We already suspected this but now it’s official. The BBC reports on an accurate stereotype:
Indians are the world’s biggest bookworms, reading on average 10.7 hours a week, twice as long as Americans, according to a new survey. The NOP World Culture Score index surveyed 30,000 people in 30 countries from December 2004 to February 2005. Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India’s high figures. Britons and Americans scored about half the Indians’ hours and Japanese and Koreans were even lower – at 4.1 and 3.1 hours respectively.
That “self-help and aspirational reading” line is important. A lot of the reading being done is religious and scholastic and not necessarily independent reading like you’d think. Still, a bookstore in India is a “cool” place to hang out and be seen. Crosswords Bookstores are especially trendy.
R Sriram, chief executive officer of Crosswords Bookstores, a chain of 26 book shops around India, says Indians are extremely entrepreneurial and reading “is a fundamental part of their being”.
“They place a great deal of emphasis on reading. That’s the reason why they do well in education and universities abroad,” he told the BBC News website.
“People educate themselves and deal with change throughout their lives. And the way to do that is to update themselves with books.”
Not everyone views this data in a rosy light.
“A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote,” Mr [Tarun] Tejpal said.
Leading columnist, Venkateshwar Rao, told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper he could not see Indians flocking to book stores.
“Reading books just isn’t a habit with them because they’re not into cultural pursuits. It’s not a part of their make-up. All they want to do is consume.”
Mr Tejpal said: “A good book in India will sell only a few thousand copies, in the UK or US it could sell tens of thousands.
“It gives you a sense of what we value – in the UK or US if you haven’t read a book in the bestseller list, you would be socially dead.”
That last quote doesn’t really hold up in my opinion (although if it did, it would explain a lot about my social life). Most of our (the U.S.) bestseller list is made up of partisan BS that I’d rather not read. It could explain why Vinod considers me socially dead though. 🙂
important point (from the story): Indian writer and editor, Tarun Tejpal, said the survey only made sense if it excluded the high numbers of illiterate Indians. illiterates are brown too….
The NYT bestseller list says the top 5 nonfiction books aren’t primarily political books. Currently:
Yep, I checked out the bestseller list before my post. My last comment was merely tongue-in-cheek. 🙂 You have to admit though that the way the media covers certain books you’d assume that partisan politics sells better.
oh good, now I have an alibi for being a freakishly insatiable chain-reader! Sorry yaar, it’s genetics 😉
I think 47% adult population who cant read was not included in this survey as per this article.
The fact that native language press is almost dead, puts a big question mark over the numbers of readers as per the survey.
1. 1776, by David McCullough
2. THE WORLD IS FLAT, by Thomas L.Friedman 3. FREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner 4. BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell 5. ON BULL—-, by Harry G. Frankfurt
i believe the new york times also uses its own algorithm, as opposed to pure volume as bookscan surveys would use, so it tense to make the list sound less prolish than it might be.
btw, is common around here for 2nd generation brown americans to be able to read indian scripts? someone forwarded me an article about the rather vibrant market in bengali newspapers in the NYC area a few months ago…but it is surely true that most of the people reading those are FOBs and long time 1st generation types.
I think this is correct. It’s not people like me, who would take a year to read a page of Thikana. I don’t know about the Bangladeshi teenagers that are growing up in Queens and Brooklyn and other places in the city right now, but I suspect they watch more MTV than read the patrikas 🙂 When I was younger, I never read our community’s press-Sangbadh Bicitra–because I a) couldn’t and b) didn’t want to.
“rather vibrant” is an understatement, btw 🙂 There are like 10 papers or something. Go to the
this is all that brown people need, more evidence to the fact that we actually are nerdy and enjoy maths. Just one day, I’d like to read articles about “indians say no to education, yes to underage smoking, drinking, sex, and sports”. and no, carrom is not a sport.
Sex, drugs ‘n rock ‘n roll comin’ right up.
lovin, you should come to some desi gay pride events 😉
The language for Desis born in America will always be English as it should be IMO. Reading of Indian scripts would be a project that one would have to devote extra time (with little reward). Even if the 2nd generation Indians took the extra time to learn to read Indian scripts, where will the quality literature in those languages come from?? Since in India there is a constant undermining of native language press.
