A book from Ayn Rand was thrown at me as I managed my way into grade 11th. The name was ‘Fountainhead’-the book was 400 plus pages talking about how one would plan his/her success in life. I thought passing Xth with first division will herald my arrival into an automatic career leap!! I finished the book in precisely 2.5 … I mean years. As a child, we picked up the habit of reading from our mother who was addicted to reading novels along with it came Champak, Nandan, Lotpot as a bribe . Those days you could not afford to buy these weekly subscriptions, it was given on rent. Airbnb or rent economy was there even in the 70’s- demand/supply curve was always there- 70’s there was more demand for reading- as every parents aspired to get a good education for their kids. Rent, paced us to improve our speed or pay for more days which we could not have.

 

Necessity is the ‘mother of invention’ is the lesson I learned along with the added advantage of speed reading which has stood me in good stead as I grew up in my life. Reading from comics to novels obviously helped in my studies or say “quick studies” as , I was always catching up to pass with minimum good grades for parents due to my over indulgence in sports. Speed reading helped in understanding things a lot more in the shortest span of time then and…as the saying goes, when you keep at something continuously you shall start getting it and I started to get it slowly but steadily what I use to read… step by step and that is the beauty of reading…. drop by drop… the knowledge, the interpretation, the crux starts to seep into your intellect making you a different person or shall I say in finding ‘the person’ which is you.

Reading over the last 30 years – all types from fiction to non-fiction to business has made me wiser, balanced and empowered. Its something I start and end my day with. Modes are electronic, audio, video and the best still remains the old hard copy… Reading memoirs/autobiographies are the best..imagine a smart, famous or intellectual person who puts his/her entire life learnings in 300-400 pages. We just need to glean those pages…These learnings are priceless, what it needs from you is only your few hours. Isn’t that a sweet deal… for me indeed it is…. And so should it be for everyone, … go ahead- remove the dust off the book U purchased, flipped through a few pages and then dumped it with an excuse of ‘why you could not complete it”- this time make none… I did not and so should you.