Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive

“Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive, of visiting worlds you would never have time to in your day-to-day life. It keeps you abreast of a wider spectrum of human activities,” said Abraham Verghese, physician, teacher, and storyteller — a man whose healing hands were guided as much by science as by art. In these words, Verghese reveals the sacred purpose of literature: not merely as entertainment, nor as knowledge alone, but as a living bridge — a passage between souls, between worlds, between the ordinary and the infinite. For in reading, one lives a thousand lives, feels a thousand hearts, and awakens one’s imagination, that divine power which makes all life richer, deeper, more humane.

To Verghese, who has spent his life between the realms of medicine and art, literature is not luxury but sustenance. As a healer, he witnessed pain, mortality, and endurance — the raw human truths that numbers cannot measure. Yet through stories, he found meaning and mercy. The imagination, he says, is the pulse of empathy; and literature is its lifeblood. Through the written word, we walk beside strangers across time, feel their anguish and hope, and come to understand that our lives, though divided by centuries and continents, beat to the same eternal rhythm.

The ancients, too, knew this truth. In the halls of Alexandria, the scholars gathered scrolls not to hoard wisdom, but to preserve the imagination of mankind. They believed that the mind, when deprived of stories, grows dull and lifeless, as a garden untended. To read was to keep the spirit supple, to stretch one’s understanding beyond the narrow walls of habit. The poet Homer, though blind, saw further than kings and warriors, for through the imagination he traveled seas no eyes had ever witnessed. So too does Verghese remind us: literature grants us the rare gift of inward travel, the journey through unseen landscapes that no road could ever reach.

Consider the example of Anne Frank, whose diary, written in hiding, became one of the most profound works of the modern age. In her small room, she could not walk the streets or sail the seas, yet through her words, she roamed the vast expanse of her soul. Her imagination turned confinement into immortality. Generations have read her story and felt her courage, her longing, her humanity — proof that literature transcends time and circumstance, allowing even the silenced to speak forever.

Verghese’s words carry also a tender warning: in the haste of modern life, we risk losing the world of imagination. We move swiftly through days, trading depth for speed, reflection for distraction. Yet he calls us back — to pause and read, to feed that quiet flame within. For to neglect literature is to let part of the soul wither, the part that knows how to dream, how to feel, how to truly see. The wider spectrum of human activities, as he says, is not found only in work or news or information, but in the intimate exchange between reader and story — where the boundaries of self dissolve and one becomes many.

Through reading, we become physicians of the heart, as Verghese himself is. Each story we encounter expands our compassion, teaches us to look upon others not as strangers but as mirrors. In this way, literature heals: it restores our capacity for wonder and our sense of belonging to the great human story. To keep the imagination alive is to keep the spirit awake, and an awakened spirit is the truest form of wisdom.

So let this be the teaching: Read, and read deeply. Read not only to know, but to feel. Let books be your voyages, your teachers, your companions through time. Read poetry when your soul grows weary, read history to humble your pride, read fiction to rediscover your humanity. For every page turned is a step toward understanding — of others, and of yourself. As Verghese reminds us, literature is not escape but expansion, the widening of the heart’s horizon. Through it, we find not only the world’s stories, but our own souls reflected in their light.