Not long ago, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, made a heartfelt appeal to Goenkars”urging us to build home libraries and nurture a culture of reading. A gentle nudge, reminding us of the timeless value of books in an era of distractions. But how many have truly heeded this call?
Let’s be honest. Many of us have proudly stocked home bars, yet a library of books seems a quaint relic of the past. Our children grow up in a world where screens dominate”an undeniable reality. Take my seven-year-old nephew, for instance. He’s glued to his tablet, engrossed in animated audiobooks. It’s fascinating but makes me nostalgic for bedtime stories from my grandmother”our own oral storytelling technology. Today, if he asked me for a story, I’d struggle. Our books vanished as mobiles took over. That void is real.I wasn’t always a reader. My father forced me to read a page daily, a habit I resisted. Yet, over time, that discipline blossomed into love. Books”physical or digital”plant seeds of curiosity that last a lifetime. This isn’t just about me; it’s about us. In Kerala’s Prapoyil, Narayanan built the Navapuram Secular House of God”shaped like a book, worshipping knowledge. Imagine Goa embracing such a vision. Instead of endless scrolling, what if we turned pages? In a world racing forward, sometimes the most profound act is to pause, pick up a book, and let its wisdom speak.