The ISSUE is the condition of native language press in INDIA. The constant undermining of other languages by the elite in India is a huge dis-service.
The elite in India only considere English literature …. literature of record. for example : In a quiz competion (jeopardy for Americans) which was aired on BBC, the final topic was Tennyson’s poetry. There were two teams in the finals. The team that won was from India and the one that lost was from ENGLAND. The losing team members said “Boy, these guys know their Tennyson”
Sholay Party/Desilicious are the best!
i’d love to attend a gay pride event, or a Sholay party, only to see the full spectrum of ABCD life here…i grew up primarily in the Detroit area where half the bigoted fools thought i was Arabic and the other half thought I was a “nigger”…and the indians that we did have at the time i was growing up were your typical conservative, nerdy gujus and mallus (sorry guys, no offense)…now i live in chicago and am seeing some more stuff but nothing like the East Coast or West Coast…where can I find out about stuff like this?
well. on behalf of the four out of six mutineers who are either guju or mallu, none taken. 😉 thank goodness you used the parenthetically located CYA strategery. frankly, i would’ve preferred the statement sans the weaseling. isn’t it simple? if you don’t mean to offend, don’t.
uh, right here? 🙂
Speak for yourself! I speak American – not this blasphemous ‘English’ you speak of. Get jiggy wi’dit, a’ight?!
Once American univs give credit and provide courses on native Indian languages, then the hordes of Indian and Indian-American students aspiring for advancement in the global social strata will have something besides French, Latin, and German to augment their otherwise English-medium aspirations. For every one Indian which gets accepted and studies in the USA, there are fifty Indians who spent their life polishing their English and neglecting Hindi/Tamil/Telegu/Urdu/Bengali/.. for the same chance to be accepted. My mother studied with English as her first language, and French as her second! I, in the US, studied Spanish as my second. While English will continue to dominate the South Asian literati, it’s a travesty when French or Spanish win second place. A stronger globally-accepted interest in South Asian languages will help the ‘globally-minded’ individuals an outlet utilizing one of their own indigenous languages, and with language, history, culture, and admiration for one’s own identity.
Anna wrote:
Condescension 101: Hmm. Surely you understand that any apology hidden in an aside isn’t genuine? Feign apologies are a potent persuasive technique to condescend while in keeping with propriety, offering to have previously scathing remark striken from the record while never actually rescinding it. Then again, you already knew all about condescension. (sorry, Anna, I didn’t want to mention it)
I hope you’re speaking for yourself as I have lived outside of India all of my life and consider whatever it is I am speaking or reading at the moment, be it Tamil, Hindi, French or Spanish, to be my language. You have no idea how rewarding it is. That’s the beauty of America, which offers the freedom to avoid traditional pigeonholes.
For those of us who love languages and linguistics, there is plenty of existing Indian literature to explore. Millenia of it, in fact. Perhaps a finer appreciation of Indian literature in the native tongue by those of us who live abroad will encourage our writers back in India and the world over.
RC, even though I’m more articulate in English than in Bangla, I’m glad that I speak bangla well enough to talk to my mother, my grandmother, my more 1st gen friends, and especially strangers i meet on the street in new york. and i’m proud that my American-born nieces (who are essentially 3rd gen) can speak in bangla too (perhaps better than my bombay/delhi raised niece:).
*i wish i could have read gora in the original, rather than in english (i think there’s abundant quality literature in bangla–some of which I’m totally unable to access in English). *i wish i could learn more about bangla etymology because i find it fascinating that the word for “soul” are pretty much the same in classical attic greek and in bangla and i like knowing that there are 2 bas in the bangla alphabet and that one of them corresponds to the “w” in hindi (e.g. swati) which is why it’s there. *i wish i could connect more with the spiritual and religious traditions in my community without relying entirely on some academic to translate things for me *i wish i could find work translating community information flyers into bangla *i wish i could primary source documents from the precolonial period or from writers that chose or had to write in bangla rather than english. *I wish I could have read the history of calcutta that’s sitting on my bookshelf, but can’t because it takes me too long. *I wish I could undersatnd the prayers that I’m mumbling along with during our pujas and reinvent them to meet my own needs.
