The Kindle and my super senior father. – Zarir Karbhari
The Kindle and my super senior father are a shining example of hope is rekindled with the help of technology.
I have never been a real fan of the Kindle. For me the actual touch and feel of books has a pleasure of its own. The joy of reading a printed and bound book is a different experience.
Reading a book, a manual or text book on a Kindle just feels so robotic and unfamiliar. But as usual life has a way of changing your mind or at least making you rethink issues. My father is 92 years old and by the grace of the universe he is both mentally and physically active. I do believe his attitude of continuously keep his mind busy and actively reading or learning something new has been his secret elixir.
Due to age his eye sight has deteriorated, his hands are not so steady and his capability of holding a book and reading a book has degraded. It was becoming a strain for him to read and so a Kindle was purchased for him to read his novels, computer manuals, software guides and knowledge based articles.
Surprisingly he adapted to it instantaneously, the Kindle is light weight, conveniently sized and easy to switch on and off. Charging the Kindle was like charging his phone so that too was not a problem. So it appeared we had achieved a reasonable success at least convincing him of using a new gadget and it practicality of operation. Switch on , read and switch off.
He became comfortable reading content on the Kindle and loved that he could increase the size of the font. The back light eased the strain of his eyes and he really began to enjoy reading content of the Kindle.
He was not really bothered about the rest, “I am retired” he said and so left it to us to download what he wanted. Setting up the WIFI, making the categories, downloading the books was a responsibility bestowed on me. He just wanted to switch on, choose a book, read, book mark and switch off and the Kindle did exactly that. He loves the Kindle, he is back to experiencing the joy of reading and the twilight years of his life do not seem to be such a pain anymore.