Today I am going to illustrate the case why everyone in India who
likes to read ( voracious or not-so-voracious) and is eligible to write, should
made his/her hands dirty by writing the UPSC civil services exams at least once
in his or her life time -
If you love to read, more often
than not - you would have an inclination towards a specific genre. You might
just be reading the crime fiction, or only the romantic novels. Or you may only
be deep dwelling in the self-help books. Few people only read about the
personal finance books while completely ignoring the macro economics. We often
are too averse to switch to something that is new or something that we probably
won't enjoy reading. For someone who is totally into mystery literature,
geography could just be limited to earth, water and air. For those who only
enjoy reading history literature, they might not know the importance of
understanding economics or the personal finance for that matter. Someone who
just enjoys thrillers, picking a book related to our environment could turn out
into a sleeping dose. For someone who reads only horror or satire, putting the
efforts to understand law of our land could be too mundane a task without
realising that the basic knowledge of IPC or CrPC may save him life in many circumstances.
For the ones who are personal finance buffs, they might not know that the
understanding of UNFCCC and Paris Climate Change agreement can help them add their next diamond
stock in their portfolio. For few of us, who prefer reading only about self-improvement
books, we may not realise the importance that knowing the geopolitical
happenings and the trends of right wing governments capturing powers in most of
the larger economies, may assist us choose our next career or our next
destination. For those who aspire to be good managers and good leaders and have
been reading about Steve Jobs, Warren Buffets and Nelson Mandelas, they may not
realise that knowing about Indus-valley civilisation, Chengiz khan, Napoleon
Bonaparte, Lord Buddha and Chandra Gupta Morya may give them the unforgettable
lessons about the leadership skills and also about the dos and don'ts for those
aspiring to be future leaders. I can go on and on about the cons for many
of us who are ‘not-so-diverse’ readers. One would never know the ecstasy and bliss
which he or she might be missing by not venturing into new territories. If we
do only one type of exercise everyday in our workout, we can never develop the
full body shape that we aspire to build, reading only one genre of books is
analogous to hitting only one body part in every gym session. Just like one
body part exercise will never help you build the entire body muscles, reading
only one form of books will never contribute in your overall mental
development.
Now the question arises how one would expand the horizon of his
reading habits. It is scarce that one would enjoy reading a subject until one
is oblivious about the basics of that subject. It is an inveterate human nature
to be in comfort zone with a nonchalant behaviour. Getting out of comfort zone
is what is needed if one wants to see earth from sky rather than seeing sky
from earth. Our views are most likely to be myopic if we cannot see life and
the larger world from the eye-in-the-sky view.
To get the holistic understanding
of the world, the easiest thing one can do is to fill the next UPSC civil services
form and start reading basis the syllabus. It is most likely that you would not
be able to read the genre of your liking while you are in the study mode for
UPSC. But I can assure you that once you come out of the preparation mode,
either selected or not selected, you would find that your reading horizon has
expanded to the next level altogether. You would start enjoying all kind of
reads without little discrimination. Only then you would see the world from the
eye-in-the-sky and would realise what you were missing throughout your reading
lifespan.
