Lately, I have found myself not able to read much. I am looking at more than 100 unread or half-read books in front of me. It is kind of bugging me. What I am or why people like to associate with me is because of my reading I feel. It is through reading plays, novels, philosophy etc. that I grew as a person. The poems or stories I could write was because of the reading. My behavior in the present moment is that of an athlete who after learning the basics has stopped practicing and just wants to play. The laziness has seeped in. It is scaring me, if this keeps going on I will lose whatever intelligence I have acquired. Yesterday, I was at a station and there were some amazing books at half price. I controlled myself. I put out a condition. Not another book enters the house before I have read at least 10 from the pile collecting dust in my flat.
As a kid, I loved reading stories. I absolutely loved it. It was more real to me than the films. Why I wanted to join films and not become a literary writer is something I have no answer for. One reason could have been that I felt it to be a too far fetched dream. Same goes for acting too but I tried anyway. I have always felt writers are like magicians, the world they create stays embedded in our minds for decades or sometimes our entire life.
I will try and remember novels and their writer's names that have stayed with me, that I read in my teens or childhood.
1. Nirmala- Munshi Premchand: This book has left a big mark on me. I think I read it before I should have. I cried so much and the journey of Nirmala stays with me.
2. Around the world in 80 days - Jules Verne: This book was so fascinating. I have read it a few times after that in my twenties too. Today it is possible to travel the world in less than 8 days but those 80 days stay in my head as clear as a crystal.
3. Alice in the wonderland- Lewis Caroll : I don't remember anything about the book just that I loved reading it again and again and felt a kinship with Alice. I wanted to be Alice so bad. I guess I am still trying to be her. This is why a theatre group I started with a friend was called Mad Hatter.
4. Swami Vivekananda (Biography): My brother Niraj had gotten me this book. It was published by the trust. It was kind of a compilation of Vivekananda's writing about himself and his disciples had added things to make it a comprehensible story about his life. I absolutely adored that book. I brought it with me to Mumbai too. I lost it when I gave it to someone who never returned it.
5. Panchtantra : A collection of short stories with a lesson at the end of each story. I have read that book so many times. I brought this book along too and gave it to a friend I did plays with. He lost it and then told me, he had returned it. Liar.
Among other books that stayed are English August, Merchant of Venice, Siddhartha- Herman Hesse, Buddha (biography - how the prince figures out the truth of the world is my favorite part), etc.
Just going back and thinking about the books I have read reminded me of the importance of reading. It shows how books become part of your personality.
Though for the past month I have stopped watching anything after I come back home in the evening. But then something else has taken its place, talking to friends.
One incident I remember after my college completed.. I would stay alone in my flat a lot. I had quit doing theatre with people I worked with. Wanted something else in my life.. Maybe I wanted to try out films or so. But I didn't go out and meet people. Most of the jobs I have done has come to me on it's own. I can count on my fingers the steps I have taken and the moments I stepped out and asked for work. Those are the moments that changed my life in true sense.
One quote I read somewhere that relates to this statement: If you don't make your own plans you will work for other people's plans. And Guess what they have for you in their plan.. Very little.
Stepping up is important. I am learning to do that. Go out and take what you want. It's lying there. But you need to walk up to that thing.
So post my college. I was doing nothing. No job. No money. Nothing. As usual, I did have a lot of books at my place because I may not be a compulsive reader but I am a compulsive buyer of books. So sitting at home I felt reality guilty of doing nothing to move forward in life. I decided one thing to be guilt-free. Because since I didn't do anything I didn't enjoy going out with friends either because of the guilt. I decided that I will read like it is my job to read. So for 3 months, I guess, a little here and there. I read for 6 hours every day and then I got some project I guess. I would read 6 hours minimum during that time and then it kind of became a habit for a few years. So what happened because of the reading was that slowly my family and friends started considering me smart.
Because they started doing that I also started believing so.
One very interesting thing happened. I went for reading of a play. I had never read before in front of so many people and also people knew I was okay not good.. But that day, when I read a few characters, everyone was blown away. They asked me if I had joined some other theatre group or did some acting workshop. Because I was hitting the mark like every time.
I thought about how the magic had happened. During my period of reading, whenever I read a play, I would try and read it out loud as much as I could. I believe over the period of many many plays. I started understanding what was expected more and more.
But I must confess today, that I have lost a lot of that charm and It can only come back through a lot of reading. Consciously, I will work to bring it back to my life and daily routine.
I shall start reading like a job, Once Again.
PS. This is an Ode to a friend who never leaves. Our Books.
