How to rule the world from your couch

Hollywood actor Demi Moore posted a photo of herself and Bruce Willis, her ex-husband, while in self-isolation due to Covid-19, along with members of their families. Eight of them were sitting on a couch, reading eight copies of the same book – Laura Day’s ‘How to Rule the World from Your Couch’ – perhaps indicative of what exactly is desirable while in lockdown or quarantine. Moore put out an interesting caption, too: “Family book club...How to Rule the World from Your Couch – quarantine edition.”

Certainly, during this tiring lockdown period, many of us have been spending hours reading books that we had wanted to read for long but hadn’t managed to find the time to do so. Not only fiction, they include titles on science, philosophy, economics, politics, etc. Personally, I buy lot of books, especially during the annual Kolkata Book Fair. However, a significant number of them remains unread for want of leisure time. My wife has for long been complaining about the number of unread books filling up our home. The lockdown came as a golden opportunity for me to convince her that unread books are like Alibaba’s hidden treasures that come handy during such an unforeseen ‘Black Swan’ event.

During lockdown, we passed April 23, celebrated as the ‘World Book Day’ by UNESCO since 1995. It is the date of death of Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, both of whom died in 1616, although according to the Gregorian calendar in Spain and the Julian calendar in England. However, the question that haunts one is: Are books luxury items or a basic necessity? During the lockdown period, which began on March 25 in India, only grocery stores, healthcare and other essential services were allowed to operate. But the southern state of Kerala allowed bookshops also to open twice a week – Tuesday and Friday. Certainly, books are treated as a basic necessity in Kerala. Interestingly, it was reported that when the countrywide lockdown was announced, leading Malayalam movie stars like Tovino Thomas and Manju Warrier quickly purchased some books to reading. Perhaps it is an expression of the pride of India’s most literate state about their education and culture that they allowed bookstores to open during the lockdown.

The broader question is: does our culture tell us to consider books as essential? Do we also buy a bag full of books during our festivals when we buy fancy clothes, mobile phones, and eat out in expensive restaurants? There is no one answer to that, though. Social media and mainstream media are flooded with photos and videos of various activities of the celebrities confined within their homes due to lockdown – some are singing, some are dancing, some are exhibiting their haircuts, some are cooking, some are cleaning their houses, some are chatting with family members, while some are busy with yoga or workouts. However, I didn’t see too many pictures of Indian celebrities reading books. Madhuri Dixit was seen reading ‘Born a Crime’, an autobiographical book by the famous South African comedian Trevor Noah; and Bollywood’s Sri Lankan actor Jacqueline Fernandez was reading ‘Funny Girl’, written by English writer Nick Hornby. Of course, there must be some others that I missed.

The situation is different in Hollywood though. This discussion started with the example of Demi Moore. Natalie Portman is a renowned bibliophile, so there was little surprise in seeing her reading a book. Jessica Chastain was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ – certainly an interesting book to read during a pandemic. And celebrities like Guillermo del Toro, Ari Aster, JA Bayona, Sarah Jessica Parker, Emma Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears, among others, were all pictured reading books.

Certainly, the objective here is not to compare the reading habits of Bollywood and Hollywood. Rather, I was interested to find a parallel to Kerala allowing bookstores to remain open during the pandemic. This, in my opinion, is a “Covid-19 yardstick” to gauge how a country or a state/province envisages books. While Italians were struggling for their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, in a desparate bid to save the economy, the country made the lockdown ‘partial’ after April 13. The country allowed some businesses, including bookstores, stores with children’s supplies, and timber companies to open. Gemany made their lockdown ‘partial’ on April 19, and it allowed smaller stores to open, along with car and bicycle dealers and bookstores, provided they adhered to strict distancing and hygiene rules. Certainly, these European countries have given books a bit more importance than many other countries in the world. These ‘lockdown editions’ of the books are a basic ingredient of their lifestyles even during disasters.

In 1985, Michael Kinsley, the then editor of The New Republic, conducted an interesting experiment. In some Washington DC bookstores, Kinsley hid little notes, offering a $5 reward to anyone who saw them, about three-quarters of the way through 70 copies of certain select books that all of Washington seemed to be talking about. However, no one called!

Thirty-five years on, books are in no better position in most parts of the globe. Still, it was good to know that there are some places where you can rule the world from your couch, no matter what – such as Kerala, Italy and Germany – with ‘quarantine editions’ or ‘lockdown editions.’

(The writer is a Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)