FIVE QUESTIONS
to book reader Ashutosh Tiwari

Published in Read magazine,
Kathmandu, (October 2006)
A venture of http://www.fineprintbookclub.com

INTRO: Growing up in Kathmandu, Ashutosh Tiwari read Enid Blyton's books and Hardy Boys stories. In high school, he fell into reading "deliciously trashy" novels of James Hadley Chase, Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon and Robert Ludlum. As a restless university student, he studied economics and dabbled in philosophy and chemistry, and learnt that reading critically meant "taking a text apart --brutally yet honestly".

In 1996, together with friends at Martin Chautari in Kathmandu, he started The Kathmandu Post Review of Books, which ran regularly till 2003.

Once a grassroots anti-bonded labour activist in Far Western Nepal (in Dang, Banke, Kailali, Bardiya and Kanchanpur districts) who then went on to set up and lead a relatively autonomous Business Service Aadhar (funded by German Technical Co-operation (GTZ)) as a small-business advisory firm serving many for-profit businesses across Nepal, Tiwari has been writing regularly on business-related matters for The Nepali Times newsweekly since February 2003.

At present, he works out of Dhaka, Bangladesh in the
South Asia region where he is with a large-scale
investment-placing global private-sector development organization.

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FinePrint: You are a busy professional. Yet you seem to find time to read a lot. How do you manage your reading habit?

AT: I see reading as an activity I enjoy doing everyday. From experience, I have learnt that I am not a 'binge reader' -- not someone who can read a lot in one sitting. I am someone who needs to read a little something everyday. For that, I set aside half hour to an hour a day to read about 20 to 30 pages or so. That's all – 20 to 30 pages a day. These pages could be of a book, or of a long magazine article. What I have learnt is that if you read only a few pages a day, and make doing that a daily habit, then you will find that, over time, you will finish reading anywhere from two to four books a month. That adds up to a lot of reading in a year, no matter how busy a professional you are.

FinePrint: What do you read?

AT: Mostly, I read non-fiction. General-interest books on history, travel, economics, science, biographies, law and the arts appeal to me. I read fiction only when it's recommended by reviewers or friends whose judgment I trust. For the last three years, I have also been reading well-known bloggers' postings on issues related to business, international relations, and so on. Besides, I download a lot of public-affairs type of radio-talk shows, and listen to them on an iPod when I am travelling. I guess reading blogs put up by experts and listening to podcasts also count as a form of reading in these Internet-driven times!

FinePrint: Why is reading important to you?

AT: It's important for several reasons.

First, it's enjoyable. Without enjoyment, forget doing any reading or, for that matter, anything in life! Reading is a way of getting quiet pleasure at seeing how imagination, thoughts and arguments come together to form a new way of looking at the world. I have spent many hot and humid non-office hours in Dhaka (where I have been since September 2004), enjoying iced tea while reading books and magazines.

Second, reading helps me keep up with what's changing in my fields of interest. New insights and methods keep coming up in international development, which is presently my line of work. I try to read to be aware of new practices, and to apply them at work. Besides, I write newspaper columns and policy briefs. So, I need to have access to ideas to generate thoughts. All this is only possible if I read regularly.

Plus, reading makes you so much more knowledgeable about so many things that, I suppose, being knowledgeable always puts you at some advantage in life.

FinePrint: What books have you read recently that you'd recommend to others?

AT: I enjoyed Khalid Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner and Samrat Upadhyay's short stories in The Royal Ghosts. In non-fiction, I liked Suketu Mehta's Maximum City , a book about Mumbai. I also finished reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton, who was responsible for creating many economic institutions that we take for granted today. I give away copies of John Whelpton's excellent A History of Nepal as gifts these days.

At present, I am reading Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks, which argues that we have entered a new mode of production, where strangers collaborate for free to produce services . . . as in, say, the production of open source software, and what such free and collaborative activities mean for markets and freedom.

FinePrint: What do you think of the future of reading in Nepal?

AT: I see it as being bright. As evidence, I would point to new book-stores, libraries and publishing houses that have come up in recent times. When I was in Nepal last May, I saw even Thamel's Himalayan Java Cafe selling books. Book exhibitions, public book-signing ceremonies by known authors, and books by new authors . . . all these appear to be happening with increasing frequencies in Nepal. It's easier today to get books we want to read than ever before.

Perhaps, in times ahead, organizations like Fineprint can do more in terms of organizing public events that get publishers, editors, marketers and readers together with established and beginning writers for discussions and idea sharing.

Published in Read magazine,
Kathmandu, (October 2006)
A venture of http://www.fineprintbookclub.com