First off thanks to Aparna for making me think about this. Oh, the memories are sweet.
Before I get to myself, I should mention this about you, my dear children.
K and N, in case you wonder what is it that you read by yourself,
K, you started reading Walt Disney's amazing stories collection gifted to you by your beloved Aunt was one of the first books you sat down and perused by yourself. Of course you weren't reading dear. You were three odd years old then. Your mom would tell you the stories of Snow white and Simba that you would hear with rapt attention and later on, you would sit down with the book and browse the pages, looking at those lovely pictures in their vivid glory. I can only imagine that the story was running in your ultra vast landscape of your mind as a movie! I knew then and to my pride that you were a reader and you were set for life. You are five now when am writing this and books have become your good company. You still cannot read by yourself, but that has not stopped you from browsing through Amar Chitra Kathas or big volumes of Mahabharata, Ramayana and what not. I cannot wait for the day you can read by yourself and gorge on the minutest details of the books you read! You cherish the stories of Krishna and his antics. You even have a doll of Krishna to whom you do Pujas. Its such an adorable sight to watch you do your pujas to the tiny doll, bathe him, robe him and adorn him with flowers and erm... talcum powder. :) Its surprising where you got that from since we dont use talcum powder on you. Ah, must be the gramps. I digress. But its a happy moment that I discovered that you liked to read.
N, boy, you are two, and believe it or not!, you started reading when you were barely one and a half! You would sit in a corner, pick a small "Papa tell me a story" or Bubbles book and browse the books. Your favourites were peekaboo books . They are things with flaps in each page and hidden characters behind the flap. You loved playing peekaboo with the books. Thats how you started with books. There would be times when we would suddenly realize you were missing in action and a quick search would find you sitting by the bookshelves or wherever you find a book(oh they used to be lying around anywhere in the house. Under the bed, in the ward robe, behind doors). We once found you sitting behind a door almost near the hinges and with a book! At times we would even find you mumbling a story to yourself! Your diction is still all baby babbles and its so lovely to hear you say a story. It would be game time for us to guess what story you were saying. Your intonations would often give away how your mother would narrate the stories and mom would guess it easily. You are two now boy and the habit still lingers. Hang on to that boy. Anyone who reads gets a lot of respect in this world.
Now, you would be wondering so where did I start? My introduction to stories goes to your grandfather(my father). Your grandfather, god bless him, has an amazing repertoire of stories that you would find in no book! Ask him and he would say he made up half of them! Guess he would have made a good pile of cash had he thought that he wrote them and not 'made them up'. He still remembers most of the stories and I would often go blank when he would narrate them to you K. N boy has not started listening to his gramps' stories yet. I would sit with you and listen to the stories from gramps all over again. I would become this small boy who would pester his father to tell him a story!
There was a weekly that we used to subscribe when I was a small boy. It was called Illustrated Weekly. They used to publish Phantom comics every Thursday! I used to wait for Thursday and pester your gramps to read them to me! That was the first introduction to comics and super heroes. He was the ideal super hero! A cloaked common man who fights for the good of all! The weekly was the luxury of comics we enjoyed at home. Later on, I discovered that my cousin brother had a whole bunch of Amar Chitra Kathas Collections and I used to devour them during each trip to my uncles place. I vividly remember borrowing and returning them dog eared much to my uncle's consternation. I realize now how enraged he would have been.
Then, as I grew older, I joined a lending library and discovered a whole new big comic book that had the name Tintin! The first book i read was a book named Tintin and the Redrackham's treasure! I was hooked! I stopped only after finishing the series. Asterix would follow much later!
Then, it was my sister's turn to introduce me to novels. She once brought a book that went by the title "Famous five ....." by an author named Enid Blyton. She told me to start reading. I reluctantly obliged and I soon started making more and more trips to the library! I would get five rupees each week to rent books. I would eagerly wait for the Saturday to come and furiously pedal off to the library for books. Soon, famous five led to Secret Seven and Nancy drew. By this time, we had library hour in school where we were allowed to spend an hour . I was overjoyed when I discovered that when we were told that we would be issued library cards and we could borrow books from school!
