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We Fight Over Books: Inside Dr. Swaroop Rawal’s Family of Readers
Actor, educator and PhD holder Dr Swaroop Rawal speaks about growing up with books, building a home where reading is a shared passion, and why literature continues to bind her family—from Paresh Rawal to their two sons—across generations.
My all time favourites are Atlas Shrugged, The Bhagavad Gita (the Iskcon edition), all of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse and To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee.. I love romantic books too, like Gone With The Wind, says Dr. Swaroop Rawal.
Dr. Swaroop Rawal is one of the most accomplished women you will meet. Other than being PhD and an actor in her own right, she and her better half Paresh Rawal have built a beautiful family and have two grown sons, Anirudha and Aditya.
“I still have the copy of Macbeth that I studied in 10th grade," she beams in an interview. "I always wanted to raise a family of readers. And I'm so happy Paresh and I have succeeded!”
Here are our five BookStrapping insights from an enlightening conversation with this multi-faceted educator.
1. I remember that my favourite book in 8th standard was , 'My family and other animals’ by Gerald Durell. And we were three friends who loved reading at Cathedral School; Anuradha, (now Mahindra) Darshana and I. We read 'The Three Musketeers' and decided to call ourselves that.
2. When I got married - the one thing Paresh and I asked each other was "Where do we keep all the books?” He reads more than I do and is a serious reader. His preferences are thrillers and biographies. I've seen him read authors like J Sai Deepak and books like Babur. He reads for content and I read more for style.
3. Aditya reads modern stuff. I remember waiting for him to go to school, because we would fight for the same book. It was only when he left for school, that I could get my hands on the book he was reading.
4. My all time favourites are Atlas Shrugged, The Bhagavad Gita (the ISKCON edition), all of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse and To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee.. I love romantic books too, like Gone With The Wind.
5. Anirudh is also a big reader. I recently saw him reading Vikram Sampath. None of us can travel without a book. For Anirudh and I, the worst case scenario is to buy one at the airport. We call each other from airport bookstores and confirm whether a book is worth buying!
“Recently, we lost an old and faithful driver to cancer; he used to read too! So does one of our maids.
Conversations at home are always about books and we have every Hollywood biography at home- Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, Ingmar Bergman. We love history books too - I have enjoyed reading author Meenakshi Jain. Everyone reads for a different reason, but books really bind us together as a family,” sums up Rawal.
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.
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