Friday 5 September 2014

My Book Bucket Challenge

From pouts and poses to selfies to ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to Book Bucket challenge, everything that has been there on Facebook now or before,creates a fad among the youth. Yes, I suppose 'fad' defines the situation correctly. Let me take you through the definition once, Wikipedia defines fad as any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed enthusiastically for a period of time, generally as a result of the behavior being perceived as popular by one's peers or being deemed "cool" by social media. It is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly.

Undoubtedly,I am happy to see that the focus finally shifted from pouts and selfies to something that helped to raise the money for a good cause. Despite of the fact that many people were completely unaware of the "Lou Gehrig's Disease" or the ALS association,for that matter.I am satisfied that people stood up for this,with an intention of helping a cause, just by throwing a bucket of ice water on their head. Well, I have never thought that it is this easy on our part, to make such a difference.Pity, my small brain!

This rage inspired other challenges like Rice Bucket Challenge and what not. So, Book Bucket Challenge is one among those. The extent of happiness, when one see his/her Facebook Timeline filled with sensible stuff,famous authors and book names was followed by complete despondency of the fact that how the word 'influenced' is mis-interpreted with 'just-read' in this context.

Well,I am not an avid reader of books.Most of my literary reads were,from school.I won't try to escape by giving a shallow excuse of over-burdened schedule in engineering colleges(though,such is the case).I read and a lot,but most of them includes blogs,magazines,quotes and answers on quora.

Though,I could have easily stated 10 books that I have read.But, seriously, going on the 'influencing' part, I found none.Well, that's too narrow range of reads,on my part. And to the every post on my timeline (not generalizing,though!), I would really love to know how they were influenced by those books. The only 'literary reads' that have really influenced me,are as follows :

1. Quotes from Mark Twain,Oscar Wilde and Charles Bukowski (read on blogs,pages and websites)
2. Where the mind is without fear- A poem by Rabindranath Tagore
3. That excerpt from Julius Caesar, we read in tenth.
4. A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens.

Well,I should read more often because "A man who reads lives a thousand lives".Keep reading!