{"id":2096,"date":"2015-01-12T01:35:57","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T20:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2015-01-12T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T20:35:57","slug":"our-reading-resolutions-pooja-pande-reportage-team-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/our-reading-resolutions-pooja-pande-reportage-team-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Reading Resolutions: Pooja Pande, Reportage team member"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>New year, new books, new resolutions! This month, the Desi Writers\u2019 Lounge team is sharing its\u00a0reading resolutions: goals for the new year, finally tackling those to-be-read piles. Join the conversation by sharing your resolutions in the comments and on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/desiwriterslounge?ref=br_tf\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/desi_writers\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>My reading resolutions are as follows:<\/p>\n<p>1. To go back in time \u2013 mentally \u2013 when you read <em>for the sake of reading<\/em>. And not for those \u201csuitable extracts\u201d or \u201ccharacterization deconstructions\u201d or \u201cplot studies\u201d or \u201cliterary\/cultural references\u201d that can be woven in, at pertinent junctures, when you interview the goddamn author! Basically, to disassociate reading from work.<\/p>\n<p>2. To find the book that becomes the soundtrack to your life, your very own personal rock anthem \u2013 if <em>Catcher in the Rye<\/em> meant something at a certain age and <em>The Stranger<\/em> at another; if <em>Fountainhead<\/em> and <em>Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em> really spoke to you way back then; if <em>Shadow Lines<\/em> defined yet another moment and <em>Life is Elsewhere<\/em> killed you, then there\u2019s gotta be something for the jaded late 30s life phase too! So find that seminal cult life-phase marker of a book again, already.<\/p>\n<p>3. To never <em>ever<\/em> call a book that \u2013 a seminal cult life-phase marker. (In fact, can we ban the word seminal while we\u2019re at it? Or is that another blogpost?)<\/p>\n<p>4. To read more writing in its original language \u2013 which means Nirmal Verma &amp; Krishna Sobti. (Note to self: Consider learning another language then, so we\u2019re not restricted to Hindi as the only other choice. Urdu for Manto &amp; the poets? French for Camus? Yup, definitely another blogpost).<\/p>\n<p>5. To be more aware of that classic reading trap that makes the grave error of equating the <em>process<\/em> of writing the book with the <em>experience<\/em> of the book itself. Judge it for that and that alone, and not for what the writer was <em>trying<\/em> to do \u2013 If he spent his time blind-folded bumping around his room to get into the head of his blind protagonist, well, good for him, but frankly, I don\u2019t give a damn. A book is a book is a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New year, new books, new resolutions! This month, the Desi Writers\u2019 Lounge team is sharing its\u00a0reading resolutions: goals for the new year, finally tackling those to-be-read piles. Join the conversation by sharing your resolutions in the comments and on Facebook and Twitter. My reading resolutions are as follows: 1. To go back in time \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[470],"tags":[492,491,495,102,490,462,489,496,494,493],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}