My Enduring Affair with Books

Apart from my parents, there were three other things that nurtured and stimulated my mind through my growing up years, they were Books,Books and Books. Books were my playmates, friends and philosophers in various stages of my life. Those were the days when we did not have gadgets like Kindle and laptops and the strange smell emanating from freshly printed books would send my adrenalin racing with anticipation.

Books in any form is like one’s shadow, they stay with you at every stage of your life, literally from the cradle to the grave.
As a young boy, I was spell bound by the magic web weaved by the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and Grimm. I was lost in the wonderland of Alice and mesmerized by the antics of Jack in, “Jack and the Beanstalk’.
As I grew a little order the fairy tales faded into the background to be replaced by the exploits of, “The Famous Five’ and ‘The Five Find outers’, expertly spun by Enid Blyton. I experienced my first kiss with Tom and Becky in a dark cave in Mark Twain’s ‘Tom Sawyer’.
At this point my young and impressive mind was exposed to the great epics of India,’The Ramayana’ and ‘The Mahabharata’. I roamed the forests of India with Rama and heard the deafening roar of conch shells in the battlefield that was Kurukshetra. I entered the Chakravyuha with the brave Abhimanyu and lamented as the brave boy fell, I cavorted with Krishna, Radha and the Gopis on the banks of the river Yamuna and was captivated by the enchanting music flowing from the pages of ‘Krishnavatara’.

I looked horrified at the first ‘murder’, in one of James Hadley Chase’s novels and argued eloquently with the eminent lawyer Perry Mason. I shed tears as I viewed the Holocaust through the eyes of Leon Uris in Exodus. I was embroiled in the intricacies of a Hospital and a Hotel courtesy, Arthur Hailey.

I became a passionate doctor, a crusading priest and an uncompromising Painter as I read through the books of A.J.Cronin.

I flew where eagles dared to unlock the key of fear and silence The Guns Of Navarone along with Alistair Maclean.

I heard Mr Barkis  say:  “Tell her, ‘Barkis is willin’!’ Just so.” as I was held spellbound by the pages of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.

I then travelled across the frontiers of time astride, The Time Machine, buoyed by H.G.Wells and was terrified and felt a chill up my spine as I encountered a Psycho, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock.

Even as I was sucked into the heady concoction of melodrama, sex and action in the books by Harold Robbins, I came up for air and breathed the air of the philosophy of Objectivism of Ayn Rand as I was mesmerized by her Fountain head and Atlas Shrugged.

I travelled to a remote village in Karnataka, by the name of Malgudi and played with a boy named Swamy, and his friends.

I strode proudly, holding my head high, marching shoulder to Shoulder with The Neelkanth on the back of Amish Tripathi’s Shiva Trilogy.

I gazed in awe as I listened to the ancient sages of India through the Puranas, Upanishads and other scriptures. I experienced moments of Nirvana as I walked reverently through The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and The Autobiography of a Yogi.

And the journey continues, I breathe, so I read.

I wish I have a thousand lives to enable me to unearth the treasure from millions of unread books.