Through the Looking Glass: A Garden of Words.

Books are not just pages filled with inks, scribbled thoughts, voiced opinions, uttered pains; they are a medium, a very sublime medium through which you find connectivity. It's not important that you be an avid reader but books are that kind of friends of yours who are with you through the thickest of sadness and the thinnest of happiness that comes into your life. It's like a patient doorknob to a world of inner peace which waits always for you to open that door and walk through its exotic garden of variety. 'Book', the very word is soothingly mysterious. People wonder how readers read books; it is just as mysterious for the reader's to think why people cannot read the 'book'. It might be baffling to even listen to each group on their views on reading as a hobby, nevertheless more or less we return to books.

I personally have a soft corner, a very delicate soft corner towards books. I don't prefer the course books much but the other books, the autobiographies, the fictional world, the non-fiction attract me like a magnet. The fresh smell emerging from within the books have an aroma worth deeply inhaling. The pages, the words, the meanings lying within them have always invoked in me a desire to divulge into this Ocean of written word. Starting with the course books of English Literature, reading those excerpts from the varied novels which succeeded in creating a thirst in me to know more as to what happened next, my reading flowered from its nascent bud at a very early stage. Marking my first destination as reading the fables and the folk tales and then moving onto The Arabian Nights and not much later I was reading, grasping and sinking into Mark Twain novels. Characters like Tom Sawyer and Finn lighted the mischievous candle within me. The abridged versions of various contemporary classic novels such as Moby Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo and the like and the prose forms of Shakespearean plays made me look at human perspective through an entirely different angle.

My 7^th grade final examinations were approaching. I was supposed to study but my eyes fell on The Famous Five and my hands gripped it. That was the start of my first addiction towards detective or rather suspense, adventure kind of books. I remember being chided by my father sorely when he discovered that I had story books below my course books but I couldn’t help. The novels were so engrossing, addictive that in the following year I ended up either buying or reading them from the library and finished all the 21 books of The Famous Five series. The book infused me a confidence that size doesn’t matter as long as you have presence of mind and are a keen observer. Slowly, I moved to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys’ collection. This new found interest made me observe more of all that occurred around me, made me feel for the characters. Books are not just some pages, they have an entire life trapped within them and the readers through reading it, give it a chance of freedom, a sense of satisfaction of having been able to invoke human emotions through its words.

The journey continued and I started reading novels in my mother tongue. The classic novels by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee have made a special place in my heart. The way he portrayed the problems faced by the women in those days, the capability of a women in times of stress, the problems of the society as a whole and the scorches of the British Raj is worth stirring a thought in our minds: We are in a much better luxurious world but we have lost that enthusiasm to live and enjoy the simple things of life. We have become lazy and have become dependent on non-human brains rather than extending the horizons of our human minds which researches is the most advanced on this planet. Tagore’s novels, poetry, short stories dealing with everyday human relationships and the connection between nature and humans gives an insight how we humans irrevocably and irrefragably turn towards who provide us with solace and how fragile we are despite the materialistic riches. The detective genre has a tinge of native suspense and thrill which creates a chill in our spine. Works by Sarath Chandra Chatterjee extensively on women in the household scenario holds in front of us a neglected but important issue of how we treat those who rock the cradle and rock the world.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Library!!! 

The years rolled by, the surroundings changed, human priorities changed but all through this my love for books hasn’t diminished but increased manifold. I hover around books, sleep with them, wake up with them, spend my days with them. They say next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books. Works of Khaled Hosseini, Paulo Coelho inspired me that beyond all evils lies a deep layer of truth, humanity that is still intact. Their works showed that circumstances are not the fate of men, but men are the fate of circumstances. It filled me with a hope, instilled in me a belief that “When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive – I’ll find love again.”

Today, I figure that it was these books which made me evolve and developed into a person I am today. Sometimes, we just need to listen for it is an art to listen to someone patiently. These books, the characters in these books, they made me a patient listener, invoked in me that spark of humanity which might go unnoticed but is extremely vital: Listening. Sometimes, I feel them in real life and they help me to deal with situations. Sometimes, I need answers and they are there patiently giving me answers to my countless queries. Sometimes, I just need a friend and they are there to divide my grief with them and double their joy with me. These books have proved to be an all-in-one and one-in-all combination.

For:

As Charles William Eliot put in and I quote, “Books are the quietest and the most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors and the most patient of teachers.” and unquote.