As a 7-8 year old my reading habits were limited to Chacha Chowdhary and Tintin. I loved getting my hands on as many of these as I could. But reading novels was something I never found interesting. Maybe because the novels (i.e. books without pictures!) seemed more like textbooks to me.
Then one day my father was transferred to a small town in Bengal and the new school had a big library. I was saddened to see that the library did not have any comics. If that wasn’t bad enough the ‘library class’ meant compulsory reading. Resigned to my fate, I picked up the first novel from the rack and started reading, making a mental note of the time left for the class to get over. When the bell rang I was shocked to see that I had become so engrossed in the story that I had read 20 pages without realizing that 40 minutes had flew by. That was the beginning of my love affair with reading and the author who had won my heart was Enid Blyton.
Enid Blyton….sigh! I am sure her name will bring a nostalgic smile to a lot of faces who have grown up with her books. Who can forget the Famous Five and Secret Seven – the courageous pre-teens for whom every school holiday brought an adventure. Or the Malory Towers – the school every child wanted to attend – I know I did! Or Mr. Galliano’s Circus which made me wish that my father would retire from army and start working in a circus! Blyton’s books with her secret islands, mysterious castles, hidden passageways, school terms, goblins, pixies, were my best friends during my pre-teen years. At the same time I was also introduced to the abridged versions of books by Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, and Mark Twain (oooh…the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn).
As I grew into my teens, Blyton’s and Twain’s soft aura was slowly overtaken over by the more dangerous adventures of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. For my early-teen mind this was powerful stuff! The villains were actually ready to kill and the adults were not so muddleheaded as in Blytons books. And Nancy had a boyfriend!! The Hardy Boys Case Files and Nancy Drew Mysteries along with Archies Comics were my new best friends till Mills & Boon came along.
Ahem….okay I admit I was addicted to Mills & Boon during most of my teen years. The tall, dark, handsome, brooding, domineering, roguish and of course extremely rich M&B hero was the stuff of dreams. And the heroine was usually a coy, extremely pretty, innocent little thing who made the macho hero fall madly in love with her. M&Bs were not only a dear companion of my teenage years but also the source of my knowledge of birds & bees. Actually….heh heh….I still read them once in a while when I am looking for pure escapism :)
Along with M&B a few more companions of my teenage years were Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason. Their books had crimes and mysteries but they existed in a comfortable world. Then came the time of Sydney Sheldons, Irving Wallaces & John Grishams – the racy thrillers full of grey characters, which shook my belief that I was living in a safe world!
They also opened my eyes to the bestsellers. I started picking them up and also tried to develop an interest in Indian writers. Some moved me like Rabindranath Tagore, R. K. Narayanan, Jhumpa Lahiri. Some like Shobha De and Khushwant Singh disgusted me. Somehow I could never develop a taste for serious classics. I enjoy Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, but ‘serious’ writers like Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky etc. still put me to sleep. And how can I forget Harry Potter? I was crazy about the series and am one of those who used to countdown the days to a Harry Potter book release.
And then I discovered Wodehouse – my all-time favourite writer. I have written a review on him, there is nothing I can add now.
These days children are drifting away from the joys of reading as TV and video games have taken over. And the adults are too busy trying to run their busy lives. In all this, simple pleasures like reading are forgotten. Those who are not fond of reading can never understand how fulfilling it is. Those who like reading never get bored, all they have to do is pick up a book and settle down with a cup of coffee – the world and its worries cease to exist.
Books can be our best friends if only we give them a chance.
