The mission possible – Make India Read

 The mission possible – Make India Read

                      

                                    Preface

A friend of mine reminded me about what I had promised, quoting me in verbatim as ‘Another video pertains to Amrut and Amit being interviewed by VEDH . Since Amrut Dedhmukh's mission is 'Make India Read' and which is also my pet subject (Reading, I mean), I would love to write about him at length.’

No, I haven’t forgotten. The interview pertains to Amrut Deshmukh, who calls himself ‘A Booklet Guy’. He writes reviews on his booklet app which helps people to get an idea about the book and which will enhance the reading habits of people, so he feels.

               Make India Read!

The interview begins in this manner. The stage of ' Zapatlepan Te Jamtepan(झपाटलेपण ते जाणतेपण) is also set. The heading ' Zapatlepan TeJamtepan (झपाटलेपण ते जाणतेपण) has been appropriately labelled as‘Passion to Wisdom’ in the logo of VEDH  -वेध. [About VEDH  -वेध, Ihave elaborately written in my earlier post captioned ‘The Interview’and repost the same on request ]

Amrut  sits comfortably across, in front of two interviewers. He is asked by Dr, Jyoti Shirodkar,

“अमृत, तुला वाचनाची आवड अगदी लहानपणा पासून होती का? तू एवढी  [पुस्स्कं वाचतोस …” 

[I won't make word by word translation, but just the jist of the whole thing. (Amrut, did you like reading right from your childhood? You have read so many books?)]

No, he says and gives credit to his elder brother, who has instilled in him the passion for reading. He goes on, to tell us how his brother would deny him toys as gifts for his birthdays. He would tell the parents of Amrut's friends they should not gift him in toys and only books as gift were welcomed. It is really very shocking indeed! I would like ask Amrut. Would he too deny his own children, if and when he has them, the pleasure of playing with toys?. And what was his age, six or seven years? Not allowed to play with toys since that age?

People do not realize the importance of toys, it seems. Toys serve multiple purposes in our life. They provide entertainment while fulfilling an educational role. They enhance cognitive behavior and stimulate creativity and imagination. They aid in the development of both mental  physical skills, which are necessary in later life. There are many more benefits, but most importantly, it is most enjoyable activity for a child. 

Amrut confesses that he had once faked his birthday, when everyone in the house were away. When he says he had managed to lay his hands on four toys, you can see child’s laughter writ large on his face.    

Amrut tells us that as he was denied the pleasure of playing with toys, naturally his focus was shifted to books, initially reading children’s books like ‘Chacha Chaudhary’, ‘Sindbad the sailor’,etc.  He tells us how he switched from fiction to non - fiction.

 With the right timing and precision Dr. Anand Nadkarni carefully interrupts Amrut, asking him how his speed of reading developed.

According to Amrut our brain loves speed. He says the average speed is 150 to 250 words per minute and he can read at speed of 1200 words per minute .

And  this is  punctuated by Dr Nadkarni's 

"Wah, 1200 words per minute!' "!

However, Amrut modestly adds that it can be done by practi and continues. How did we read the first word ‘APPLE’ that we learnt as a child?  We must have  read the individual letters A,P,P,L,E and read the word as Apple. Do we still read it that way? Now we just look at entire word in totality, without reading the individual letters. Thus we juet look at the word in totality, without bothering to read the individual letters in that word. We are able to recognize the word without reading the individual alphabets.

But our education stopped at that level. Our teachers, he says, did tell us that just as you can read a word without reading the individual letters in it, you can also read a group of words without reading the individual words. He quotes Tony Buzan’s technique. We can read four- five words together. We should hold the book away from us thereby increasing our peripheral vision. In this manner we are able to read two – three lines at a time. We read horizontally going from left to right and then we move to the line below and proceed in this manner to complete the page.

However, Tony Bozan reads vertically, entire one line at a time and covering three to four lines at a time. Hence he considered as the father of speed reading. 

We come to know from Dr Nadkani that Swami Vivekanand was also master of this visual reading and he could read, understand and grasp 15 to 20 wotds at a time and remember them.  

Now Amrut is adopting that method popularized by Buzan.

I feel that at this juncture I should write more about Tony Buzan, whose real name was Athony Peter Buzan. He was English author and educational consultant. He popularized the idea of mental literacy, radiant thinking and technique called mind mapping. They say he may have been inspired by techniques used by Leonardo Vinci Albert, Einstein, and JosephNovak’s ‘concept mapping’.

 Now coming back to Amrut’s interview, yet again comes the leading question from Dr Nadkarni, 

“अमृत, अश्या रीतीने वाचना मध्ये आलास म्हणजे पुस्तकांनी तुला झपाटले, मग विषयांची रेंज वाढली ?”  

(Amrut, in this way you came into Book Reading  and then  the range in the subject increased.)

We come to know that initially he enjoyed reading children’s books, but then he realized that he was reading for others, he switched to reading books like self- help, self – improvement, leadership, creativity,  innovation, psychology,  positive thinking, etc. After knowing that such books were not the choice of young people, especially collage going, who would often ask him as to why he wrote only on such ‘learning’ subjects.

He realized that he was writing for others. so he sacrificed his own taste and began to write about fiction and even started reading romantic (love stories). He was fascinated by the novel (I think it is by British author, E.L.James) ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and he says, “काय, काय त्याच्यात  दाखवले आहे  !” (What all things are there in the novel.”)

The  expression on his face says it all.

Since we are on the subject of interviews, I shall take liberty of straying away, just briefly though, into ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’

. Anastasia Steele, a college senior steps in for her sick roommate to interviewChristian Grey, a prominent businessman, for their campus paper. But little does she realize what she is walking into and what path her life would take. Grey is as enigmatic as he is rich and powerful. He finds strangely drawn to Anastasia, and so is she to him, both emotionally and physically.

