Kolkata still the ‘literary capital’

KOLKATA: A recent survey on the metros has consolidated the city’s position of preeminence as the ‘Literary Capital of India’. Writers and authors here are not surprised by the verdict though. They are happy that a few myths about reading have been busted in this age of live television and the internet, but the findings do leave some unanswered questions.
“I’m curious to know who these respondents are, what do they read and how they read. Reading itself is not a virtue, reading with sensitivity is,” says internationally acclaimed author Amit Chaudhuri. “I’m glad people are reading also for literary pleasure because in countries like India and China, there is this stress on reading for self improvement. We are losing the art of reading and, thus, losing the art and craft of writing, where individual words resonate like when we hits the right notes in music,” added the 52-year-old, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen feels 17% of people in this city owning more than 300 books is not an accurate picture. “It should be much higher; may be because it was an online survey and many don’t get on to the net here,” says the award-winning poet-novelist about the ‘Tata Literature Live Survey 2014’, which also revealed that four out of five (78%) persons still prefer printed books to e-reading. “The tradition of giving books as gifts is still very prevalent among Bengalis with both giver and receiver deriving great joy from that act,” added the 76-year-old, who reminded that reading books for pleasure is a worldwide trend that has not suffered from the advent of live television or the internet. “It’s not about how many books are sold but how many touch the heart,” she added.
Writer Suchitra Bhattacharya was quick to add that “books are a very personal companion” and reading printed books will always remain a close-to-the-heart thing. “The reader is on most occasions looking for things to identify with,” she said, adding: “And I’m not surprised that Kolkata should be on top of such a list.”
Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay added another angle to it. “People in other metros don’t have time for leisure reading; they are chasing careers and money and the novel doesn’t quite fit in,” said the 79-year-old.
Chaudhuri pointed to the “astonishing history of reading in Bengal”. “Bengali literary works were written and read by bilinguals; often the writers knew English better than those who wrote in English. That tradition was so dominant that even if a residue of that legacy is there, it will be reflected thus,” said Chaudhuri.