Three books and something

Reading is one of the ideal hobbies. You can be all by yourself and live in a world different from the actual one around you which is likely to be quite unpleasant. I spend my free time usually with books. The one that is waiting right now to be read is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Published in 2007, it is the autobiography of a Somali-born Dutch-American activist and feminist. It tells the real story of a fighter who “survived civil war, female circumcision, brutal beatings, an adolescence as a devout believer, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four countries under dictatorships” (from the blurb).

I love people who struggle and fight against the mediocre world that relentlessly seeks to destroy the intelligent, liberal thinkers. Ayaan Hirsi Ali belongs to that group. In the introduction to the book, Christopher Hitchens tells us that the oft-heard advice that “we should not judge a religion by the actions of its fringe extremists” is absurd when we consider the lives of real individuals who have been persecuted and/or threatened with death in the name of religion. What is the crime of such people? That they wish to live their life with intellectual honesty.

People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali inspire me.

Another book that has found place in my to-read list is The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph. It is the story of a suicide. South India has a suicide rate that is about six times the world average. This novel is set in South India and I am interested to find out how the author deals with the theme of suicide. The fact that it is a darkly comical novel is an added trigger.

The third book that is waiting to be read is All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy. It is a critically acclaimed novel that amalgamates fiction with real famous lives. Rabindranath Tagore and Begum Akhtar all make their presence felt in the novel. I’m fond of such novels that blend fiction with reality or history. Moreover, I understand that Roy has a subdued style; she is a writer of great subtlety.

I’m writing this for Indispire Edition 268.

So there’s one more thing left. Do I consider reading habits that go beyond textbooks as the real education? Undoubtedly yes. I am a teacher who seldom sticks to the textbooks. I may take an entire hour to finish one paragraph in the textbook because something in the paragraph will take me to one writer and then another and so on. I go far beyond the textbook and students love it. Of course, occasionally this habit of mine has invited complaints from parents that I shake up the religious faith of the young students. My motive has never been to rattle anyone’s faith in any god but to make such faith more meaningful. Religion without soul is the most dangerous thing in today’s world. I try to bring that soul to the young believers in front of me. I try to make them question a whole lot of things which are absurd to any intelligent, thinking person. Books help me in that process. Books will help anyone in the process of making more sense out of life.

#ReadBooks