I spent a lot of time and effort trying to maintain my bangla (including through my professional choices). Maybe you’re right that it was pointless, but here’re some of the reasons:
i respect your opinion about the elite bias and overemphasis on english (as part of their little thing of trying to mimic the powerful, even in their choice of language), but you’re doing the same thing to those of us in the diaspora who are culturally seen as backwards and generally denigrated unfairly without any effort to understand what kind of $hit we had to put up with to retain ANY sense of identity here that connects us to our biofamilies and our families’ traditions.
“A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote,” Mr [Tarun] Tejpal said.
you gotta admit…tis a little true…
Actually, it doesnt apply to me as I lived in India until the age of 22. I dont have any strong views either way (in terms of use of language) about those brought up in the US.
My rant was more from my growing up years when there was no NEW native language material available and we read a lot of the old stuff there was. Most of the magazine that we used to read have gone out of business now.
If you have a native language writer that you like to read and encourage then more power to you.
My peers (those who grew up in India) cant even name writers in native languages, let alone quoting from anyone!!
Saurav,
In fact what I feel is that, respect for Indian culture is being and will be retained/restored only by American born people, as those in India have nothing but contempt for it .. or too busy with the endless struggle of making ends meet. America may be the only HOPE for it.
Punjabi Boy, I couldnt agree more. My freind had forwarded this petition some time back. about recognizing Hindi as an official UN language
The petition’s first few lines are : Sir,
Following are the 6 official UN languages
Chinese- 874 million English- 341 million Spanish- 322 million Russian- 167 million French- 72 million Arabic- 42 million
It is astonishing and unfortunate that with 366 million speakers, Hindi is excluded from this list. Let me put forward the case for the most widely spoken language in the worldÂ’s largest democracy, India.
……
The above sums up the native language woes, I guess.
I don’t think “Indian culture” makes sense unless you’re talking about developments after 1947 (like the emergence of a Hinglish-speaking elite in Calcutta). If you’re talking about sufis and qawwali and pirs and the Gita and Brahminism and Buddhism and Jainism and all the rest, it makes more sense to either think about specifically as ethnic (or religious or whatever) or to think about it broadly as desi or South Asian. Not national.
In any case, if the U.S. is the only hope for desi cultures, they’re in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, I don’t think that’s true. The limited exposure I’ve had to being in India (and very briefly in Bangladesh) leaves me feeling that that’s just not the case. And I’ve seen more interesting diaspora stuff coming out of the UK than here.
Don’t they know that chicks don’t make passes at guys who wear glasses?
ANNA,
sorry if i offended you, however, any rational person would’ve seen it as a joke and not a condescencion or any ill willed type of behavior..I like to consider myself one of the few indians in the US who still isn’t communal, and that i view all indians as my people, not just gujus, mallus, punjus etc…and yes, while it is CLEARLY obvious that i can find out about all sorts of desi events here, i was pretty much asking ‘where else can i find this out?’…but thank you for jumping all over me. Nice.
Ennis, I don’t know… emo glasses may be in vogue.
Lovin, relax – Anna has a sense of humor. At the very least, the fact she hasn’t stalked and castrated me in an Uma-Thurman-esque revenge plot shows she doesn’t sweat the little stuff. Besides, being uncouth and tactless is an endangered trait we in society need to keep alive.
Lovin’ –
some of us would pay good money to be jumped all over by ANNA. You’re lucky!
T
yeah i’m sorry, i thought she seemed pretty upset over a joke, the minute i hit enter i was like ‘wait a minute’…so Anna, my bad, but do know it was a joke.
As if! Glasses = hmmm, interesting (at least for me.)
I think you meant ethnicity focused, rather than communal, which is how I’ll take your remark. Although I sort of respect the underlying sentiment, if I understand it properly, there are a few reasons why I find it a little problematic, as part of a broader trend that I see in the comments and posts on this blog:
1) It’s nice to say that we’re all the same, but some of us identify with particular parts of the community of communities that makes up the desi diaspora in the U.S. I am Bangali, LGBT, and other things. I am not a Hindi/Punjabi speaking Punjabi, nor a huge bollywood fan (relatively speaking :), nor a Sri Lankan LTTE sympathizer, etc. Yes, we have a lot of things in common, and yes, I try to learn from those things and feel the sparkle of commonality, but it’s very homogenizing to impose “one” South Asian identity on all of us and then argue that anyone who strays from that is somehow undermining the community. It’s more a process of dialogue and recognition of similarites AND differences to me. And just making friends and building relationships 🙂
2) On the flipside, if you’re going to pose a broader identity that we can all claim a part of, if not the whole thing–which doesn’t actually exist– (which I wholeheartedly support), “South Asian” or “desi” works much better than “Indian” which is nationalistic or alternately outdated, fails to be inclusive. And in my opinion, given the history of South Asia, i think it has religious overtones.
