Studies of human behaviour are always fascinating — and one such study tells us that keen readers are nicer people. They are kinder, more empathetic and display better social behaviour.
There is more, of course, depending on what kind of books one reads — but I don’t need to know all that. Just that one sentence about being “nice” makes me feel wonderful — and also justifies (in my mind) my social behaviour to date.
A book addict from the time I learnt to read, I quickly realised, even though I was probably only five or six years old at the time, that burying myself in a book was the best way to get out of any social gathering. I didn’t want concerned adults to question me about what I was doing in school and why I was not a part of the concert or the play when their children were the leading lights of all extra-curricular activities. So, when I saw them coming down the driveway with a carload of children — my classmates included — I made myself scarce. Out of the back door, into the garden, and up among the leaves of my favourite tree, my trusty paperback companion in hand.
There, deep into the story of Jemima Puddle-Duck or some other farm animal, I didn’t hear the voices of my classmates below me as they ran around playing catch and occasionally calling for me to join them. I didn’t hear their cries when they were nipped by the ducks in our backyard either... and, after they left, when I was told about their misadventures, I displayed no concern at all, so caught up was I in the problems of my fictional duck and her quest to hatch her eggs.
Perhaps I improved as I grew older. I distinctly remember standing at the bus stop in my college days with my nose in a book and magnanimously letting everyone behind me in the queue go past and get on the bus while I waited for the next one. So what if I was late for the first class of the day, I reasoned. I needed to know what happened to Kira and Leo and Andrei, didn’t I?
And that crowd behind me at the bus stop had been surging forward in their desperation to be on time to their places of work and study, so perhaps they were grateful for the “generosity of spirit” I had displayed.
Subsequent years always found me with a book in my hand or a story in my head to keep me light years away from the maddening crowd.
This helped immensely at social gatherings when someone disapproved of someone else — or of me — and branded us intolerable. Since I was more indignant at Elizabeth Bennet being carelessly labelled merely “tolerable”, I ignored the snide remarks and veiled insults that were flying around the room and retreated into my private space where the slings and arrows were directed and they whizzed by without effect.
As for going to anyone’s rescue — whether in famine, flood, fire or earthquake — I often had no idea what was going on around me while I was buried in my books. I rarely lent a hand to others because my own hands were overflowing with works of fiction, natural history, history, archaeology and whatever caught my fancy at the local library or bookstore. I didn’t display sympathy for lost causes or empathy in sad situations because I was trying my best to get over the heartbreak of Rhett walking away from Scarlett or Jay Gatsby paying for his forbidden love — and his silence.
But who am I to dispute the results of research? Studies say readers are nice people — kinder and more empathetic. And I am a reader: Ergo ...
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
