When most of us started our schooling in our childhood, we were introduced to slates where we scribbled the alphabets and numbers to learn our basics in literature. when we progressed gradually to write alphabets and numbers fluently, we started to learn words, sentences, paragraphs and similarly ones, tens, hundreds and thousands in counts.

In the next stage, we were more fluent in reading and writing as our teachers started to teach us showing illustrative books to explain meanings pictorially. Over a period of time we started reading and understanding by ourselves all the stories and narrations in the books and similarly the basic maths were also understood. In the next phase, our mind became independent to choose what we wanted to read or practice with the use of printed books.

Today most of us are professionals in different fields and who can forget books? There are hardly any…as everyone would have used printed books and even continue to use them. Reading always gives a lot of thrill just like listening to stories as the joy and excitement of imagination knows no bounds. I am sure you would rather listen to a popular song and visualise the song in your mind than watch it on TV. Similarly when you read a novel/story, the thrill of imagination is totally different. But to read, you still need books and that needs the support of printing. Despite the advent of Digital era, printing will survive as you still look forward impatiently to your newspaper boy in the morning knowing fully well you can surf the net for the news. One cannot be on the system/net all the time as you will be disconnected from physical human contact.

Friends, don’t give up reading habits and encourage others to read by sharing the thrill of reading with your friends, next generation, kit and kin.