by Bijesh Krishnadas
[box]Bijesh Krishnadas traces his journey as a book lover, right from the time when it all began. Join him in his journey down memory lane, as he pays a tribute to the March 2010 issue themed, ‘Down the Memory Lane’.[/box] [box type=”info”]MONTH: March 2010
THEME: DOWN THE MEMORY LANE
CONCEPT: Looking back—that’s what we did with our March 2010 issue. We asked our contributors to take a trip down memory lane and the result was a colourful and nostalgic issue!
FEATURED PERSONALITY OF MARCH 2010: Arun Vaidyanathan, filmmaker, Director, ‘Achchamundu! Achchamundu!’
We will remember the March 2010 issue for the fact that we featured our first ever interview in this edition. Arun Vaidyanathan, filmmaker, walked down memory lane—looking back at his filming career right from his television days to the making of his feature film. We also remember this issue for the colourful memories—such a wide range of them. It indeed was a whirlpool of memorable thoughts![/box]
Like many of you out there, I love to read – and I don’t mean reading as intellectual mastication, but just the simple act of immersing oneself in the words of another. While I would like to say that I read because I want to be stimulated and provoked to think, that would be untrue. I read because I like to. The thought-provoking and life-changing aspects are just by-products of what is otherwise just an indulgence. There is no better way for me to spend an afternoon other than sit with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
I remember how my fascination with books started. I was in class four and had just moved schools from what was a “city” school to a more rural one. There were even fields on my way to school, but that’s besides the point. In those days, schools weren’t about the “learning experience” as they are now. Schools were places where you didn’t dare move a muscle and you were mostly taught to learn by rote. Now, I must say that my previous school was all about academics and nothing else. There were extra-curriculars but they were merely for decoration.
Up until then, I was hooked to such sundry reading material as Misha (Ah, the memories!) and the ubiquitous Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. Most of these were hand-me-downs from my cousin and I would truck back loads of his discarded books on every visit.
It was possibly luck that I got a certain Ms Shenoy as my English teacher in the new school. She was one of those rare ones that knew that learning was more than exams and scores. She encouraged us to interpret poetry in class and to write our assignments in our own words and not just memorise pre-written notes. She was greatly different from the teachers that I had had until then.
The new school had a library which was always locked. No one I knew had seen the insides of the library and it was generally considered off-limits to us. You had to be in the higher classes to have the privilege of accessing it and even then only for reference books.
There was a group of us in class – numbering four –that wanted to move beyond comic books and the glossy magazines. We wanted to read actual books but couldn’t afford to buy them. The school library would’ve been a great resource and so Ms. Shenoy decided to fight on our behalf and used all her influence to get us access to the library.
We weren’t initially allowed to take the books out of the library. Our quartet lounged in the library after school hours, sitting on the cramped floor with our noses buried deep in the many adventures of the Famous Five, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew (hey, I was a kid back then). Ah, how we wished we were on these mystery hunts.
We became enamoured by books and willingly gave up our play time for the chance to read. Eventually, the school administration realised that we were well and truly hooked and allowed us to even take books home.
The hunger for books only grew from there. There wasn’t a public library anywhere near my home so the school library was my only source but it didn’t have much by way of variety. One summer vacation, I spent most of my holidays at my cousin’s and my uncle recommended I join a lending library that was about 30 minutes from their place. My uncle went a step ahead and decided to pay for it as well. That was an unbelievable period for me.
I wanted to move further from the teen-mysteries and try something more grown up. And I decided “supernatural” was the way to go and the book I picked out was “The Exorcist” (written by William Peter Blatty). I still remember that it was missing its original cover and was bound in a green patterned hardcover. It was a huge book by my standards – about 300 pages – and felt quite meaty in the hands. It was only an experiment but I eventually got absolutely hooked. Believe me, “The Hardy Boys” are un-put-down-able but this book was on a whole new level. It was a scary book and managed to give me the shivers but I couldn’t drop it until I finished it and spent all of my waking hours engrossed in it. It was a bit later that I discovered the boogieman – Stephen King – this time through a friend. This friend of mine was a member at another lending library and borrowed books on my behalf. Once when I asked for something from the horror genre, he brought me King’s “The Eyes of the Dragon”. This was one of King’s many forays into fantasy (not horror which is his main forte) but introduced me to King’s signature style. I went on to read many more of King’s works and was fascinated by how he seamlessly juggled fantasy and horror. To this day, King’s books remains my guilty pleasure.
It was while doing my engineering course that I finally moved off my purely pop fiction diet, again thanks to another lending library and the kindly man that ran the library. To me, this frail gentleman was an absolute genius. He knew his books like the back of his hand and I spent a lot of time listening to his recommendations and his reviews of books. I can still remember the wonderful aroma of books that permeated his small but filled-to-the-hilt library. It was he who introduced me to “alternative” writing and what to me was serious literature. I was still a sucker for popular fiction but my diet now included the likes of Animal Farm (George Orwell), The Lord of the Flies (William Golding) and To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). During this period I also discovered the humour genre – Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K Jerome) and P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves sagas.
My reading habit has continued to this day. The menu varies depending on my mood. Frequently featured are Rushdie’s magical realism – Ifinished “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” very recently. I also enjoy David Sedaris’ self-deprecating humour and Haruki Murakami’s surreal novels. Yet, pop fiction, particularly horror, continues to be comfort food. I am signed up at the city library (free borrowing, yay!) and on every visit there I always return with an armload of books. At the moment, I am reading Joseph Heller’s “God Knows” and William Golding’s “Rites of Passage”.
I don’t get to read as much as I used to before but books would still top my list of things to have on a deserted island. And for that I have to thank all the wonderful people who through the years helped me nurture the reading habit!
Bijesh Krishnadas works as an Engineering Specialist (fancy name, same game). His list of interests has seen the likes of the guitar (still can’t play), motorcycling (misses it now), photography (rekindling in progress) and dabbling in writing. He also likes to cook fancy meals with nice, long names but doesn’t do that very often.
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