GUWAHATI, May 25 - The nearly-two-month-long Covid-19 contagion-induced lockdown has rekindled in many the habit of book reading. As an online survey conducted last week has revealed, stuck up at home for a prolonged period, many people in Assam have used it as an opportunity to read books.
While 166 individuals from across 23 districts responded to the survey, as many as 63 (38 per cent) said they had read four or more books each during the first seven weeks of the lockdown. Similarly, 29 people (17 per cent) have read three books each, 34 people (20 per cent) have read two books each and 40 (24 per cent) have read only one book each during this period.
The study which was based on crowd-sourced data, was carried out by North-East Centre for Training, Advocacy & Research (NECTAR), a Guwahati-based organisation which conducts training and studies on various developmental issues and media-related research.
Of the 166 people who took part in the survey, as many as 91 were males (55 per cent), while 75 (45 per cent) were females. The survey covered a population of age groups ranging from 16 years to 60 years and above. The respondents belonged to a wide range of professions from high school students to retirees, as well as government and private sector employees, lawyers, mediapersons, teachers, writers, bankers, entrepreneurs, development sector professionals, doctors, home-makers and few unemployed persons.
Of the 166 respondents, as many as 88 (53 per cent) were post-graduates, which was followed by 36 (21.6 per cent) graduates, 23 persons (13.8 per cent) doctorate degree holders and the remainder 19 (11.4 per cent) were students between Class X and undergraduate class.
Thirty-three respondents (20 per cent) said they have been spending four hours or more every day during the lockdown reading books. Thirty-eight persons (23 per cent) said they have been spending on an average three hours a day reading, while the highest number of 52 individuals (31 per cent) said they spend two hours on an average every day reading books. Forty-three respondents (26 per cent) on the other hand said they could spend only up to one hour a day reading books.
A quick look at the results showed that books read included Assamese, Bengali and English fiction, non-fiction (books on economics, science, nature, health, literary criticism, gardening), books on religion, mythology and the epics, motivational books as well as collections of poetry, biographies and autobiographies.
An analysis of the responses revealed that among the most-read Assamese authors were Homen Borgohain, Kanchan Baruah, Mamoni Raisom Goswami, Rita Choudhury, Chandra Prasad Saikia, Syed Abdul Malik, Nirupama Borgohain, Purabi Bormudoi, Anuradha Sarma Pujari, Tilottama Misra and Chandana Goswami. Among English books, some of the most read authors were Amish, Yuval Noah Harari, Paulo Coelho, Robin Sharma, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Hosseini, Harper Lee, Udayon Misra, Khushwant Singh and Ruskin Bond.
Other books that prominently figured included several classics by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. A few respondents also mentioned reading Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo�s Poor Economics, complete works of Bishnu Prasad Rabha, Shakespeare, Lakshminath Bezbaroa and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Myron Weiner�s Sons of the Soil, Edward Gait�s A History of Assam and Amartya Sen�s Argumentative Indian. Books on religion and mythology on the other hand included Srimanta Sankaradeva�s Kirtan-Ghosha, Bhagawat Gita, Markandeya Puran, Katha Ramayan and Katha Mahabharat.
While 69 per cent of the respondents read printed hardcopy books, 7 per cent exclusively read e-books, while the remaining 24 per cent read a combination of printed as well as e-books, the survey revealed.