Particularly as a Bangali, in some ways (but not all) I was, for a time, more intrigued by Bangladeshi folks–who are like my lost brethren–than I am going to be in speaking to someone I have no ability to communicate with in their native language, don’t share as many cultural aspects with, etc. I would rather that the broader identity be posed in terms of shared culture, language, over nationality. If I allegedly have something in common with someone from Kerala, it’s just as likely I’ll have something in common with someone from Sri Lanka or Nepal. And I’m glad my circle of friends/acquaintaces encompass people from all those places.
Of course the language you use isn’t as important as the spirit of inclusivity that you’re talking about; but sometimes the language helps you frame your effort in a more sensitive way that will actually bring people like me on board instead of making us feel a little alienated (as long as it’s not just lip service :).
Saurav,
i think i understand what you’re saying, my whole point was (a poorly worded point, but nevertheless), that i didn’t mean anything condescending or arrogant as if I think less of gujus, mallus and anyone else. Indeed I agree w/ you, that here in the US, while the Desi spectrum has unique subcultures which are of a deeper bond than that of just being “indian”, i’m just saying I view all desi’s here as one people and as my people..so therefore, I could not demean a guju or mallu if I wanted to w/o demeaning myself. I myself am a Rajput, w/ a Punjabi cultural bent, even though my ancestors originated from rajasthan…I actively seek out Sikhs to learn from them and their ways bcuz I have a lot of respect for their culture, as I do the same for Tamilian cultures etc, Guju, etc…basically i try to incorporate all the good of each subculture to incorporate into my own, to be more of a ‘desi’ and less of a “north indian.” I certainly do not suggest that anyone here in the US should only move to a broad identity…that would make us all boring, and getting back to the topic of the thread, extremely generic and nerdy. At least we can all agree to be nerdy in our own desi way. Sorry the post is long, just trying to make peace.
I didn’t know the peace had been broken 🙂 I was just disagreeing–more with the way people on this blog use words like “indian” and marginalize desi subcultures in many, many instances–than with your particular comment. I guess I should have waited for something really offensive from someone, because, like i said, I know you were coming from a different place. Anyway, I’m sorry if my tone was a little over the top.
Saurav,
no need to apologize, i understand what you’re saying. Plus, w/o the occasional ‘perceived blog insult’ there would be no mirch in my life. And then how would I get thru the day at work? Now, if any other posters don’t mind, I would like to go back to my sarcastic way of life and make fun of everyone and everything from my computer. And not really mean it 😉
Saurav,
no need to apologize, there’s no mirch in life w/o the occasional blogging disagreement. Now if all the posters don’t mind, i will return to my sarcastic self and make fun of everything. Just don’t take me seriously. Or else.
Yes, this is getting quite dull. Perhaps one of us should call the other a Nazi and see where it all goes 🙂
A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote
Er, if it’s ok with TT, I’d rather rote up an SAT wordlist than read The Alchemy of Desire.
But Saurav – aren’t Bangalis and Keralites the last Comrades left in India? 🙂
saurav,
you are not only a nazi, you are a rakshas, let’s hope this gets the ppl fired up
You say that you are Rajput… I hope you know that there are Rajputs in Gujarat too. Rajasthan Rajput will have last name “Rathore” and Gujarat Rajput will be “Rathod”. Same for “Solanki” and “Chauhan”. Both type of Rajputs have the same original ancestry … so you are just plain old …bigoted/biased .. in the “How cool I am … and how nerdy all these other guys are” fashion ….
Dont blame me …you invited flames :-))
yes i’m quite aware that there are Guju Rajputs as well…and yes, since apparently I am in the mold of bigoted/biased and look down upon others, i’m going to go in my closet and dust off my Rajput crown and sit on my porch looking down at all the nerdy gujus counting their money while eating dhokla and the mallus doing whatever mallus do. 😀