In any conversation with friends and family, one subject keeps cropping up — the stark divisions in society today. Everyone, irrespective of his/her political or social stance, will be in agreement on this. They will attribute different reasons to the problem, each pointing to a different group as the cause and narrating their own version of history to substantiate their confirmation of the bias. We are all troubled by this but, at the same time, participate actively is perpetuating the problem.
Reading is the cognitive act of deriving meaning from a set of symbols. When symbols are continuously organised in a certain way, language is born and, consequently, meanings expand. All languages that are in use today are primarily non-pictorial in nature. Meaning, therefore, cannot be derived from direct pictorial correlation. Language symbols are abstract forms, in the shape of lines, curves, circles, and representative in nature. The representation is both visual and aural. We not only see the abstract word, but we also hear the abstract sound. Through constant reiteration and remembrance, meanings are attached to these visuals and sounds. The object that a word represents is also experienced and understood multi-sensorially. But reading is not just about absorbing direct meanings. It leads to inter-connected comprehensions and imagination. It involves the ability to correlate something that is written or said with other pieces of information, to be able to perceive the intentions behind the words and contextualise that which is expressed. Therefore, reading is not a simple act. It requires serious engagement, and this needs to be learnt. Even after it is learnt, constant practice is required.
When we lose the ability to read with sincerity or are driven towards that direction, meanings get twisted, misinterpreted or ignored. This happens because we either wantonly shut ourselves from meanings or limit our knowing. Opinions that are born from such disengagements are incomplete. More often than not, all of us perform such a stunted act of reading. Some may argue that not all reading needs to be a complex set of deep connections. We do read casually, much like how we doodle. While I am willing to concede that we choose whether to really read or not, every act of reading definitely involves these processes to some degree. The question that troubles me though is the basis of the choice. When do we choose to actually read and when is it just a cursory act? It is true that we just look and don’t read once in a while. But viewing or partial reading cannot become the standard. If it does, then even if we are well aware that we need to pay more attention, we will refuse to do so out of habit. This is the danger we face today. We read even the most sensitive pieces in such a ‘light’ manner. This makes all of us extremely vulnerable to misconstruing ideas and developing sharp opinions about people and communities. The truth becomes a victim of our myopia.
Writing itself has changed. Not only are writers told to say things concisely, keep the word count low, but they are also asked not to peel the various layers within an idea. Writing is often catering to easy or quick reading. This also has a cascading effect on the way we are designing textbooks, poems, stories, essays and books we include in our syllabi. If this is normalised, society will lose the ability to read entirely.
This results in unquestioning consumption of what we read. Depending on our predisposed outlook on the content and the author, we accept, applaud, reject or condemn that which is published. When I discussed this matter with the author, Perumal Murugan, he pointed to a cultural condition. In the past, the moment something was published in print, there was this belief that it had to be true. Oddly, this mindset still exists in many, both the educated and the uneducated. Until someone responds in print, rejecting or questioning what has been published, readers continue to accept it as accurate. Though print today is a virtual etching and corroboration is a click away, we are unwilling to make that effort. The advent of Artificial Intelligence such as ChatGPT has only worsened the problem. The reliance on these non-human technologies that cannot discern, distinguish or empathise isolates us even more from each other.
I would also like to propose another reason for the diminishment of our reading ability. Scrolling! Until computers came into being, our reading material remained static. The printed page does not move. In the case of languages written horizontally, it was our eyes that moved either left to right or right to left, until we needed to turn the page. This exercise forced us to read every line one after another and made vertical reading difficult. But when the page begins moving vertically, we can easily jump from line to line, pick words here and there, and make whatever sense we want of the matter in hand. The smartphone has made things even worse. The letters are so much smaller, increasing the urge to move downwards. Within that small screen, lines get cut, forcing us to move the screen up ever so often. This naturally truncates or stutters comprehension. The smartphone is made for quick visual movement and wants the user to move from one thing to another in quick succession. This is one of the reasons why short WhatsApp forwards and bite-sized quotes consisting of four lines are consumed so widely. The entire material ends on one screen.
We place the blame for the present state of affairs on politicians, parochiality and the media. But reversing our degeneration also requires our active participation. One important cog in that wheel of change is the rediscovery of reading. Words have become triggers because they have been tightly slotted and repeated ad nauseam to mean one thing, severing their connections with other understandings and milieus. Therefore, the moment we see that word or name, reading stops and a singular memory is set off. This is especially true of thoughts that contradict our world view. We have to somehow find a way of untangling ourselves from this well-laid-out trap because co-existence depends entirely on understanding each other. We have to find space within ourselves to read with care and restraint. And until we are able to seriously read and listen to one another despite our differences, peace and happiness will remain elusive.
T.M. Krishna is a leading Indian musician and a prominent public intellectual