The dying habit of reading

This evening I was having a dialogue with one of my colleagues that during summer breaks in my education days I used to play cricket  twice a day, play cards or go on long walks. We also used to cover long distances on bike, used to go to near by river and suddenly a spark hit my mind that during noon times and late at night we used to read books. I recalled all my childhood books that I read and how quickly the taste changed from Tarzan, Umro Ayyar, Imran Series to Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Ashfaq Sb, Mufti sb, Manto, Shaha sb, Wasif Sb and a long list crossed my mind that I completed even before 10th grade. I still love to read books, the frequency has reduced though. I tried to think how many of my colleagues and friends ever discussed a book with me in the past couple of years and the answer is very disappointing as only few rather very few are in a habit of reading books.

I was reading an article in The Daily Dunya few days back by "Amir Khakwani" who writes almost daily with the title "Zangaar". He normally writes about media and current affairs of media but he pointed out that most of the people even educated ones do not have newspapers in their home daily. And interestingly it costs even around Rs. 400 per month and one entire family can stay updated with some good write ups. They can know names of good books and can read reviews and opinions of experts. But very few people think like that. And then we talk on different media that our children don't read as much as we used to read. 

If we want our children to read more we have to show that we read more. Start reading and share books as gifts with others. Discuss books with your children and friends. My Ex CEO Mr. Fan Yunjun when he sent a good bye mail in November 2014, after sharing a number of sentiments, he gave a number of good practices that he wanted us to follow and very first of the thing he shared was and I quote 

"Never stop reading, never stop learning, never limit yourself to possibilities, explore as much as you can. When you stop learning, you deprive yourself of the magic of your creation, so never stop that. Learn from everything around you, it is a continuous process and it never costs anything, it will always give you back more"

Start reading!