Books are like best friends, and voracious readers will surely vouch for it. Keeping this in mind, and with an intention to inculcate the habit of reading among Hyderabadis, city-based NGO, Life-Health Reinforcement Group (Life- HRG) launched an initiative called ‘Spreading Light – Books’ exactly one year ago.
Started by Dr Surya Prakash, this initiative was to make 100 people share their views on 100 books over a period of 100 days. “The aim of this initiative is to create a situation where people carry a book along with them just as they carry a cell phone. Books should be as visible as a cell phone,” explains Prakash, who is a doctor by education, but a social worker by choice.
However, once the weekly exercise of discussing books began, the concept spread like wildfire across seven other localities in the city. Because of this, instead of the former target of 100 books in a year, the group accomplished the task of discussing 200 books in the same span.
“We started this exercise in Srinagar Colony at a food joint. But, as the news spread and readers/writers enjoyed it, we spread to seven other localities like Malakpet, Vanasthalipuram, etc, making us achieve a bigger target,” says a beaming Prakash, who is looking forward to celebrating the one-year success meet to take place today. Explaining a little about the success meet, Prakash says, “The main idea is to bring readers and writers together and discuss issues, like why the habit of reading has come down. We have invited students and principals of various schools as well to be a part of this meet because our target is youngsters and educational institutions.”
Prakash believes that kids should not only read books that are a part of their academics, but also the ones beyond school/college because it broadens one’s horizon. Furthermore, the success meet will also find a display of the 200 books that have been discussed in the past one year. On a concluding note, he says that he wants to inculcate the habit of reading within people without any sort of coaxing.
“It doesn’t matter as to what kind of books people read, as long as they develop the habit of reading,” he signs off. The success meet, which is open to just about everyone, is being held today at A V College, from 10 am to 2 pm.
Some of the titles discussed: n Environmental Report 1990 by the Govt of AP (Telugu) n Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (English) n Manasuna Manasiye by KB Lakshmi (Telugu) n Immortality Edge by Dave Woynarowski (English) n Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers by David n Edmonds, John Eidinow (English) n Dewan Galib by Mirza Galib (Urdu).