"Borrow books from school? Any book? wow! " I was double thrilled. Soon, I was borrowing Hardy Boys from school and other books from the local lending library! I remember I used to devour books each week at the expense of many a homework! :)
Soon, I found some boy in the class would read the same book session after session. Some would even pass it around only after reading a few pages. I never bothered for a long time. Soon, i found out that the book was by an author by name Sidney Sheldon ! That introduced me to the wonderful world of fiction for grown ups!.
You know why I read?
The one major reason why I love reading is that it helps me dream! It helps me create this lovely world in mind and watch the plot unfurl in that. If you ever watch a movie by name Inception, you'd know what i mean. Reading a book brings me tantalizingly close to what the movie as all about. Building an imaginary world and living in it while the story is enacted around you!
The other thing I've been benefited by reading books is learning the usage of English language. English at school is all about nouns, prepositions, similes and all such gobbledygook. Finally, when it comes to language as it is spoken out there in the world, or conversational English, fiction is the best choice !
World affairs! Believe it or not! I'm not big on Malayala Manoramas or Britannicas. I derive my knowledge of places and monuments from novels. Long long back, before the days of Internet(yeah there existed such a time!), I once surprised a friend who had returned from US and was showing me pictures from his trip and I surprised him my perfectly naming the Jefferson monument, the house of representatives and Lincoln memorial! This, without having seen a single picture of these before in my life! He was stunned! He refused to believe that I had not visited the states before!
Another reason? well, the thrill of buying a book and smelling the smell of fresh paper is something that by itself can be a reason for being a reader.
So, there, you have it, the reasons for my loving reading!!!!
My father asked me to read these books once in my life and I ask you to read them too!
1. The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas (unabgridged)
2. A Bend in the Ganges (Manohar Malgaonkar)
3. The Rise and Fall of Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon)
I add two, just two more to this list as I do not want to make a big one
4. India after Gandhi. Ramachandra Guha (hopefully, our history books get revised to reflect the contents of this book by the time you read this)
5. The harry potter series.
So, Vidya whats yours?
Before I get to myself, I should mention this about you, my dear children.
K and N, in case you wonder what is it that you read by yourself,
K, you started reading Walt Disney's amazing stories collection gifted to you by your beloved Aunt was one of the first books you sat down and perused by yourself. Of course you weren't reading dear. You were three odd years old then. Your mom would tell you the stories of Snow white and Simba that you would hear with rapt attention and later on, you would sit down with the book and browse the pages, looking at those lovely pictures in their vivid glory. I can only imagine that the story was running in your ultra vast landscape of your mind as a movie! I knew then and to my pride that you were a reader and you were set for life. You are five now when am writing this and books have become your good company. You still cannot read by yourself, but that has not stopped you from browsing through Amar Chitra Kathas or big volumes of Mahabharata, Ramayana and what not. I cannot wait for the day you can read by yourself and gorge on the minutest details of the books you read! You cherish the stories of Krishna and his antics. You even have a doll of Krishna to whom you do Pujas. Its such an adorable sight to watch you do your pujas to the tiny doll, bathe him, robe him and adorn him with flowers and erm... talcum powder. :) Its surprising where you got that from since we dont use talcum powder on you. Ah, must be the gramps. I digress. But its a happy moment that I discovered that you liked to read.
N, boy, you are two, and believe it or not!, you started reading when you were barely one and a half! You would sit in a corner, pick a small "Papa tell me a story" or Bubbles book and browse the books. Your favourites were peekaboo books . They are things with flaps in each page and hidden characters behind the flap. You loved playing peekaboo with the books. Thats how you started with books. There would be times when we would suddenly realize you were missing in action and a quick search would find you sitting by the bookshelves or wherever you find a book(oh they used to be lying around anywhere in the house. Under the bed, in the ward robe, behind doors). We once found you sitting behind a door almost near the hinges and with a book! At times we would even find you mumbling a story to yourself! Your diction is still all baby babbles and its so lovely to hear you say a story. It would be game time for us to guess what story you were saying. Your intonations would often give away how your mother would narrate the stories and mom would guess it easily. You are two now boy and the habit still lingers. Hang on to that boy. Anyone who reads gets a lot of respect in this world.
