Reading Lists and Bank Statements

There are two things I share with the greatest reservation. Actually, there are other things. But this is a column. Some restraint is necessary.

The first of these two things is my recommended reading list. It is, to me, like showing someone your underwear drawer. Both of these things, to me, are intensely private. As far as personal reading lists are concerned, I feel as though they expose the things your brain wears underneath your skull. Any consummate reader will tell you that not all stories or books are told or written equally. There are hits and misses.

Yes, yes, and yes – books are books, and reading is reading at the end of the day. But, eish, I am not so sure about airing some Jodi Piccoult numbers in public. Or the Mills and Boons with all of the throbbing members and heaving bosoms. Some reads are best kept secret.

It does not matter whether the laundry is clean, new or old, lacy and racy, or simple and functional. We can agree that having your underwear on display can be a bit awkward. Hence why I am hesitant at disclosing the varied nature of my recommended list – there are some dodgy numbers on the list only a select group of people should know about because they get it.

The book recommendations that do make public appearances are the ones I consider too good to keep quiet about. Regardless of reception or perception, I believe in them so much I feel like people should know about them. I find these recommendations are, at times, the most challenging and thoughtful. It’s as if I stumbled across a comfortable pair of intellectual cotton briefs everyone should know about because it holds everything down. No wiggles or jiggles.

The second thing I share only under duress is my bank statement.

Under threat of firing squad, I think I prefer disclosing my reading lists instead of my bank statements.

Especially now. It is March.

Most applications that require the submission of bank statements ask you to delve into your financial instability as far back as three months (sometimes six). The problem with this, of course, should be quite obvious: Three months at this point in time covers December, January and February.

These are embarrassing months financially speaking. The things I swiped for in December cannot be held against me in the new year. Who I was back then is not who I am now. The struggles I survived in January – man, those need to be erased off every electronic device. Exposing them is worse than accidentally leaving a raunchy piece of underwear in the lounge when you have guests over.

So, as a bare minimum, can we agree that any application which requires three months’ bank statements should exonerate the December-February period?

Because, really, reader to reader, financially unstable 30-something to visa application committee, it is unfair to be judged on your worst day or by your most embarrassing read.

Rémy Ngamije is a Namibian short story writer, columnist, poet, and the author of ‘The Eternal Audience

of One’, his debut novel.