Do children nowadays read storybooks? No, they don’t. Whatever time they get, especially during holidays, they prefer to play videogames or watch cartoon on TV. Reading was a passionate hobby when I was a kid.
But for kids of the internet era, the habit is quite unfamiliar, even ‘alien’. Or that was what I thought. This summer, my beliefs were shattered when I visited our town-library.
One Sunday evening, as usual, I was engrossed in reading magazines in the library. Suddenly, I was jolted out of my seat by giggles and chirpy voices. I lifted my head from my magazine and looked towards the direction from which the sounds were coming.
In one of the corners of the reading room, two little girls were sitting together, with their faces buried into a book. With lovely roses tucked in their ribboned plaits, they were pointing at images in the book and giggling. One of them was around 10 years old and the other about seven. They resembled each other, must be sisters I thought.
Getting curious, I began gazing closely and noticed the girls were clutching a magazine in their hands—so firmly as if it was their most precious treasure. They were immersed in the book, lost in reading. They did not even notice the people around them.
“What magazine are they reading with so much interest?” I asked myself. I adjusted my spectacles and strained my eyes to get a clear view of the book. After five minutes, I discovered that the magazine was Chandamama—the colourful children’s magazine that was found in 1947.
As they turned over pages, I could see colours popping out from the magazine, even when they were sitting at a considerable distance from my seat. Their eyes were twinkling with happiness as smiles flooded their chubby cheeks. I understood the girls were traversing in their own world of rainbow-hued fancies, quaffing to their hearts’ content.
Pressures of the school, burdens of homework and examinations, everything appeared to be off their minds. They were blissfully immersed in a fantastic world of their own.I left the library with a happy feeling that there are children who still love to read books and seek joy from stories.
With the giggles and chirpy voices of those girls still ringing in my ears, I wondered, “Can television or any other electronic media offer such pure joy to our children. When will they laugh over pages?”