My Love Affair with Books.

The prince then married the beautiful princess and they lived happily ever after. This is how my nights began day after day as my grandmother wove stories for me each night at bedtime. She was a master storyteller. I used to think that this is usually the way people fall asleep every night. There is a Granny, she has a story and then she sings a song of airplanes and birds, and while you are hearing it, you fall asleep. It was she who started my love affair with stories and songs and eventually books.

I stayed with my grandmother as a child and she was the only source of entertainment to me. She played games with me, she danced around me, she bathed me in the verandah in the sun, because I used to feel cold in the bathroom, and all the while she told me wonderful stories of kings and queens and pretty fairies.

I first heard from her the enchanting tales of Shri Krishna, the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Later in my life when I read these epic poems, the childhood memories came rushing back to me. Last week I was reading a book of poetry collection and suddenly on this page I see a poem, which she used to sing for me when I was a child. Those melodies have long since haunted me and I used to remember a few of those words. But seeing that poem almost came as a pleasant jolt of happiness to me. Books Books Books. For strange reasons most of my childhood memories are associated with books. It was truly my Granny who fired my imagination as a child through her stories and later on books kindled it.

There used to be a little and dark grocery store near my house and the owner whom we used to call uncle, ran a library for children. Next to the jars of candies and cookies and lollipops he had two stacks of books piled up. These contained all sorts of stories of shrewd magicians and pretty princesses, wicked demons and brave kings, pirates with one eye, ugly witches and lovely fairies. He rented us each of his book for 15 paise, a big amount for a first grader. At least when the pocket money you received was little. During each summer vacation as soon as the exams got over, my friends and myself used to rush to obtain membership of his tiny dark library. With great care we made selections under the yellow light of his bulb, investing our pocket money as wisely as possible. At the most we rented two books, at least that is what I could afford if I had to use the library throughout the vacation. We then circulated our treasures amongst everybody else. So every kid could read at least five to ten books in return of the two loaned books. I remember reading those books at a single stretch. They were small books of hardly 20 to 30 pages, but the stories were very entertaining, and imaginative.

I am fortunate to have wise grandparents and parents who took notice of my love for reading. They encouraged me by presenting me with books during my birthdays and every other occasion. My early collection of books has formed in this manner.

Soon I was reading books of all subjects. These were received as gifts or borrowed from friends or rented from the local library. They sort of became my companions. I began collecting books for my own collection. Every year in my town there used to be a Russian books fair. It was here that I met and liked Leo Tolstoy. I bought and read Maxim Gorky from this fair. Mother by Maxim Gorky is one of my favorites.

Here is my picture of ultimate bliss. It is Sunday morning, the air is cool and fresh, I have all the time by myself and I am lying in my bed immersed in a beautiful book, next to me sits a steaming mug of strong coffee. Golden rays of sun stream through the white blinds on my back. The book smells like freshly mowed lawn and I am the happiest person in the world. Life is livable again. Amen!

I first began reading out of shear interest, and what I read were fairy-tales or children’s novels. My mother introduced me to historical novels and biographies. Some of my favorite biographies are of Swami Vivekanand, George Washington Carver and Shivaji Maharaj.    Most of these books were based on real life subjects. Everything in my Granny’s stories was also related with day-to-day happenings in life. She sometimes composed stories of my own pranks and tantrums and tried to drive home a point of discipline for me. In Indian culture every thing you do in your life has a meaning attached to it and there is most often a story related to it. There is no fiction in these acts. Whatever the reason may be, but to this day non-fiction has been my favorite topic to choose for a book. I usually like to read about real things, hence I prefer to read readers digest because it is all non-fiction and it talks about us and our lives. But I must admit that I appreciate the works of Richard Bach, Ayn Rand and the stories of J.R.R Tolkien.

Reading is a monologue for me. I like to read a page or two or until I can contain no longer. Then I simply close my eyes and the theme floats in my mind like a piece of music. My mind interprets it in different ways, I debate with myself on the topic, back and forth, back and forth and the journey continues. I have found that reading helps me in more than one ways. It relaxes me, it reconnects me with myself because I tend to converse with myself and raise questions about whatever I am reading and most important it has a very calming effect. Most often when I come across situations where I am unable to decide, books have helped me through. By means of some little poem or a paragraph I receive a message or see a direction and things are clear again.

Losing myself in books has been my most favorite hobby these days and I religiously practice whenever I can catch an hour or two. An hour or two at a stretch is a rare thing, but even fifteen minutes are good enough to catch a joke or two from “laughter the best medicine” from Readers Digest. It freshens my mind especially when my schedules are busy and I am in the middle of some pressing work. I usually keep the latest issue of RD in my drawer at work and read it during lunchtime.

Then there is the omnipresent subject of architecture always on my mind. I read lot of architectural stuff. It is mainly to connect with my brethren out there in the field and understand the process of their minds. Here is a hobby, which requires little time, is extremely fulfilling and also informative at times.

Very recently I have discovered books on CD’s and tapes and have listened to Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I liked it too. But then there is no charm of the coffee or the sunrays filtering through the white blinds and falling on your back. And if you increase the volume you have to plug in the tingling headphones in your ears so as not to disturb a husband engrossed in his hobby of robotics in the next room, because noise invariably distracts his robots from behaving themselves. And after all who has the strong will power or any such motivation anyway to carry audio books with the head phones and all in different rooms. Instead a book is a much better fare and then you also get to smell the freshly mown lawn!