Sachin Nandha, 2010

Published in HPD Magazine March 2010

A good book is to the mind what a pole is to Ivy

Reading. We all do it. Some of us are ardent readers, others (who are probably not reading
this article), like my father, can’t go two pages into a book without giving in to the
overwhelming arrival of the dream fairy. Reading to these people is a sure way to a quick
snooze. Nevertheless in a poll conducted in 2007 by the BBC, found that 63 percent of the 32
percent who actually read books thought reading was more important than ‘making love’.
The UK is a polarised society when it comes to reading. Most people don’t read. Of those that
do, over half are zealot readers.

It’s Joseph Addison who is often paraphrased as saying “Reading is to the mind what exercise
is to the body”. Aye Joe, how right you are. But I think reading is more than this, much
more. I like to think that ‘good’ reading is to the mind what a pole is to Ivy. To understand
what I’m alluding too, we have to look a little closer at what reading is.

Reading is the translation of a series of symbols and shapes (letters & grammar) which
represent ideas that spawned out of the writer’s imagination – intellectual or otherwise. A
good writer is acknowledged for his or her ability to convey ideas through these symbols and
shapes pending on the translation of the text by readers. So, from this paradigm, reading is
the art of interpreting a writer’s ideas, images, experiences, and emotions, while
simultaneously making them our own. The writers ideas become our own. His or her
emotions are experienced by us. His view of the world becomes are own.

Reading is powerful. It has the ability to change our realities. It has the ability to influence
the way we think, the way we experience our own ideas, emotions, and images. Where I
think ‘good’ reading comes to the fore is through the ideas of Dr. Sachin Nandha, a specialist
in a new area of psycho – philosophical research, dubbed as Potential Development. The
mind, he tells us, is organic; made up of the physical neural networks, which compose the
brain, as well as something more subtle – what he calls ideas. Ideas in our consciousness
drive the process of creating neural networks. Reading influences our ideas, hence affects
the ‘direction’ in which our brain physically develops.

If anyone has experienced the growth of ivy, especially English ivy, you’ll know that it grows
rapidly, and can cover almost anything, often causing great damage to brickwork on
buildings. Ivy is often controlled by regular pruning as well as giving it a direction in which
to grow. By doing these two simple things, ivy can be beautiful, without it, it quickly becomes
wild and damaging. “Our brain is such. Our consciousness is such”, says Sachin Nandha.
Good reading gives direction to our thinking. Life does the pruning. Both aspects combined
allow us to manage our own thinking to produce what we consciously want, whereas with
such exposure, our thinking, no matter how intelligent becomes wild, scattered, and in the
long run damaging, thereby loosing it’s beauty.
Sachin Nandha, 2010
Published in HPD Magazine March 2010

So I thought I’d share my ‘good’ reading with you. Before that I thought you should know
which books cannot be completed by the even the ardent readers:

Vernon God Little, D.B.C Pierre (35%)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K Rowling (32%)
Ulysses, James Joyce (28%)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres (27%)
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (24%)
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie (21%)
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (19%)
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (18%)
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (16%)
Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky (15%)

What’s striking and rather alarming is that the Alchemist has less than 100 pages! Personally,
I read the book in a day, and continued to think about it for weeks afterwards. I was sixteen
then. Needless to say then that The Alchemist is a ‘good’ read; a short abstract piece of fiction
about following one’s own dream, and how the universe conspires to make pure dreams
come true. I found the entire book metaphorical, and if one can get past the imagery, the
underlying ideas are truly brilliant.

A similar book to The Alchemist is Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield. A larger book,
often found in what I call the “condescending section” – Self help in most book stores. You
don’t need to be looking for “help” to read this book. I found it to be an excellent read while
at university. I was gripped by it. It’s an incredible piece of fiction, something which
stretches the imagination. The book is metaphorical in its essence, which tries to
communicate the subtle idea, that there might be more going on in our internal world than
we often think. It explores the idea of an interconnected world, whereby energy binds all life
together, and how this energy can be harnessed by individuals to create ‘coincidences’, which
help us flourish.

Then there is the Life of Pi, another work of fiction by Yann Martel, the winner of the Booker
Prize. The Life of Pi explores what isolation can do to us, how our deepest values can be
compromised when it comes to staying alive, and how a deep understanding can be formed
between a boy and a Bengal Tiger. Wonderfully written, witty, and at times gruesome – an
excellent stretch of the imagination. It’s one of those books you can start reading on a
Saturday morning, stay under a blanket, drink lots of tea, and every now and then take a
breather to reflect on the aspects of human nature explored in the book.

Keeping in line with the Tigers theme, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is a story narrated
in the form of letters to the President of China, just before he is due to visit India. It tells a
story of two India’s; the dark and the light. It shows how entrepreneurialism in a capitalist
India is embedded in something dark and brutish. It describes the hopelessness of India’s
poor, as well as the grotesque prejudices of the rich. It shows the realities of a culture steeped
Sachin Nandha, 2010
Published in HPD Magazine March 2010

in spirituality, and simultaneously bent on hardnosed materialism. Aravind Adiga is an

excellent writer, and most certainly has a talent for writing lucidly. To genuinely grasp his
book, one has to know India, and have experienced the contradictions of the place,
nevertheless, a must read for all.

If we’re talking about ‘good’ reading then nothing is better than the Dialogue with Death, by
Rohit Mehta, an interpretation of the mammoth intellectual works of Aurobindo. In my
opinion, the original works of Aurobindo make Shakespearian insights look trivial, but are
desperately inaccessible to the untrained reader. The dialogue with Death makes it accessible
via interpretation. The book is an exploration of a poem called Savatri, which looks to
explore life & death, and the problem of separation as experienced by humans. It deals with
the realms of consciousness, and whether it is possible to gain any insight into what death is.
This is a book like none I’ve ever read. It took me a full year to read and keeps me returning
to it. It’s a book that has a haunting truth at its heart. Not for the faint hearted, and be
prepared to receive only the amount you put in!

Another marathon read is the Lord of the Rings by JR Tolkien – and who hasn’t heard of this!
I often find people watching the three films and feeling as if they have grasped Tolkien’s
masterpiece; I can assure those who feel this that you haven’t. The book is far more detailed;
the characters have more depth, history and a complimentary mystery surrounding each
one. Tolkien took twenty-five years to write it, and after reading the first hundred pages, one
appreciates this. He has created a world, even a language like no other. If you can get past
the first few hundred pages, it’s an incredible read, even if you’ve seen the films. The book
tackles morality, human nature, consumerism, love, greed, effects of power on men, and of
course conquering adversity.

The Hungry Spirit by Charles Handy is an altogether different kind of animal – a gentler,
less demanding beast, yet well worth spending several Sunday afternoons on. He is a lucid
writer when it comes to education and economic reform. Charles Handy looks to explore the
limitations of the free market and why two thirds of the world trade cannot be managed by
500 corporations who are answerable to no one (except shareholders). For any budding LSE
free market capitalist who wants to be challenged; and excellent ammunition for the SOAS
bunch who understand the limits of the market.

While on the point of bashing the current US centric worldview which dictates all our lives,
Noam Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions is an incredible insight into forms of mind control
deployed on Western democratic societies by their own governments and corporate
institutions. Chomsky dismantles the idea of “free press” and “independent media” through
quoting statistics, striking logic, and commonsense. His most illuminating thought is that of
the monstrous institution. Even though journalists attempt to report with integrity, the
system is monstrous and so any noble journalist not heard.

Enjoy.