Day 29: Reading for Fun

OYLPA Day 29: Reading for Fun (One Year in the Life of a Pakistani-American), originally uploaded by klodhie.

Once upon a time, the South Campusers, primarily embroiled in the bitter hardships of the biological, mathematical, and engineering world, would poke fun at my North Campus mainstay, where readers, writers, philosophers, and the like made their educational mark.

According to a few residents of the former, a major in English was a joke, easy breezy, reading for fun. I would take the upper route and not respond with a retort. Let them believe "reading for fun" is a negative, as if the great literature of this world is of no importance and has had no effect on society. Besides, why make them feel bad - I'll keep the beautiful secrets of the words I read each day hidden within the musty pages. They can turn on their screens and read all the non-fiction essays they like; they won't feel the rough paper underneath their fingertips. I prefer to delve into the lives of others, to see through their words what their worlds are like or how they imagine them. To feel a bit of their humanity, and empathize at their loss of it at times. A bit of the magical realism, the Romantic, the raw, never hurts either.

What a luxury, to be able to read for fun.
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Great timing! A friend (thank you!) just shared this amazing bit of reading:

• Granta: Pakistan magazine issue on Vimeo

• Granta, "the magazine of new writing" has come out with their 112th issue on PAKISTAN! Read excerpts from and purchase your copy here

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