Then, if you went in another directon and wanted to touch another Delhi border, at Kalindi Kunj, you would have crossed the Jamia Millia Islamia University campus and you would need to traverse the entire length of Okhla to reach there. Now, when you began from Badarpur Border and reached the New Friends Colony complex, you would have covered a minimum of eight kilometers [six miles] and then, you can go ahead to Maharani Bagh and Ashram, which would add another two kilometers to your sojourn. And that is another prime area. And you have pretty bg celebrities staying there. One former Indian Prime Minister, Mr. I K Gujral stays there or used to and then, the husband of Ms. Priyanka Vadra [nee Gandhi] stays somewhere there or used to and you had the noted painter Satish Gujral, whose works and murals sell for a lot... staying there.... and you can name anyone and most of them stay in this area.

But you would have never seen a single bookshop worth anything in this entire region of about ten kilometers. Yes, you would find stationery shops, where you can buy envelopes and office supplies. But you wouldn't be abe to see a single good bookshop anywhere here. The area that I have referred to here has a great variety of people staying here. We have people, who are of different religions and who have come from various parts of the country, we have very rich people here, we have very educated people here. We have schools here and we have a University here. We have people who are quite poor who also stay here and they are the ones who should actually be getting such services.

Now, it isn't the government's fault and the government cannot monitor everything. But we should have some strong civil society groupsand people, who should give a thought to how our cities are shaping up. I don't have the money to set up a chain of bookstores, so, I can't do it. But we should seriously have more focus on increasing the reading public.

Who is your favorite author?

When people ask me inane questions like, 'Who's your favorite author?'--my first reaction, which is muted, is to gasp! Interestingly, I have seen a number of people in my life, which include so-called intellectuals, intelligentsia, 'educated' people such as academics as well as all sorts of sundry people, ask me this question.

The problem with a majority of people that I meet in my daily life is that they are exceptionally ignorant about most things in their lives, including what constitutes the bedrock of their professional lives. The second problem that a number of people suffer from is a tremendous lack of reading. I have seen senior professors in Indian universities getting along with their lives without a word of reading for a number of years. For many educated, and certainly highly literate people, reading in an anathema that is best avoided.

Now, I don't want any of you to think that this is a rant or a complaint against any particular individual because it is not. And I don't want you to think that I'm trying to disguise personal angst in a general discourse. That is also untrue.

This post is, in fact, a comment on the state of the profession as it exists in the academia and is in some ways, also a comment on the declining reading public in urban centers such as New Delhi, the Indian capital, where I reside.

By the way, before you folks start getting ideas about any element of disillusionment in my words, let me throw light on the fact that issues regarding the profession of academia are quite current in the western world. For instance, I am a member of the Modern Language Association and they publish an annual journal, called Profession, which is given to the members as part of their membership dues. I have been a member of the MLA for a number of years and I really look forward to reading Profession because it has a number of studies that are quite eye-opening.

OK. Let us give you a recent example. I met a student today. She is twenty years old and she has stayed all her life in New Delhi, which is the capital of the country. She has studied here and she failed in her 'compulsory English' papers in first and second year of her BA degree. [Here, in India, we have a three year BA program.] 'Compulsory English' is usually English grammar with a reader thrown in, which has some poems [including sonnets by Wordsworth and Shakespeare--you might object to the methodology, but that is another matter]. The idea is that this is a compulsory course that students must pass, they should secure 33 marks out of 100. And the philosophy behind this course is that the students would get to learn 'some English', by which it is assumed that they would learn communicative English or would enhance language skills that would help them in an ESL (English as a Second Language) situation. I do agree that the methodology of the course materials might be faulty because you cannot expect anyone to learn language if they had to study a sonnet.

Anyway, let us not detract from the main theme. So, this girl who has studied all her life in New Delhi failed those two papers. I asked her about the newspapers that she got at her house. She told me that she got two newspapers, a national Hindi daily, Hindustan, and a national English daily, The Times of India. I asked her if she read The Times of India, and she replied that she flipped it sometimes. Now, this is someone who is 20 or 21 years old.

Isn't it a bit shocking?

OK, to conclude, I must confess that I didn't write much about the title of my post. But I'll keep on posting small write-ups about a number of authors who have been my favorites. I don't have a single favorite author in my life. There have been so many, who have exerted their influences in their small ways.