Why I Read

One of my fondest childhood memories is from the times when I was between eight and ten years old. I had two close buddies and we all shared the love of reading comics.

In fact, stating it as ‘sharing the love’ would be euphemistic.

What we shared was a mad passion for the Chacha Chaudharies and Nagrajs and Super Commando Dhruvs. We were among the millions of Indian kids captivated by these homegrown superheroes of that time. Mind you, we’re talking about the late eighties and early nineties when the internet and cable didn’t exist, and Marvel was yet to invade popular culture.

We had a ritual that we religiously followed. It’d start with me visiting the nearby library once a week.

There was only one in the vicinity but it was a good one. As soon as you entered it, you were greeted by a long table that ran along the entire breadth of the room. The library was just a small room.

This table was slightly elevated, like a judge’s bench. Behind it sat two bespectacled, stern-faced elderly men. They looked stoic until you spoke and stated your request. Just as you did, they’d instantly launch from their chairs as if they had spring attached to their bottoms that got activated by your command. They’d then pull out stacks of books – comics in my case – from the myriad shelves scattered along the walls of the room, and bang it on the table with a thud, an act which I am sure would offend the woke me today (so disrespectful, why did he have to slam it) but back then this thumping sound of books getting smashed on the table was music to my ears. I’d have probably been hurt if they did it any other way. My favorite new comics deserved a dramatic entry.

Each of the comics was elegantly bound with brown paper, with a stamp of the library on the top. I’d flip through the pile one by one, looking for the ones on my list while leaving some room for serendipity. The weekly allowance was limited so I could only pick two or three at a time. It was always a tough call but I’d eventually choose, and walk home elated.

The next step in the ritual was to wait. My friends would come over in the evening, like they did every day and they’d be excited too because they knew it was comics day. Yes, we had a day. We were disciplined like that. I would immediately show them the titles and we’d vote to pick one to read first. Yes, we would vote. We were democratic like that.

The final step was the most awaited one. We’d walk to my balcony (we liked reading in the open) and sit in a corner like three monkeys. The friend in the middle, and it was always him, would gaze at the cover for a while (so did we) to savor the fonts and the graphics. Once we were mesmerized enough, it was drumroll time. The cover would be flipped, the first page of the story stared at with awe, and the narration would begin. It was always this friend in the middle who’d narrate it, we wouldn’t have it any other way. He didn’t just speak the words. He expressed them. His intonation was excellent, the pause and giggle timings spot on.

These reading sessions were great fun. They instilled in me a love for words and stories. I vividly remember our shared banter.. the glow in our eyes, the uninhibited laughs.

And then we grew up, like we all do, and grew apart, like we all do.

The collaborative reading sessions gave way to solitary ones. I stepped up to Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie, and newspapers and magazines. The reading habit stuck. My love for words continued to grow. But more than that, there was one specific thing that kept pulling me towards words: Imagination.

When I’d read, I’d imagine. I would see dreams with open eyes. Wonderful dreams. I would act out scenarios in my mind in which I was the hero saving the world. I didn’t have to worry about the uncertainties and mundanities of life outside my head. Inside my head I was free to make my own world. It was my own AI, always sycophantic, always working to please me.

Did you know that Albert Einstein chose to discard Newton’s laws of absolute space and time based on just his thought experiments? He hadn’t even written any equations on paper before he arrived at that conclusion. He developed his theory of special relativity later but it all started with his ability to imagine.

In the book Einstein: His Life and His Universe, the biographer Walter Isaacson writes about Einstein’s extraordinary ability to imagine.

He would think “what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam”

.. and “imagine being in an enclosed elevator accelerating up through space … what kind of effects would one feel?”

Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge. I think this is what separates reading as an activity from most other modes of mental consumption. While it can inform, educate, stimulate, and provoke you, it enables you to do this one thing that, say, watching a video won’t: imagining.

The fact that I’d later start an internet company even though I flunked all college entrance exams (and ended up never attending) can also be attributed to my habit of reading (and imagining).

One fine morning in 1997 I was reading the newspaper when I stumbled upon the news of Sabeer Bhatia selling Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million. I was intrigued. Who was this man? What was Hotmail? How did he make it? How did he sell it? The story pecked at my mind like a woodpecker on a tree. The questions kept hammering at me and I had to know what this was all about.

Digging for information was not easy back then. No computer, no internet. But I persisted and figured it out somehow. I learned about the world wide web, emails, Hotmail, etc. (Microsoft I knew, thankfully).

All this new knowledge lead to my imagination running wild. I was baffled that one didn’t have to set up a huge factory or build a plane to make so much money. You could make something on the computer that doesn’t really exist in the realm of physicality. You can’t hold an email in your hand, and yet it could have such a huge impact on the world. My young mind would go a step further – if Sabeer, who was also an Indian, can do it then why couldn’t I? All I need is a computer, right? I remember getting goosebumps while imagining this future.

While I didn’t learn to code or make it as big as him, I did keep this promise to myself, thanks to the inception of the idea by that story and thanks to my subsequent daydreaming sessions.

So, why do I read?

I know reading has umpteen benefits and we all need to do more of it in this age of distraction. It makes you more focused, more empathetic and smarter. Nobody in their right mind would question the merits of reading as a habit. It’s like physical exercise. Everyone knows it’s great for them and they should do it, and yet few do.

But I don’t read with all that in mind.

I read, like I’ve always read.

I read to imagine. I read to be lost in a world of my own.

I feel I learn better in this world inside my head. I’m able to arrange all kinds of information neatly in mental corners and easily connect the dots when I need to. For instance, the Einstein example that I shared earlier. I didn’t refer to a notebook for that. The visual of Einstein imagining that elevator bolting into space suddenly appeared, as if I had magically summoned it to unfold. This isn’t the same as remembering some lines you read somewhere, that occur to you as you speak or write. That also happens to me, sure, like it does to all of us. What I am describing here, however, is distinctly different. The way I am able to connect the dots is only through mental imagery, like a movie playing out in my head.

Maybe when I was reading that book, I imagined Einstein imagining. That snapshot must’ve gotten stored somewhere in my mental palace, ready to surface when it sensed its time had come.

That’s also why I like reading widely. Books, short stories, essays, columns, tweets, you name it. I want to build diverse worlds inside my head.

I am not picky when it comes to reading. I am willing to experiment. There were times when “must-read” books didn’t move me. And there were times when a relatively unknown story in some godforsaken blog would lead me down into the familiar rabbit hole of unrestrained thoughts.

I know I should read more. I am not perfect. The struggle is real, the distractions extraordinary. Sometimes, your imagining mind can be exhausting and you must stop its wild goosechase.

But what I know for certain is that I do not read to perform. I do not read to impress and I do not read to memorize.

I read to imagine.