Some are born to dance, some to paint. Some see magic in complex labyrinth of geometric shapes, yet some others have a healing touch. This singular activity becomes the purpose of our respective lives. This inexplicable connection that we feel to one specific thing. We live, eat, breath that bond and can’t imagine our existence without it. Me, I was born to read. The love affair that started at the age of five has only become stronger with time.
The sheer joy that I feel in the company of a book is unparalleled to any other experience. Books for me are what a captain is for a ship. Their pages are my anchor, the words my comrade. During stormy times when I most needed someone to understand me, it was the paperbacks and the hardcovers that came to my recue. Every syllable spoke to me and gave me its unflinching support. You may still find a tear stained page or two somewhere in the claustrophobic shelf crammed with books that I call my library. Having a relationship with books is the most undemanding yet exceedingly fulfilling experience I have ever had. They desire nothing from you, not even that you love them. Even if you leave a book in-between, it waits patiently for your fingers to caress its pages once again, for your eyes to lovingly glance at the words, fully well knowing that you might not return.
Reading a new book is like starting a phase of self discovery which was hitherto unknown to you. Coming to an end of a novel that you have been glued to for a week is nothing short of anguish, akin to bidding a tearful goodbye to your lover. Books are an addiction. You pick one for your recreation and then pick another and yet another because you want to inhabit the world which is all yours to explore till they take possession of your mind, body and soul. I have no shame in declaring that I am addicted to books often plotting and planning about my next read. Paranoia descends upon me when I am confronted with a scenario where I would have to go for long hours without the presence of them. They are my lullaby, the sweet notes without which the land of sleep denies me entry. Have you observed a child in a candy store? Wide eyed ad excited, running helter- skelter, wanting to sample every fare that peeps out of the glass box? Book fairs and libraries are my candy store. I reach the heights of my berserk-ness the moment I set foot in either of the places.
Books are my only love and my biggest obsession. They are my singular season for being afraid of the freezing hands of death. After all, how would I read books when I’m no more! For this and this alone I am ready to believe in the theory of re-incarnation. If there is one thing that I am grateful to my parents for, it is instilling in me the unconditional love for books. Whether it was my birthday, Christmas or New Year, my list included just one request, the request of gifting me a book. One look at a book and my face lights up with the biggest smile one can imagine. They are the reason for my sanity, my hideout, my escape route. They are why I live.
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