It started as an exercise in escapism. I think I was 8 or 9 or 10 years old. Real life was a bit too drab and painful for someone with my sense of fair play. So I chose to get lost in adventures had by fictional characters in far-away lands over fist-fights and childish arguments with my peers.
My mum had discovered a bookstore in Westlands where second-hand books were being sold by the kilo. The price must have been very attractive because my house was soon filled with entire series of The Secret Seven, The Famous Five and other Enid Blyton books. I think she bought them partly to satisfy her own obsession for the written word (even though English wasn’t her strongest subject or preferred language) and partly to get my brother and I interested in the art of reading. As it turned out, her investment paid off. One of us inherited her love for consuming text while the other preferred the colourfulness of bloody knees and clothes soiled from playing too hard.
Now I’m not very sure of the order in which I devoured those series of adventures, but I believe it went something like this: The Three Golliwogs (and similar stories), Noddy, The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers and Dog (I still laugh at the thought of ‘Clear-Orf’). When I had nothing else to read, cereal boxes and car registration plates became my sources of nourishment.
From Enid Blyton, cereal boxes and car registration plates, I graduated to more ‘mature’ series like The Hardy Boys and (very rarely) Nancy Drew (just to see if I enjoyed the adventures of a feminine counterpart to the sleuthing brothers—I didn’t).
I remember spending entire weekends lying on the top bunk of the bunk bed I shared with my brother, just reading. My passion for words and fantasy was such that I wouldn’t return to the real world till I was summoned to the dining table for lunch, my 4 pm milkshake or dinner, by my mum’s very loud screams. I didn’t want to. In my mind I was an adventurer who was learning to build his own tree house after being marooned on an uninhabited island or a detective with a flashlight out solving mysteries. Why, then, would I want to come back to a reality consisting mainly of homework, studying and exams?
In high school I was introduced to sci-fi (Dr. Who) and more adult fiction (Arthur Hailey). They were followed by Sidney Sheldon and John Grisham and the Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie. I read many authors, some of whom I don’t even remember any more. Some, like R. L. Stine and Stephen King, I don’t want to remember. Fast forward to a decade later and I find myself staring at books with titles as obscure as ‘Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps’ and Man Booker Prize winners such as ‘The White Tiger’ in my personal library.
In my childhood, I read to escape. In my teenage years, I read to expand my horizons. Now, as an adult, I read mainly to learn. It is a life-long addiction that I am not willing to risk curing myself of. I love books and books love me.
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