Sasha was in eighth grade and loved to read books. She was very intelligent and an open-minded person. She even used to read books on her tablet, because she was obsessed with books. She enjoyed books both in English and Urdu, fiction and non-fiction ones. Her grammar was good too and even her Urdu was amazing.

She had a friend named Anum, who was also her classmate and Anum was a little weak in studies. This made her get lower marks than Sasha, although Anum worked very hard. Nevertheless, she was weak in most subjects and to improve herself, she asked Sasha to help her in studies.

Sasha suggested that she should read books so that her language skills in both English and Urdu can become better. But Anum hated reading books and she refuses to follow this advice as she didn’t understand the importance of reading at that time.

Sasha tired her best to make her read books, but Anum was a rebellious girl and used her free time on gadgets and social media. She didn’t want to cut down on these activities to spend time on reading book, which would have been beneficial for her. Sasha then tried to help her by suggesting that she should read books online, on her phone or tablet, just to get into the reading habit. But Anum still didn’t listen to this suggestion either.

Well, years passed and they moved from school to college and finally turned into university students. Sasha continued to do well in her studies and was a topper, while Anum was an average student who barely managed to pass her exams.

When their university year started, Anum always faced difficulties while Sasha didn’t. Since their studies had now become tougher, Anum’s marks became very bad and she finally failed in her mid-term exams. Anum was very sad and dejected. She now realised that Sasha was getting positions while seeming to be studying less because she had strong language skills and the habit of book reading made studies seem so easy to her.

Anum finally decided to follow her friend’s advice and change her routine, and she added the element of reading books in her daily life because she didn’t want to ruin her career. Soon she was able to focus better on studies and her marks also improved. This also proved very helpful as the two friends started spending more time together due to their shared habit of reading books.

We all should make a habit of reading something every single day. If we even read a single page of a book every day, it will help us a lot. They say readers are leaders! So let us learn to become leaders in the future by starting to read today.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 27th, 2021