A life in reading

February has always been a month of great cultural significance in Bangladesh. The shortest month of the year is packed with many different celebrations, starting with the colours of Falgun, the reverent observance of the International Mother Language Day, and last but not the least, the carnival of books that is the Ekushey Book Fair. Since as far back as my high school days, I used to eagerly count the days until my first visit of the year to the Bangla Academy premises. Usually the wait would begin as early as mid-January. All these years later, not much has changed. The Book Fair holds just as much charm for me today as it did when I was a child, if not more. As all my friends and family can readily attest, I shy away from making any plans or social commitments during the month of February, lest it interferes with my free time when I could be visiting the Fair. If you want to make plans with me in February, it must involve a trip to the Book Fair. Otherwise we are better off picking one of the other eleven months. For the few years in between when I was out of Bangladesh, the month of February was the hardest to cope with. When I did eventually come back in January 2011, my heart was full of anticipation for February 2011.

Like a lot of other people, I buy books pretty much the whole year round. As a student, I had a few part-time jobs, and almost all the money I made there went into buying books. Today, a large chunk of my monthly budget is allocated to making trips to New Market and Neelkhet, on the off chance that I will find some rare tome. So why then is the Book Fair such a big deal for me? The first reason would be that regardless of what you might think, Bangla books can also be rather hard to find at other times of the year. You walk into a standard bookstore anywhere in Dhaka, and sure, they will have the one or two best-sellers and big names, but the moment you ask for something less mainstream, or books by a lesser known author, or worst of all, books on a particular topic, you are out of luck. Luckily this situation is changing a little day by day, but we are still far away from the scenario where niche books by highly specialised people will grace the shelves of bookstores right next to the current best-seller.

This is where the Book Fair comes in. Words cannot describe the joy of walking from stall to stall, picking up books to leaf through, read the short description on the flap to decide if you want to buy this book, maybe asking your peers whether they've heard of the book and would recommend it. In the past few years, I actually resolved to myself that I would only buy books that are hard to find at other times of the year. Of course, the hefty discount that publishers offer is also a big attraction.

That being said, the Book Fair was never solely about business. This has become more evident in the last few years, with several online portals offering the option to buy books online, with competitive discount rates and nominal delivery fee. For most of these services, one only needs to pay cash on delivery, so that is not an issue either. And yet, the crowd in the Book Fair only grows bigger and bigger every weekend in February. I even know of people from outside Dhaka who set aside some time this month to make a trip to Dhaka just for the Book Fair. The Book Fair is more than just business; it's more than just a Fair. Like a lot of other things we do around the year, the Book Fair is a celebration of our heritage.

When I look back on my childhood, I realise the best thing my parents did for me was to constantly encourage my reading habit. In our household, it was common to make biweekly or even weekly trips to nearby bookstores in search of things to read. Sadly there were not very many libraries around the neighbourhood, but this never discouraged my father. In addition to buying me books quite regularly, certain books would be on the offering as a reward for good grades in school. The good grades always did not work out, but somehow the books always ended up on my table. A lot of people often expressed concern about how I am not reading enough "great" books and need to improve my reading taste, but neither my parents nor I ever paid that much heed. I read everything I could find, and sometimes I would read the same book many times over. My taste in reading has refined a lot since then, but I still don't support the idea of making kids choose books carefully for their usefulness or any other parameter. I believe that they need to start with anything that they enjoy, anything that makes them forget the outside world until they have finished the book and can finally bother with the real world again. Once they have caught the reading bug, they will find their own reading preferences and move on to more challenging books. Forcing them to read "literature" at too early an age can have the undesirable effect of turning them off reading completely.

As anyone can probably tell, I still read a lot. On average, I probably spend over ten hours every week reading, more when on vacation. I read during my commute, sometimes I even read while waiting for the elevator. There are always a few books in my backpack, something that has always helped me wait patiently in banks, hospitals and traffic jams around this city. In a lot of non-fiction readings, I come across people who also read a lot and how this has affected their perspective on life. Take Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In his youth, Bill Gates read widely on technology and computers, something that shaped his entire life since then. But even today, Gates reads extensively on a variety of topics. I remember a documentary where he mentions that during a typical vacation, he reads one book daily on average. Unlike a lot of rich and successful people around the world, Bill Gates is known for displaying a concern for the planet and humanity. I for one feel that this rare blend of brilliance and compassion is a product of his reading habit.

Sadly, in our own country this culture seems to be on the wane. As Humayun Azad once remarked, we have become a nation where no one reads. Not our bankers and soldiers, not our artists and engineers, and worst of all, not even our writers and teachers. One hears a lot of excuses about why this is so. Some say books are expensive, and yet you will see those same people spend the equivalent of three books on one burger. Some say it's because there aren't any good books to read, which honestly doesn't even merit a response. Maybe we don't see this now, but reading does make you smarter in many different ways that movies or TV shows simply cannot provide. Movies and television show you everything, while books make you imagine everything in your mind. As anyone who has had their favourite book made into a movie can tell you, the two mediums just cannot compare.

Whenever someone asks me for advice on how to do better in their own field, and for some reason people do this often, I usually just tell them to read more about it. To me, reading is the first and most important step in any undertaking. Want to start your own business? Read what other entrepreneurs have to say. Want to become a successful doctor? Sure, read your textbooks. But also read about famous doctors and their lives. No matter what your situation, no matter what it is that you are planning to do in life, reading cannot hurt. In fact, it will help. So read. Read everything you find. Then find more things to read. And then maybe someday, write your own story for the rest of us to read.

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Hammad Ali is a teacher of Computer Science and Engineering at BRAC University.