A Sunday or a day off is a perfect time to go memory lane and nothing is better than reliving the good old care- ‘less’ and ‘free’ childhood days! The amount of books I read was
pretty substantial, so much so that I consider myself pretty lucky that I managed to evade the opthalmist’s prescription of wearing spectacles! Oh no- please don’t be mistaken- I ain’t talking about being religious in reading school-study related books…what I am talking about are comics and story books!
The early childhood era:
I remember the newspaper boy used to insert Indrajaal comics and Amar Chitra Katha in the newspapers and hurl them at my balcony every fortnight morning. I liked reading ‘Phantom- The ghost who walks’ and ‘Mandrake the Magician’.
As I grew a li’l older, I started reading Champak along with Indrajaal comics. I used to read Chandamama on and off but it never was a regular with me.
Mid- Childhood era:
Well, my lady luck wasn’t bad even when I was just a kid…I remember I had won a 6 month’s free subscription of a children’s magazine called Target (from Living Media India). I liked the magazine as it had a very sleek layout and style with a rich blend of comics and short stories.
On and off around this time, I used to read Tinkle comics though again I wasn’t into it a lot.
Later half of my childhood days till my teens:
I took at membership in a book library and used to noticed piles of Archie comics there eagerly picked up by peeps of my age and above. I was quite curious about what they were all about and thought of trying out with a couple of digests….and the boat was on sail- till today I read Archie.
I was a lot into Tintin and have almost half a dozen of Tintin comics at home.
And not to forget Manoj comics- I used to simply adore the ‘Crooke Bond’ detective series it was hilarious and adventurous. I remember buying the entire collection at the railway station whenever I used to travel by train!
Apart from them, I also read Enid Blyton’s the Five Findouters and some amount of Hardy Boys.
And now:
Archie still rules! Though I recently bought an entire Tintin collection on DVD on my way back from London.
I never was into the ‘pseudo-intellectual’ novels- though I did have a peek into Sidney Sheldon and the similar ones; I shuffled around with some pages of Mills & Boons because I was curious what in it interests girls so much…though couldn’t figure out much on that!! A friend happened to tell me that the different covers on R&B signifies different levels of romance….well, that’s interesting!
Nonetheless, I had my own league of childhood books and I enjoyed reading them and still am-whenever I get time!!