I was getting bored. There was nothing left to do at all. I had done all my homework and I had read all my lessons for the day. Twice. Mother had almost finished with the chores for the day but she wouldn't be available for the next two or three hours. Lazily I made way to the drawing room. No, there wasn't anything interesting there. Except for a television and an empty vase. For a few minutes I speculated the probability of finding fresh flowers and decking up the vases. But...where would I find the flowers of my choice at that time of the day? It was almost noon and I had heard mother often say that cutting flowers at that particular time might retard the plant's growth. And that just put the final curtain on the idea. More sighs. Nothing killed me more than boredom, and lack of things to do. Not even pain.
Utterly hopeless and almost on the verge of tears I dropped down on a pile of old clothes and pillows beside the dining table. Mother might have left these out, when she looked for old clothes to give away, I thought. I might even get thrashed if she knew I was lying on top of these..!! But, I didn't care. No more, that was sweet revenge for the misery I was in. Against whom, God only knew.
Laying back in the pile the smell of mold caught my attention. To a normal person it might have been irritating but not to me. To me it always smelled of 'memories. Like I had lived a hundred years and at the end of an lifetime was looking back on all that had happened in an age-made-wise manner. A sudden calm filled me and I turned around to look at where I had settled. I found a shelf right behind me, covered with dust. Had I leaned a little more I might have probably hit my head. Not that I wasn't prone to getting hurt. No matter how cautious I was I always ended up getting hurt. Anyway, I looked into that little shelf and found a few old books. Going through them one seemed familiar. I picked it up and to my surprise and sudden joy found covered with dust an old prize I had won at school. Best handwriting or something like that, it was...! A small smile curved up, because with the kind of handwriting I had now that seemed pretty much impossible. "Innocent little kid, where was she lost?", I asked of myself fondly. Back then, when I had stumbled upon this book it had changed my world. 'The Emperor's New clothes', I read with a sudden flood of nostalgia. Quite like the emperor it had opened my eyes to a new world. A world I had reveled in every moment I had lived in it. Since then, I had read every book I could get my hands on. Even those which back then as a kid, doing what I had just done I had hardly been able to read. I loved those moments because, for the little amount of time that I was engaged in reading I was transported into the realm of the characters, became one among them and lost myself in the joy, misery, pain and fun that they indulged in. Even fell in love.
As I look back I realize that all those virtual experiences made me who I am today. From the habits I have to the kind of person I became, bold,yet emotionally fraught with a thirst for a perfect world. Some might just call me a fantasy-fanatic believing in fantasies that are never to be but it also taught me that nothing could fore ever remain a fantasy. That a perfect world was completely possible. No, I do not mean a world where poverty has been eliminated, nor one where pain and death did not exist. I always dream of a world where people love each other like in the fairy tales of old. Pure and compromising for the very sake of it. As wants increase that seems nearly impossible today. My conversations with the kids of today, tell me how much they have missed out from experiencing what we as kids went through. How much they failed to learn, or more precisely how much they weren't taught. They do not know what it feels like to be an Elizabeth March from Little women nor a Sofia from Dostoyevsky's literary work.
Voracious readers develop a different kind of skill or rather a third eye. They can foretell if a book is going to be a good read by just its cover or its title.I have more than often heard people say that "It's so difficult to get a good book, something that interests me..." To them I say, how in the world will you find out unless you try to look for one? You can't predict the taste right unless you have had a bite of the fruit. I have so often found that the many who complain have in no way even tried a hand at the recreation. Their prejudices prevent them from doing that. My prejudiced friends who also picked up the habit will stand by me when I say that shirking off prejudices is the first and most important thing to get introduced to this beautiful world.
I had always dreamt of being an archaeologist as a little girl...and though I cannot say that it became reality I did realize over time that I was happiest being a scientist. Searching new aspects of life became a need, an addiction. I realize that this excessively inquisitive nature of mine might have developed out of my habit of reading. I never could keep down a book I had started reading because I was always curious about what happened next. And thankfully this is a contagious disease. Once introduced to it, the curiosity itself drives you to explore more with the genres.
And once you find the genre of your liking this wine of desire is sure to grow on you in no time.
Utterly hopeless and almost on the verge of tears I dropped down on a pile of old clothes and pillows beside the dining table. Mother might have left these out, when she looked for old clothes to give away, I thought. I might even get thrashed if she knew I was lying on top of these..!! But, I didn't care. No more, that was sweet revenge for the misery I was in. Against whom, God only knew.
Laying back in the pile the smell of mold caught my attention. To a normal person it might have been irritating but not to me. To me it always smelled of 'memories. Like I had lived a hundred years and at the end of an lifetime was looking back on all that had happened in an age-made-wise manner. A sudden calm filled me and I turned around to look at where I had settled. I found a shelf right behind me, covered with dust. Had I leaned a little more I might have probably hit my head. Not that I wasn't prone to getting hurt. No matter how cautious I was I always ended up getting hurt. Anyway, I looked into that little shelf and found a few old books. Going through them one seemed familiar. I picked it up and to my surprise and sudden joy found covered with dust an old prize I had won at school. Best handwriting or something like that, it was...! A small smile curved up, because with the kind of handwriting I had now that seemed pretty much impossible. "Innocent little kid, where was she lost?", I asked of myself fondly. Back then, when I had stumbled upon this book it had changed my world. 'The Emperor's New clothes', I read with a sudden flood of nostalgia. Quite like the emperor it had opened my eyes to a new world. A world I had reveled in every moment I had lived in it. Since then, I had read every book I could get my hands on. Even those which back then as a kid, doing what I had just done I had hardly been able to read. I loved those moments because, for the little amount of time that I was engaged in reading I was transported into the realm of the characters, became one among them and lost myself in the joy, misery, pain and fun that they indulged in. Even fell in love.
As I look back I realize that all those virtual experiences made me who I am today. From the habits I have to the kind of person I became, bold,yet emotionally fraught with a thirst for a perfect world. Some might just call me a fantasy-fanatic believing in fantasies that are never to be but it also taught me that nothing could fore ever remain a fantasy. That a perfect world was completely possible. No, I do not mean a world where poverty has been eliminated, nor one where pain and death did not exist. I always dream of a world where people love each other like in the fairy tales of old. Pure and compromising for the very sake of it. As wants increase that seems nearly impossible today. My conversations with the kids of today, tell me how much they have missed out from experiencing what we as kids went through. How much they failed to learn, or more precisely how much they weren't taught. They do not know what it feels like to be an Elizabeth March from Little women nor a Sofia from Dostoyevsky's literary work.
Voracious readers develop a different kind of skill or rather a third eye. They can foretell if a book is going to be a good read by just its cover or its title.I have more than often heard people say that "It's so difficult to get a good book, something that interests me..." To them I say, how in the world will you find out unless you try to look for one? You can't predict the taste right unless you have had a bite of the fruit. I have so often found that the many who complain have in no way even tried a hand at the recreation. Their prejudices prevent them from doing that. My prejudiced friends who also picked up the habit will stand by me when I say that shirking off prejudices is the first and most important thing to get introduced to this beautiful world.
I had always dreamt of being an archaeologist as a little girl...and though I cannot say that it became reality I did realize over time that I was happiest being a scientist. Searching new aspects of life became a need, an addiction. I realize that this excessively inquisitive nature of mine might have developed out of my habit of reading. I never could keep down a book I had started reading because I was always curious about what happened next. And thankfully this is a contagious disease. Once introduced to it, the curiosity itself drives you to explore more with the genres.
And once you find the genre of your liking this wine of desire is sure to grow on you in no time.
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