Out of the blue one day I was asked to write about reading. It took me a while to wrap my head around the thought. How do I write about something so intrinsic to me? Can one explain breathing or the heart’s beating or the blood’s pumping through the millions of vessels in our bodies with words? Each of these happen. They are supposed to happen. One can’t really wax eloquent about these bodily functions. Can one? Well, that’s what reading is for me, I thought. I could just leave the matter here and send this off to the Readomania team and say – here, I am done.What more is there to say? But then my mind decides to travel down memory lane and the writing flows. I find myself in a cool room in Nigeria and my mom reading. I do not remember how old I was then, very young for sure. She lies propped in bed engrossed in a book, unwinding at the end of the day. She was and continues to be my inspiration so I’m not surprised when I think of taking after her so naturally to become–a Devourer-of-Books. For as I consumed them, they consumed me. I have constantly found myself gravitating towards people who read, making my best- friendships with readers. During my growing years,haunting libraries and bookstores won my vote over the fanciest of playzones and toy stores. Relatives and friends were judged from a crystal-clear lens of those who gave books and those who didn’t, the book givers quickly became favourites and the clothes or toys givers were deemed − unimaginative and insensitive. Many a night I spent perched at the edge of the tub freezing my bum off in the cold winters of Dehradun (a precaution since the light from the bathroom did not reach my mom’s room) unable to let go of the story that held me in thrall. Or reading a story book within a text book placed on my lap, head pressed down on my desk hiding it from the Prefect during Prep, the hour-and-half where each of us Welhamites was supposed to be at scholarly study. A happy miscreant who had perfected the art of ignoring Prep-work, I am proud to say I was caught only the once. The whole episode fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday had one major downside, the book was confiscated and returned to the library and I wasn’t allowed to issue it for the entire term. Sacrilege! I have never quite forgiven the executor of such mean justice − the Prefect on duty that day, who until then had been one of my favourite people.
My dear mother who had introduced me to the world of the reader would be often heard lamenting on my love for books surpassing basic common sense. Ruining my time in a fruitless search of another’s story. We had long interventions where she reminded me that I was privileged and a good education must not be dealt with casually. She worried ceaselessly and warned me of my passion being the consumption of another person’s effort and therefore − passive entertainment. I would constantly promise to be better but then like an incurable addict would fall back on my word and be lost in other worlds. Worlds where I have climbed Everest with Mallory and Edmund Hillary; combed through the oceans of thought with Plato, Lao-Tzu, the Dalai Lama; traversed culture and tragedies of Greek and Roman antiquity with Homer and Vergil; travelled on far off quests to unravel the stories contained in pages of fiction by Christie, Connelly, Follett, Krantz, Segal, McCullough, Kaye, or my all-time favourite Archer; sought rhythmic creation within the poetry of Chaucer, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Arnold, Yeats, Frost and Maya Angelou; and discovered the foibles and passions of human love and sorrow through the works of Shakespeare, Naipaul, Tagore, Hemingway, Bronte, and Ferrante. I have learned Geography, History, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Medicine, et alia, through hundreds of books and become a lifelong learner as there is so much more to be read. I have lived numerous lives in a single lifetime through the words of brilliant writers – ancient, medieval and contemporary.
Some may say I have learned about life passively, to them I say –Books have been my greatest mentors and held my hand through the many tempests of an ordinary life. Reading has taught me empathy, selflessness, resilience, morality, integrity, dignity, rectitude, prudence, temperance, courage and justice. But most important of all reading has taught me how to write. Today, my passion has been redeemed and the sense of guilt following the label of addiction now rests six-feet under.
Believe me when I say that one single thought derived from an iconic book can be a guiding light and infuse one with boundless inspiration. Then just imagine what a full book can do? Where can it take you? So, parents who worry about their bibliophile kids, let me throw a piece of friendly advice your way in the words of Roald Dahl, ‘So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place, you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books…so that…You watch the slowly growing joy, that fills their hearts.
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