 “What all things are there in the novel”  so says Amrut, almost blushingly. There is erotism, involving bondage,self- discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism.     

As Amrut’s story is being unfolded, bringing all the episodes to light,Dr. Nadkarni once again asks him a leading question as to how he managed to complete his CA despite all his activities. Dr. Nadkarni adds,with a sense of humour, that CA is very tough and as such it’s an abbreviation for ‘Come Again’  and did CA when his heart was not into it. Then what made him do his CA, what was his motivation?  We get to hear from Amrut an interesting  and funny anecdote. He says he had this

“गैर समज”  (you may call it mis-information, false notion) that all the CAs (Chartered Accountants) had beautiful wife, didn’t all father’s CA  friends have them? Become a CA and you will have beautiful wife, so his young mind believed and he did his CA  

On a serious note, he says that though he disliked he did CA because there was no clarity (in his mind) and he was yet to find the ‘WHY’ of his

He found his WHY on reading, books make you think differently, almost opposite of what you earlier believed. He says,”इन्ट्रोव्हर्ट लोकांना  मी तुच्छ मानायचो .  कमी बोलतात   (I would consider introvert as very contemptible. They speak less, dumb people!) But reading made him think otherwise. He realized that the quality of idea and presenting an idea have no connection. The ideas of such people are taken because others present their ideas loudly and lavishly. Again about multitasking he had to change his views. He says that our brain is not meant for multitasking. You have to focus on one thing at a time.  

It is rather a controversial subject, I believe. I feel you should have a natural turn for it,for multitasking, I mean. Some people are very good at it. I remember, I had once gone to Crawford Bayley & Co. and met Mr.Setalvard, senior advocate, regarding our company’s legal case. He, this man, Mr. Setalvad was genius, I tell you – an epitome of multitasking! LlllllllHe had our entire case in his head While we wer discussing, he had to take some urgent call from some important client of his. He even made two, three calls and when we had finished all that, he was back with me. He knew exactly where we had stopped and we continued. In between, he had called in his steno as well as his PA and dictated letters to both of phem simultaneously, without referring to any written document. When I left his cabin I was totally impressed by him. 

Many a women are very good at multitasking. Anyway, whether multitasking is good or bad is rather debatable topic.

Dr. Nadkarni puts in, “Despite having all the ‘attractive’ distraction in the media, how does he remain so focused?” He tells how he has spread this noble mission (Make India read) on social media, without spending even a single rupee by using what is available for free. And today he has some six and half to seven lakhs followers.  He makes an interesting observation that people tend not to use what is available for free but like to spend money instead.

He asks, “There two categories of media users. Many share jokes and forward messages on Facebook. But how many people have their ownYou Tube or Facebook Live or Facebook page to spread their business? Hardly any! Because it is available for free. But many will go in for visiting cards, distribute pamplets, etc. because you to pay for them.”

I shall certainly take a cue from him for spreading a word for my already published books as well as my upcoming books!

Amrut had found the WHY (purpose) of his life after reading Simon Sinek’s book. Simon Sinek is one of Amrut’s favourte authors.

And we continue with the interview. How did you get this idea? He says he was depressed after suffering his three startup failures.  

Another question, but this time from Dr, Jyoti Shirodkar,in rather surprised tone, “What, three failed startups?”  (Jutting in this manner by her and asking him leading and pertinent question, she makes Amrut bring out his stories of struggles and challenges he faced. Otherwise the entir thing would have been success success and success; making whole the interview  monotonous and boring. In fact, it was so interesting that I, as a viewer, sat glued to my seat watching.) Amrut just mentions, just briefly though, about them – the first one the CA firm failure, the second being the fund management in the Stock Market, when, as he humourously adds, he initially managed and damaged the funds and then he started something for the CA students , which didn’t click. When he was brooding over the failures, he gets a call from a friend (who is also a CA, he tells us) asking him to join in for a movie – बाहुबली.

He says, मी त्याला मुर्खात काढले  (Whether he was stupid to ask him accompany him for the movie.)

"काय  येड  लागलाय ? (काय वेड लागले आहे?) इथे  वाट  लागलाय आपली आणि तू ..... 

[What I have written in bracket, the usage of word like येड for वेड; has given an idea for another book.]

After too much coaxing by his friend and his friend offering to pay for the movie, Amrut agrees. They reach the theatre fifteen minutes before the start. So Amrut tells his tells about Stephen Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.  Having read it recently (in that very week), it was still fresh in hid mind, he told him about the 7 habis – “ठाक, ठाक. ठाक!” in those 15 minutes,  he says. His friend is so much impressed that he said, “LookAmrut,  I don’t get time to read. . But I always had the guilt. I used read earlier (The usual dialogue of finding no time that everyone has, says Amrut and I agree.), please send me the summary of

whichever book that you read. Your reading habit will benefit me.”   

Amrut liked the last sentence that he had uttered. “What an idea! My reading will benefit other”, he says.

“Okay”, says Dr Nadkarni.

He continues telling us. The movie had started but he couldn’t concentrate watching the movie. He didn’t wait for the end either and left during the interval under the pretext of going to the loo. That was indeed ‘solid idea’ (of writing about books, a summary, a review)! 

He searches internet. There is no one doing such work. He says that there were great books like ‘चाणक्य  नीति ’ (A book of ethics by Chanakya , ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ (by Dr Johnson) ,‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ ( A fable about  fulfilling your dreams, by Robin Sharma.)  and ‘Think and grow rich’( This book could be worth a million dollars to the reader

Vinay Trilokekar to