For long, many voices have wailed over the ‘lack of a reading culture’ in Manipur. While this may well be a mere assumption without any standardized study on the reading habits of people in the state today, what hold true is that most people in most places are living too busy and too fast paced a life to curl up with a book. And in a world where there is much socializing online and offline, reading which amounts to shutting off the noise and the din is not exactly the favorite past time for a generation that is used to being in constant touch with the outside world. The NBT (National Book Trust)-NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research) Study on ‘Reading Habits of the Literate Youth of North-East India’ released in November last year said that 43 percent of the youth in the North Eastern states are readers. Amongst the states in the region, Mizoram had the highest percentage at 62% while Manipur ranked second with 52%. The lack of reading amongst younger children across the region was also flagged off with children preferring to watch television. The survey did not mention specifics of book reading and book buying in the region, including figures on reading language books, which would include those written in Manipuri Bengali script and others written in local dialect form using the English alphabet. This survey was only from random samples of people and hence the result cannot be a general trend of the reading habits and practices. More than what surveys proclaim, the truth is that reading is mostly confined to students, academia and professionals who need to read up: lawyers, doctors and the lot. Only a minuscule section of the population read for pleasure, with young people accounting for the chunk of book readers.
Elsewhere, the debate is on whether printed books are losing out to digital book versions but here in Manipur, the real question is whether we are reading enough or making room for people to read more. The pre-occupation of young children with television, gaming and other tech aided gadgets in their lives leaves little room for nurturing a love or interest in reading books. For the older lot of people who have managed to hold on to their love for reading, the lack of reader friendly spaces starting out with the matter of well-stocked bookstores in the state is a major disadvantage. To an extent, the advent of online shopping sites with books on offer and online book shopping sites have been a boon as they offer their service at far cheaper rates than bookstores with free shipping thrown in. It is not uncommon for reading clubs for children and various other sections of the population in other states but in Manipur, all things literary and cultural are limited to only a limited few with no room or effort to pushing the boundary to include more people. In every city or even small towns today, there are efforts to bring in authors to talk about their books or else, have reading sessions play out, book signings etc. Manipur certainly has not had much of such activities since the book reading population is too low for the market to get interested in us.
The state’s tally of books is another discouraging area with poorly bound language books with lackluster book covers, topped with no marketing strategy or publicity being no match for glossy books marketed with zeal on every social media and traditional media forums. And even as literary figures of the state are being feted and eulogized, we are yet to give the rest of the country a known name in terms of prolific writing though there has been an off hand short story selection in an anthology or a collection of stories somewhere which reflects either a serious lack of efforts towards translations to English of already published books which has been awarded on a state as well as national level or the lack of merit. While publishing firms in the state need subsidies so that they are able to invest in making readers warm up to the books that they print, writers, authors and those in the literary circle need to get out of their comfort zones and reach out to potential readers: young people, so they do not get left out of the pleasures of reading.