I found it odd sometimes that I could be having a good time in a room filled with my closest friends or family, partying and dancing and if I see a book sitting in a corner, I just couldn’t resist the urge to pick it up and read the back cover blurb. I would do this discreetly sometimes in the fear of “bombing the mood” for others or looking too much like a bookworm. If I found what I read to be interesting, I would quickly search for it in my GoodReads account and tag it as “Want to Read” or write it down somewhere. Then, I would get on with the party or the function or the fun that I took a quick detour from.
I wonder now, at the age of 31 why this must be. I remember when I was maybe 7 or 8 in some new town, having moved at least 4 cities by then because of my Dad’s “successful turned failed” business ventures and we were tagging along with his dream of “making it big”. I came across a book whose name I don’t remember but I remember it had some king and disciples (maybe Tinkle) whose story I honestly don’t remember, but I remember the feeling it gave me. It made me feel like I was talking to a person. A person that I could take with me anywhere I wanted. A person who had the patience to listen without interrupting and like a person who had a lot to say without stopping.
I could make friends easily enough at a new place. You smile and say the right things and people will want to talk to you. But say too much, they would avoid you. But, I found a new face in every new town or city I went to. But that book, everytime I opened it was the same. The characters knew me and I knew them. Then, somehow when I was 11 years old, we ended up in the US trying to make “real” money this time as my dad used to say. I could barely speak decent english – having studied in a school in a small town called Nellore for two years which had a thatched roof and a teacher who barely knew English herself , in an accent that people of Missouri can hardly understand. I found myself on an alien planet.
People were kind enough, some kids were mean like in all places. They found me to be very different. I guess I was. Imagine being the only Indian in school with a couple of brown people. They assumed I was mexican and didn’t know where or what “India” was. There was a subject in class where the only thing we did was read books for the entire year and I think that was my favorite subject of all time. I remember reading “James and the Giant Peach” in class and found the story absolutely wonderful. It was about a kid who had abusive parents and how he learnt to overcome it and became strong. Even though I didn’t have abusive parents, I learnt to be grateful for what I had and how I can overcome it and make friends in new places like he did. Soon, I saw myself going to the library more. We would have reading challenges where we had to read a certain number of books to get a free pizza. Even though I found that to be highly encouraging, slowly I surpassed the number of “required” books to read and neither did I care about the pizza.
All of the books in the series of Secret Seven, Magic tree house, Hardy Boys. Nancy Drew, Goosebumps, Roald Dahl – Some of them I would finish in a single day and I found friends who loved these books too. I felt like I was on the adventure with those characters.What started out as a confusing time became a wondrous time. Ofcourse, my mom didn’t allow kids to visit me at home, in fear of US culture spoiling us. There was a lot of confusion at that age like for all of us and you couldn’t really “talk” to your parents about them. But, those books opened my eyes, they helped me navigate the world, understand people by helping me put myself in the character’s shoes. I made friends and participated in “Drama” class and was cast to play “Paula” in our school’s rendition of “American Idol”. To this day, I am grateful for the books that helped me understand that foreign land. The characters in those books patiently told me about American culture and the way things work in a new land..
To this day, I don’t claim I understand people fully. The world is too complex and the people in it are too complicated for me to ever claim that. But books helped me navigate this world better than any human can or did. It’s funny sometimes, though, I forget that these books are written by humans.
I remember my mom constantly telling me not to read that much or refusing to buy story books because I might end up wasting time reading them rather than studying more “important” things. I tried telling that I was learning so much from Annie and Jack as they explored Egypt, Dinosaurs, Space, Ice Age, Gorillas, Dolphins. But marks are important in this society.I understand now though, that she was probably right. People need to see you acing in exams to know that you “know” things. So I worked hard to get straight A’s and would even do the extra credit assignments so that I can show that I completed my school work and could go on adventures with my “friends”.
As I grew older, the books I read became thicker, more mature, more complicated, more genres, more diverse. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson Series, Artemis Fowl series, Eragon, Hunger Games widened my imagination and gave me heroes and heroines that I admired and emulate to this day. Dragons, Ghouls, Greek Gods and Fairies. I lived so many lives in so many universes.
Dan Brown, Agatha Christie, Robin Sharma, Khaled Hosseini, Salman Rushdie, Ruskin Bond, Amish Tripati showed me the complexities of this world and the people in it. Books on stories from the world wars, Indian mythology, Greek mythology, outer space can show us how vast this world is. It gives me peace to know that even if I live for 500 years, there will be more books to read and learn from. I like to think that when I die and if given a chance to haunt a place, I would choose the largest library in the world.
There are books on gardening, finance, pregnancy, technology, animals, outer space. You name it and you can find a book on it. When I walk into a library or a book store it gives me peace. I find it quite magical how whenever I have a problem or need guidance and I walk into a library or a book store, I walk out with the right book.They have made me laugh, cry, wail, relax, fight, question, worry and most importantly think.
Finishing a book feels like the characters you knew so much about have died and disappeared. But I like to imagine they are alive somewhere in the mind of the author. Kind of like how when the people we love die, they still live in our minds.
I love this quote from Maupassant “Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare”.
So if you ever feel down and feel like no one understands you, go to the library and walk out with a book or two.
