Reading Literature and Sanity

"People should read literature to prevent them from losing their sanity." Who said that? I did. I typed it in a crowded train compartment, as I was squeezed between Mankhurd, Chembur and Kurla in what was a milling machine consisting of bones and flesh, so much close that when the man beside me talks on his cell phone my body vibrates, and when he laughs a hoarse laugh, my bodily organs virtually quake, surely 7 on the Richter scale. Hm. I also said in a comment that we are an insane people, we see those earphone-ed dudes and dudettes walking around the city talking to themselves, and wonder about their sanity. I do. Read some literature, dude, at least, you won't go insane by the time you reach adulthood.

I am really, really, sad that the reading habit is dying. It's the most noble of our sensory abilities. Here's what the Wiki has to say:

"Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of deriving meaning (reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning. Written information is received by the retina, processed by the primary visual cortex, and interpreted in Wernicke's area."

I love reading. It's more involving, more intellectually elevating, has far more depth than television, which is narrow in scope, cumbersome, and labours vainly to make a point. I will call reading as poetry and television as Bollywood item number crap. Not that I have anything against Bollywood crap. Yesterday I saw Fardeen, or was it Saif standing legs splayed and thrusting to the following lyrics:

Kambaqt isq hai jo, Sara jahan hai woh
Kab aata hai, kab jaata hai, (and the rest is crap)