It is harder to get back to the reading train. Akin to lifting weights, reading becomes harder when we are not doing it and eventually pushing us to a slump. I am scatterbrained as it is. The current employment situation is not helpful. It has made me a non-aggressive and nonchalant reader unlike eons ago. There are way too many half-read books in my collection. Most of the books in my collection are intriguing however the slump defeated me.
Here is where the late Sujatha is helping me out. His short stories involving lawyer duo Ganesh and Vasanth are quite intriguing. They are fast-paced where the observant duo solves strange and challenging cases. Recently I read "மீண்டும் ஒரு குற்றம்" - "Yet another Murder" and "டாக்டர் நரேந்திரனின் வினோத வழக்கு" - "The strange case of Doctor Narendhiran". They are written in a combination of colloquial and literary Tamil. These two works cover interesting details, behaviours, psychology of lawyers who also double-down as detectives to solve cases. Tamil is my native tongue. I can comprehend such ideas in Tamil faster, therefore, was able to quickly finish reading it.
My opinion is that if you are facing a gigantic reading slump like me, pick works from your native tongue that you find interesting. I felt a spectacular difference in processing the central thesis and remembering minute details when I read in Tamil. I retain ideas far better when I read in my native tongue. I already knew it; however, this is probably the first time I am using the strategy to get out of the reading slump. I am able to read and masticate more information faster in Tamil. It is helping me to regain the old habit of reading and warming up my stupid geriatric brain to become an aggressive reader. Well, it is not as straightforward as saying that reading in the native tongue is easier, but it is more natural to read and process in Tamil. The icing on the cake is that I am finishing the books faster.
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| image for imdb/internet |
I regret to say that I have read way more English books than Tamil books. I should have exposed myself equally to both English and Tamil works from young age. Perhaps, I was that haughty stupid. Not anymore, I told myself. Over the last 8 odd months, I have read some good works of Sujatha, Jeyamohan and Perumal Murugan. Reading in Tamil was more personal. For example, Perumalmurugan, in his work delves into suffering of couple without a child. He expands how the jeers from family, friends and with the prevalent caste system complicated their matrimony. I have to admit that it would have been harder for me to be empathetic to such an idea in an English work. I would like to write on all these soon here.
I must thank Sujatha for nudging his fan back into reading train.