Reading in Nepal…

  

   Precisely three days back, Jan. 2 was the very day when I came to the realization that the bulk of Nepali society simply is not interested in reading fiction. A reason contributing to this may be, teens and young children do not have time to spare from their unreasonable amounts of homework and busy social lives to spend reading.

   A friend of mine shared with me that he tries to read one novel per month. For hardcore readers (booknerds) that may sound very little but believe it or not, in Nepal, one book a month is more than what most children read.  Every six months I have a long break; my dear English teacher assigns an oral book report. I being a booknerd have no problem coming up to the front of the class and speaking on the books I’ve read but I have some friends who have done their ‘book reports’ on a television show hoping the teacher won’t figure them out!

   Another point to be noted, is that the few children who do read are often misguided and choose books that are completely out of their reading range. A friend of mine’s biggest attempt into entering the world of books was unabridged version of Macbeth. While reading Shakespeare at 13 is no crime, I would like to point out that it by no means is a starter-outer book and would end your interest in books before it even began!

   I have to say it is such a loss to the country and the world to have so many bright young people uninterested in stretching their creativity, expanding their horizons, exploring other dimensions, worlds and kingdoms. When the next generation lacks creativity how can our world evolve? If the last generation did not consist of geniuses with imaginations you wouldn’t be reading my livid words on your screen, heck you wouldn’t even have electricity and I’m sure my friends in Toronto can tell you all about how dreadful it was to live sans electricity for three days! No heating, no warm water, no working stove, no light and heaven-forbid no Wi-Fi!

  Hopefully this will serve as inspiration to read more! I personally have found the threat of no Wi-Fi to be very motivating.