Buying Books and Records by Indians

It is no secret that Indians buy less books (& read them of course!) & CDs & LPs compared to people in developed countries. A whole village dedicated to bookshops like Hay-on-Wye (in U K.) is inconceivable here. 

The reasons are manifold. It is a traditional lack of culture perpetuated even in modern times. Filmstars & now Cricketers, who flaunt their wealth, buy only clothes, cars & jewellery. One legendary actor does have a personal library, but is foolish enough to have it in his basement in a city prone to flooding. None are known to have & use audiophile equipment.

It is paradoxical that people happily accept as reasonable, money spent on travel, drinks & gambling, but consider investing in books or music as a waste of money. If this is the mentality of worldly people, the spiritually inclined are also inadvertently misled by spiritual leaders. Sri Ramakrishna, repeatedly decried the acquiring of even scriptural knowledge through books, claiming only personal experience is valid. Sri Satya Sai Baba, though he founded an University, was commonly making jibes against "bookish knowledge." So everyone conspires to discourage books & music. People who waste money on frivolous pursuits without a second thought, want their music free & grudge buying a ticket to a concert.

The advent of Internet has completely killed the music industry, hitting the livelihood of professional musicians really hard. But as previously noted, in developed countries, people do listen to music on-line, but this is important, if they like it, go out & buy the LP & play it on state-of-art equipment. Here it is considered madness to pay for something available free on-line.

Sometime ago, it was noticed that Nairobi, though a modern big city, had no bookstore. The day is not far off when Indian cities, populated by wealthy Philistines, also may claim this dubious honour.

Splendiferous Stories of "Dr." Seuss

With sensational sales of 600 million copies, his books are without doubt immensely popular with children. With "nonsense" stories like Edward Lear & Lewis Carroll, he captured the hearts of children. In the middle of the 20th Century, "Life" magazine published a survey that American school children were largely illiterate because their textbooks were boring. So someone came up with the idea of providing books with a limited vocabulary & interesting themes. "Dr." Seuss took up the challenge & rose to the occasion & produced best sellers into the bargain & never looked back.

 The crowning glory was, the books of "Dr." Seuss, an American, were even used by the Bank of England, to train its employees (who obviously had not mastered Queen's English sufficiently) to write simple, comprehensible reports.

In this connection, it can be recalled that Sukumar Ray, father of the celebrated film director Satyajit Ray, was an accomplished writer of "nonsense" verse in Bengali, which has even been translated into English & published.

The Essential "Schizophrenia" of Modern times

In modern times, many, young or old have to live alone. The young migrate abroad in search of greener pastures & have to live alone for a shorter or longer time. During this period, they, in addition to their education or job, have to look after themselves, primarily in cooking their food. Even though the consumer part of them may like variegated tasty food, the cook part of them may not be able to provide it due to lack of time or energy, leading to a inner dichotomy.

Mainly due to the young migrating abroad as mentioned above & also the break-up of the joint family system, where, hopefully tasks were divided, the old are also left to their own devices to fend for themselves, leading to a dichotomy no different than the one experienced by the young. The "nuclear" family, replacing the "joint" family, may itself break up further due to divorce, creating a social catastrophe, no less dangerous in its own way as nuclear fission.

So the net result is, increasing number of people living alone, young or old, are driven to engage in activities, which are clamorously demanded by the "consumer" part of their selves & as vigorously opposed by the other, "serving" part. This "Schizophrenia" does nothing to improve the well-being of the people in question.