The Side Effects of Being a Bookworm

Reading is injurious to health

I was never warned nor cautioned…in fact I was encouraged. A new book for every birthday, train journeys, exam results, Durga puja and at least three to four during the summer and winter vacations. The drug was freely given and the addiction persisted and grew.

What follows here is a retrospective, observational study about the adverse effects of the pharmacological compound that goes by the brand name of ‘story books’ in the Indian population. The age group included in the study ranges from 5 to 60 years and it was conducted over a period of 20 years from 1996 to 2016. The sample size was not fixed. It was divided into the study group that included the people commonly referred to as ‘the bookworms’ and the control group that included ‘everybody else’. The aim of this study was to bring to light the harmful effects of reading story books on the personality of the study group. The results and conclusions have been summarized below as a first person account.

Bookworms are very busy during the vacation time.

We prefer to begin piling our stock much before the vacation actually begins, that’s when the hibernation starts. The books for the next semester can wait for the term to start but not the story books. We prefer to stay indoors during the day and stay up late at night to finish the chapters. It is bothersome for the other inhabitants of the house since we will not budge to help out with any work, we are not lazy but we just need to know what is going to happen next. We will clean our bookshelves arrange the books according to authors but do not expect us to clean our desks.

Bookworms care more about the paperbacks than the paper notes.

We will drag our parents to stand in long queues, pre order the next book in series and end up buying hard bound new books even though we know that in a month or two the same book will be available at a much lesser price. But we are an impatient lot, we cannot wait that long. As I said, it is an addiction and we get a high by getting our hands on the first set of copies.

Bookworms are unable to like English being taught in schools.

We do not like the fact that excerpts from plays or novels are kept in syllabus. We need to know why Mark Antony decided to address his Friends, Romans and Countrymen or whether Brutus was truly an honourable man or not. And so we end up reading the entire play and not just the famous speech even though we know that we will never be asked more than one question from it.We cannot limit the number of words in a letter to 100 and in an article to 250. We just cannot express ourselves and feel constrained and almost claustrophobic when such limitations are put. We often resort to unscrupulous means such as making our handwriting tiny so that the space occupied appears to be limited even though our flow of words is not. While some of us become rebellious against this unjust system of curbing creativity by not writing a few answers at all, others could not care less and continue to let the ink fill the pages and smudge the hands knowing fully well that they will never finish the paper.

Bookworms can be very prejudiced.

We might not respond if you begin an introduction with ‘Myself Chhotu, from Mumbai’.

While we can chatter non stop about Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak, we might just end up completely ignoring you in the madding crowd if you say the novels you have read are Chetan Bhagat’s Revolutions. So we find it difficult to strike a conversation or to continue one after a point with the control group.We are a rigid lot. We prefer the feel and smell of rough yellow paper than kindle the desire to accept and adapt to the electronic world.

Bookworms can be oblivious to the world.

You can step on our feet, push us, squash us in the local trains of Mumbai, that’s alright; we won’t say anything to you while we are reading. We are more interested in whether Ralph de Bricassart reciprocates Meggie’s love or not rather than ‘Pudhil station Andheri’.

Bookworms can be extremely irritating movie companions.

We do not think any movie has done justice to the books. We will exclaim aloud time and again in the theatre “that is not what happens in the book” or “oh my God, they omitted the most important detail, the whole plot rests on that.” And no, you cannot have an opinion about the movie if you haven’t read the book.

Bookworms are pests when it comes to matrimony.

We can be a source of constant worry to our parents and grandparents when it comes to finding a suitable match. An ideal matrimony profile for us should read,

“Looking for a tall, dark and handsome gentleman with Sherlock’s brain and Darcy’s heart, as noble as Aragorn and as swashbuckling as Rhett Butler, with principles of Howard Roark, charm of Jean-Benoit Aubéry and the madness of Willy Wonka, as selfless as Sidney Carton who sticks with me through the best of times and the worst of times and who makes me an offer with The One Ring that I cannot refuse and for whom love means never having to say you are sorry.” Great Expectations. Period.

The perils of the world of fantasy are many, the study has been able to elucidate only a few. The data collected till now has shown that the benefits of reading far exceeds the potential complications and adverse effects. It is thus justified, according to the authors, to expose the child at an early age to the drug. The research is still continuing but the progress has slowed down as the bookworms are an endangered species now. The world will soon be rid of them. But the question that remains unanswered is, ‘Do we want that to happen?’

Till then…Mischief Managed!

MS