Books have forever fascinated me. Their reach wasn’t too far as the love affair with the bound piece of jacketed mystery always catching my fancy. My Delhiite mother too was rather spellbound when she found her protruding belly guiding her to a stack of novels in her third month of pregnancy. For her, books were a refuge to lull her into slumber, little realizing that the more she read the lesser she’d sleep. As a toddler I knew nothing of books. But I sure did know that I wasn’t supposed to rip them apart. From my miniature gaze, I’d turn each page intelligently nodding at each picture, as if knowing what it contained. I could fathom that all intelligent people who wore strange long clothes as opposed to my rompers had some form of book or the other. Some who came to our house also carried large loads of squared log books and were frivolously noting something. Dad too had this permanent miniature book which he took along with him to this breezy place which I later found out also supplied him with greens; known as a bank. It was too small to be written on and yet it found its way to an awesome machine that made this eerie sound as if it was gulping down all pages and still throwing out the entire book on the other side. As a four year old I’d wonder how fast the machine could digest and reproduce what it had already eaten. The following year, I got my chance with a rather boringly empty book to be filled in by me in time to come. I was given a companion which looked similar to all the others in class, and yet I was told that this is solely mine to write with. It looked like it liked me as it smiled at my face expressing its sharp head, which I was later found out was its tip that enabled me to write. I found it strange as the more I combed out its copious layers the sadder it looked towards me growing shorter in stature. I’d wonder as to how many other pencils had lead this melancholic life while being a part of someone’s writing. Surely so many story books were written by someone. That brings me to express a tale of the magical story my father would sometimes recite before I went off to sleep. Despite week days, I’d wait for him patiently well passed my bed time so that I could see his sweaty and exhausted smile. It gladdened my heart to see him come on the bed with my favourite book in hand. He would always complain that he wished to read out another story and not read the same over and over again. Somehow I always managed to let him recall the same tale every time. For the largest part of my dreamy life, I would look into his champagne brown eyes as he strained to pronounce the tale from Grimm’s fairy tales. I could see him cringe at certain words that his vernacular tongue was not accustomed to. He’d look at me half apologetically and try to recoil his tongue into re-pronouncing it. There was one thing that almost always took place. He’d pick up the book and begin in his powerful cigarette accentuated voice. Each time he read the tale, it would be more overpowering than the last time. The baritone was so mesmerizing that it would put me to sleep moments after he’s started reciting it. He’d always complain with awe as to what was it in the story that put me to sleep as he hated re-starting every time. And I’d secretly smile knowing that this was a magical story, one that would never end, because my daddy read it out for me. It’s been almost as old as my brother is today that Daddy spoke to me; nevertheless his magical stories and the few stolen moments will forever remind me that there was a time he was only my Daddy, not to be shared with another sibling, because he was the best God ever made; someone who magically read the same story each time and made it sound like it was being read for the first time….always!
