Reading was a good way to beat my childhood blues. I cherish the memories of the lone walks to the local library, a book clutched in my hand, sharing it with my childhood friend Subi. The reading was mainly done without any agenda. It was spontaneous and gave me a chance to escape from home every evening for a stroll. Reading was very much part of my life as I used to read even while eating my meals. In those days, grocery items were packed in newspapers, and even that became reading material for me. My parents always encouraged me in whatever way they could. Mom used to get books from the school library. Father used to buy me comics and the abridged versions of classics published by Jaico.
It is when I chose a B.A. with English as my degree subject that my reading evolved into something profound and goal-oriented. Reading, which was once a pleasurable activity, became an academic activity. Short stories, Shakespearean plays, poetry, novels and essays – my world of reading was changing. Some of the literary pieces which I still enjoy are – the short story, The Lotus Eater by Somerset Maugham, Othello and Antony & Cleopatra by Shakespeare, The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett, Critical essays by A.C. Bradley and Matthew Arnold and the poems of William Wordsworth. With this, I added one more strand to my reading pursuits – Reading for pleasure and academic reading. Later, when I joined the M.A. program at Loyola College, Chennai, my reading became more focused and refined. Apart from the college library, my parents were kind enough to get me memberships at the British Council and the American Library. The college's location enabled me to take long walks to both these sites of learning. There was a competitive spirit to mine exclusive content for exams from British and American authors. Thanks to Prof. Joseph Chandra, who used to enthral us with his remarkable collection of quotes.
As an English teacher, I used various reading techniques in the classroom, such as skimming and scanning. Most of these were aimed at undergraduate students and often involved poems and excerpts from novels and essays. I share the concerns raised by Prof. H. Kalpana Rao, a former Professor of English at Pondicherry University. In an article titled ‘How to rekindle the passion for reading in Literature classes’ which appeared in the Hindu on August 04, 2025, she talks about the proclivity of the B.A. English students to substitute the reading of original textbooks with notes from seniors and cheap guidebooks. She says that this is not because of a lack of reading skills among students but ‘an inertia towards reading itself’.
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