Why don't we read?

A blog made me ponder yesterday. The writer had said one of her resolutions for 2008 was to read fifty books. I had smiled out of mockery. But she hit me hard when she wrote she has already completed her quota before June. I hadn’t read 50 books in a year even when I was a student though I have to read more books as an employee than as student.
I live in a country where most of the people have no access to book and those with access are not much of a reader. As a student I do not remember many teachers who would talk to us about books or about the world. Our classes started and finished within the periphery of the course books. There was nothing much to explore. I feel that even those teachers were not well read and they knew less. I don’t remember going to the library in my primary class. I doubt if there was any library. I have very faint memories of a room which had huge paintings of kings and queens from ancient India in my primary school. I have no idea what was the room used for but I remember it. I liked watching those paintings they used to make me imagine people and culture I wasn’t accustomed to. I assume if we had an access to library I would be a more learned person, alas I cannot go back into those time.
We had a small library in my other school. I don’t remember in which floor was it or volume of books yet I can say there was library because we used to have library classes. It should have been a small room and they guarded it as if it were a treasury room. I know it was guarded because our teacher had to go and fetch the key in order to get into the room. That was the place where a picture of library got into my memory. To me library was a small room with few books having table and chairs for the readers. I didn’t know people could actually borrow books from library. I had an impression that students should stay away from books other than the course books.
Till date when students and kids know how library is and have access to libraries, can borrow books from there, they are made to believe by their parents and teachers that their main focus should be course books. Haunted by pictures of red color in their mark-sheets children still stay away from other books. Course book though well authored and rich these days are generalized and they only help children to form an idea of things. To add to the woe our education system is not pragmatic, it’s subjective and theoretical. Books talk about zoos, airplane, sea etc. but the students never get to see it. I would like to see a more focus on the local content in the books.
Many parents themselves have no habit of reading and hence they ignore the importance of reading. As children learn most from their parents even they think reading is not much fun. To worsen the condition because the course books are so boring that students like to avoid reading it and they eventually avoid reading everything. I have no clue how many parents in our country offer books to their children in their birthdays or during festivals for that matter. I am not talking about the destitute who cannot afford but parents in middle class who can afford buying gifts for their children.
Sometimes my parents used to tell me stories when I was a kid and I loved them. Possibly they hadn’t read much they knew very few stories and often repeated the same stories. Had they brought story books and read the stories for me, I would have been encouraged to read myself. Most of the children starts with stories and paintings they don’t need thick encyclopedias.
Schools are also not making many efforts in this. Even the schools in the cities have no library. Libraries if present are not well stocked and it is only used as a show piece. Few of them let the student borrow the books. Teachers are more focused in the course materials; children will be encouraged if their teachers talk about books. They can tell children how renowned people used to read and what they read. They should make the students realize that even books other than the course books are important. Libraries should be stocked keeping in mind that the reader is. Many primary schools have books that can be of no use to their students and they are rather boring for them. These issues need to be addressed.
We are inhabitants of a third-world country and library is still a luxury. While I was growing up, I never heard about any public library. In fact they didn’t exist. I believe twenty years back possibly there were a maximum three public libraries in Kathmandu. Today we hear about community library, libraries opened by NGOs and INGOs. I feel good when I read about libraries being opened in the most rural parts of the country and to my knowledge most of these library has been opened on non-government initiatives. While reading the book ‘from Microsoft to Bahundanda’ I felt miserable about the status of our schools. While in Trishuli, I have myself gathered quite some knowledge about government schools in rural parts of the country. The habit we didn’t develop when young is very difficult to develop when we grow up. Most of my friends do not like reading, they feel lazy. However there is always hope, the response to the book exhibition held recently was highly encouraging. Even the stall keepers were amused at the profit they make. Their profit means sale of large number of books and that means Nepal has started reading. With meager income most of us cannot afford to buy books. Though low price editions are available even they are out of reach to most of us. This is where libraries would have been really helpful.