World Book Day | #Reflections
23rd April 2026
Well, let me start this blogpost with an incident that happened quite recently! A student of mine, walked up to my office, and while we were discussing a few interesting books, over cups of coffee, with all curiosity writ large on him, he asked me a question –
Sir, how do you find time to read and write regularly in spite of your pressing official and other commitments?
Well, a highly pertinent question at that! πWe live in an age of fractured attention, where our days and hours are devoured by a thousand different demands on our precious time!
So instead of giving him a cliched response on time management or scheduling, I offered him a rather ‘Zen’nish reply.
I thought it might be worth sharing those interactions here as well! π
I asked him to think about the refrigerator. If you find yourself staring into the fridge when you are not actually hungry, you are not really looking for food. You are looking for a way to ‘escape’ yourself, ain’t you?
It is much akin to signing up for a job you never loved doing in the first place π
A mindless and endless distraction of sorts from the vastness of every hour!
This is precisely why Zen masters teach the concept of Oryoki - which translates to “just enough.”
It is the profound realisation that when you take more than you need, you are actually losing yourself to distractions!
Then I went into a kinda Boomer-Uncle Mode for a moment! π
I told him of how I am not on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and how it has immensely helped me in celebrating my personal space!
I also showed him my mobile phone which I usually keep quite farrr away from me - especially when I am interacting with students, colleagues, friends, guests or visitors! π
I told him that, 99.9% of the time my mobile will be only on silent mode, and I “open the fridge only when I’m hungry!” π
I also told him how all our so-called “notifications” that pop up 24x7 on our mobile screens - in the guise of doing a great favour for us, are actually huge distractions - stealing away our precious attention span - the reason why I have disabled all notifications on my mobile phone for any many years now! That way I “open the fridge only when I’m hungry”, and not the other way round! π
I guess that’s the same with finding time to read and write!
It is the simple, yet rigorous discipline of single-minded focus!
When eating, eat! When walking, walk!
And, perhaps most importantly for those of us who cherish the written word –
When reading, read!
By stripping away the excess baggage of distraction, and refusing to let our attention be fractured, we suddenly awaken to the fact that, we have exactly enough time for the things that truly matter in our lives – every day and every hour!
That way, consuming mindless digital content, is like popping into the fridge when I’m not hungry! π
It is like unto taking on unnecessary burdens, and fracturing our focus until there is nothing left for the deep, therapeutic work of reading and writing!
The takeaway? Well, we always have the time; It’s just that, we need to stop staring at the fridge when we are not hungry! π
And to those of you (my students, colleagues and well-wishers) who haven’t been on facebook or insta or twitter, anytime in the the past three years, and have taken the effort to spend the thus redeemed doom-scrolling time on productive activities like reading and writing, just ping me rightaway! I might want to honour you by taking you along with our vibrant little team of travellers, for our upcoming two-week International Trip - almost for free! π
Here’s wishing you all a Happy World Book Day! π
PS: You may want to
read our past post HERE on how our very good friend Dr. Armstrong, HoD, Dept of
English, University of Madras, helped us host a grand World Book Day
Celebrations in the University of Madras on 23rd April 2019. #gratitude π
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