Dr. Sushil Rudra Ph.D
INTRODUCTION: WORLD BOOK DAY
UNESCO announced 23rd of April as World Book Day. Today, we’re at least thinking about the books from which we have acquired knowledge and still it’s one of the major media to gain knowledge through reading. Now there’s an alternative media other than books. The new generation is getting more privileges than our education lives.
Book library was the only means to have higher knowledge 4/5 decades ago. We used to go library during off times in college and university. But at present, very few students are interested in reading or note-taking in libraries. It’s my experience during my 36 years of teaching service in college and university. Even the new generation teachers are not serious about library works.
Both learners and mentors are indeed getting their materials from the Internet. I am not sure how meticulously are written all these materials!
However, I’m not going to discuss this further. Today, 23rd April, on World Book Day, I am feeling an urge to express my relationship with the books from my childhood days. After 50 to 55 years, today, I’m returning back to those days when I was only twelve/ thirteen years old. Probably I was then a student of class seven or eight.
I used to go to school 3/4 km away from my village home on walking. The high school was on the opposite of Bhoirav river. We have to cross this river by boat in rainy season. In summer, due to dry we crossed the river by walking.
I didn’t have any time to attend the school library. But I started reading books in our home library. There were so many books. I now remember that there were some detectives or adventure related books almost one or two rows of the wooden almirah.
My attractions and attention were there. During summer vacation, I used to read these detective books when all of the family members, especially, my two elder brothers used to have rest in their rooms. It was that time when we could not read books other than school books. I stealthily read BLA 205, Rahosser Mayajal, the books of Swapan Buro, Niharranjan Roy and so on.
When I was a student of nine or ten class, I have completed reading books of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Kathashilpi Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Bimal Mitra, Parvati Devi and other renowned bengali authors.
Just a few years after, in my college and university education, I was highly influenced by it. I regularly attended libraries in college and university. Our central library of Calcutta University is a grand one. It was twelve storied building. Our library was on the 2nd and 3rd floors. Every day either at 8 a.m. or 4 pm, I used to go to the library. (The Banned Books In India)
I took notes from various books which are very rare and could not have been found in the college street book market. So this library was a store of knowledge which I have got something from there.
When I registered my name at Calcutta University as a research fellow, I had to visit so many libraries in my city and Kolkata. Our college library is an old one in West Bengal. It was built in the year of 1853 by the Krishna Chandra, the Raja of Murshidabad.
Raja Krishna Chandra and his wife, Rani Swarmamayee, both of them were the social reformers of that time. They wanted to spread education amongst the people of Bengal and established so many schools, colleges and libraries.
I have heard that the Rajas had a big library inside the palace. He loved books. Because we get knowledge through books. Despite the modern media of learning knowledge, still, books are a great source of information about any subject. Nowadays, we are also reading ebooks through the internet. But the best is printed books which is available in the market.
We must read books and it’s to be our determined in this world book day.
Read this article and let inspire your friends to read. Thank you.
Here are some of the most famous quotes about books that will get you reading:
1.“The only thing you have to know is the location of the library.” ― Albert Einstein
2.“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway
3.“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” ― Mark Twain
4.“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” ― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
5.“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its shame.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
6.“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison
7.“I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
8. “Keep reading. It’s one of the most marvellous adventures that anyone can have.” – Lloyd Alexander
9. “I am a part of everything that I have read.” – Theodore Roosevelt
10. The wise man reads both books and life itself. — Lin Yutang
11. . “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” – Samuel Johnson
12. “Reading is a conversation. All books talk but a good book listens as well.’’- Mark Haddon
13. “Few Children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.’’-Orville Prescott
14. “Books are like mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you.”-Carlos Ruis Zafon
15.“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
— Jhumpa Lahiri
16. “’One must always be careful of books,’ said Tessa, ‘and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.’”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel
17. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.”
― George R.R. Martin
18. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline
19. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
20. “She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”
-Annie Dillard
21. “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway
22. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison
23. “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King
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