Listening is not reading

A part of my little library

There was a time when I used to listen to the speeches of Osho Rajneesh on my cassette player. Osho spoke on and on while I cooked my meals in the tiny kitchen of my rented little house in Shillong. It was a pleasure listening to the old man. He could speak about almost anything under the sun and even beyond the sun. He had an exquisite sense of humour too. His speeches were interspersed with witty anecdotes or parables. I still remember some of those stories.

Eventually I lost interest in Osho. Maybe I outgrew my protracted adolescent appetite for outlandish wisdom. The cassette player emanated songs instead of speeches.  For wisdom, I relied on books. Nothing can take the place of books when it comes to intellectual stimulation.

What about audio books? This is the question raised at In[di]spire this week. I never listened to an audio book until I came across this topic. How can I write about it unless I listened to one? So I went to LibriVox which is one of the many sites that provide free audio books. I downloaded one of Mahatma Gandhi’s books and started listening to it. I didn’t go very far with that, however.

Reading is not listening, I realised. I can listen to speeches provided they are entertaining. Speeches are entirely different from books. Public speaking is a different art altogether and I like to listen to good speakers. Listening to someone reading from a book is quite a tedious job, however. When it comes to books, I prefer to do the reading myself. At my own pace. Feeling the very touch of the pages. I don’t even like reading from an electronic device except short pieces.

A book is a living thing which grows on you as you read it. Mark Twain thought that the ingredients of an ideal life are good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience. I prefer my books to be more concrete than the other two.