Viraj Kulkarni

The first word my daughter learned to speak was ‘book’. With wide eyes, she would point at a book and say ‘boo’ in a voice full of glee. We began taking her to a nearby Crossword bookshop (in Aundh, Pune) when she could barely walk. Our trips soon became a cherished daddy-daughter tradition, where we would visit once every month and buy three books for her. She chose two and I chose one. A friendly employee once told me, his face beaming with pride, that this was the biggest Crossword in India! Four floors full of books felt like a heaven. But then they converted one floor into a kids play area. Another surrendered to a toy shop. Then cafes. Then stationery. Then an event space. The book shelves, once brimming with finely curated collections, became crowded with cheap campus romance and badly written historical fiction. Yet, we continued our tradition. 3 books a month! Yesterday, we went there to find the doors shut. A man on a ladder was ripping out the Crossword sign. Slowly. Methodically. As he pulled out one letter after another, I felt a physical sensation of pain. My daughter had tears in her eyes. A glowing light somewhere was snuffed out, and the world became slightly darker. And some of my faith in humanity died forever! A society that does not read is a society that does not know itself. We used to turn pages and paint stories with our imagination. Now we endlessly stab screens till our thumbs hurt, our minds numbed by the dopamine drip of likes and reels. We have become slaves to our devices, consuming whatever they decide for us, our thoughts hijacked by algorithms, our souls starved for meaning. If you want your children to read, don’t tell them. Show them. Children hate listening to adults, but they love imitating them. Pick up a book yourself, and they will do the same! P.S.: I verified the claim. The largest store of India’s most beloved chain of bookshops has indeed shut down.

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