My love for books developed during early school days, when I read tinkle comics, which, in fact, fascinate me to this day. Of course, I have often been laughed at for buying ‘tinkle’ during train journeys. Slowly, I started reading Ladybird fairy tales and other abridged classics, thanks to my parents who were liberal in fetching me books. By the time I reached High School, I was savouring Nancy Drew books. The world around me used to freeze when I was immersed in a book. My reading speed also improved greatly: I used to finish up to three Nancy Drew books a day. I have also tried other similar book-series like Hardy Boys, Famous Five and Secret Seven, but only Nancy Drew appealed to me. By and by, I lost interest in Nancy Drew, and started reading bigger novels – by Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel, Erich Segal and Dan Brown etc.
Then was the job. Times were hard off and on, at times in the clutches of loneliness. This was perhaps to start writing and reading again. Now, I have regained my enthusiasm. I have become the old voracious reader I used to be. I have become my old self whom I had lost some time back. And, I am no more lonely. I can feel the same tingling in my stomach at the sight of books in a book-store, as I stumble upon an eye-catching dress in a cloth-store. The day I completed reading a hundred books, I felt like Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay atop Everest.
Not that I am a peerless writer, but that I become sheer livelier in romance with words. Writing clears my soul of all the clogs. I feel in the marrow that words are not mere words: I just love to capture moments in them. ❤️