Now, you would be wondering so where did I start? My introduction to stories goes to your grandfather(my father). Your grandfather, god bless him, has an amazing repertoire of stories that you would find in no book! Ask him and he would say he made up half of them! Guess he would have made a good pile of cash had he thought that he wrote them and not 'made them up'. He still remembers most of the stories and I would often go blank when he would narrate them to you K. N boy has not started listening to his gramps' stories yet. I would sit with you and listen to the stories from gramps all over again. I would become this small boy who would pester his father to tell him a story!
There was a weekly that we used to subscribe when I was a small boy. It was called Illustrated Weekly. They used to publish Phantom comics every Thursday! I used to wait for Thursday and pester your gramps to read them to me! That was the first introduction to comics and super heroes. He was the ideal super hero! A cloaked common man who fights for the good of all! The weekly was the luxury of comics we enjoyed at home. Later on, I discovered that my cousin brother had a whole bunch of Amar Chitra Kathas Collections and I used to devour them during each trip to my uncles place. I vividly remember borrowing and returning them dog eared much to my uncle's consternation. I realize now how enraged he would have been.
Then, as I grew older, I joined a lending library and discovered a whole new big comic book that had the name Tintin! The first book i read was a book named Tintin and the Redrackham's treasure! I was hooked! I stopped only after finishing the series. Asterix would follow much later!
Then, it was my sister's turn to introduce me to novels. She once brought a book that went by the title "Famous five ....." by an author named Enid Blyton. She told me to start reading. I reluctantly obliged and I soon started making more and more trips to the library! I would get five rupees each week to rent books. I would eagerly wait for the Saturday to come and furiously pedal off to the library for books. Soon, famous five led to Secret Seven and Nancy drew. By this time, we had library hour in school where we were allowed to spend an hour . I was overjoyed when I discovered that when we were told that we would be issued library cards and we could borrow books from school!
"Borrow books from school? Any book? wow! " I was double thrilled. Soon, I was borrowing Hardy Boys from school and other books from the local lending library! I remember I used to devour books each week at the expense of many a homework! :)
Soon, I found some boy in the class would read the same book session after session. Some would even pass it around only after reading a few pages. I never bothered for a long time. Soon, i found out that the book was by an author by name Sidney Sheldon ! That introduced me to the wonderful world of fiction for grown ups!.
You know why I read?
The one major reason why I love reading is that it helps me dream! It helps me create this lovely world in mind and watch the plot unfurl in that. If you ever watch a movie by name Inception, you'd know what i mean. Reading a book brings me tantalizingly close to what the movie as all about. Building an imaginary world and living in it while the story is enacted around you!
The other thing I've been benefited by reading books is learning the usage of English language. English at school is all about nouns, prepositions, similes and all such gobbledygook. Finally, when it comes to language as it is spoken out there in the world, or conversational English, fiction is the best choice !
World affairs! Believe it or not! I'm not big on Malayala Manoramas or Britannicas. I derive my knowledge of places and monuments from novels. Long long back, before the days of Internet(yeah there existed such a time!), I once surprised a friend who had returned from US and was showing me pictures from his trip and I surprised him my perfectly naming the Jefferson monument, the house of representatives and Lincoln memorial! This, without having seen a single picture of these before in my life! He was stunned! He refused to believe that I had not visited the states before!
Another reason? well, the thrill of buying a book and smelling the smell of fresh paper is something that by itself can be a reason for being a reader.
So, there, you have it, the reasons for my loving reading!!!!
My father asked me to read these books once in my life and I ask you to read them too!
1. The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas (unabgridged)
2. A Bend in the Ganges (Manohar Malgaonkar)
3. The Rise and Fall of Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon)
I add two, just two more to this list as I do not want to make a big one
4. India after Gandhi. Ramachandra Guha (hopefully, our history books get revised to reflect the contents of this book by the time you read this)
5. The harry potter series.
So, Vidya whats yours?
