Living with the books

I don't really remember how I got into books. My entry to the world of books was quite dramatic. I still remember those old days when books were just a bulk of strange words to me. However, pictures were appealing. I started turning the pages of book merely to see the colorful pictures of prince, princess, birds, animals, trees and hills. Pictures took me into words. Cinderella, Snow white, Little red riding hood, Rapunzul, had come into my world only at 13. At the age when others were already into Canon Doyle, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, I was still into fairy tales, enjoying the world of fairies, astounded and enthralled.

The world of fairies was followed by the world of adventures. My interest in books had shifted from fairy tales to adventure and detective stories. I was reading the adventures of Famous four and Famous Fives, Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew. I was in fact living with the characters. Every time I read the adventures of Famous Five, I imagined myself to be one of them. I was Discovering things that never existed and solving mysteries that were not at all intricate. The experience was incredible. My growth in books was rather slow. I was still enjoying children's fiction when my friends were reading Shakespearean Plays.

Different people had different roles in nurturing my interest in reading. I remember my Nepali teacher who ushered me into the world of Nepali literature. Without having a slightest indication of what I was to get I'd already entered the world of Devkota, B.P. Koirala, Paarizaat, Diamond Shumsher Rana, Bhupi Sherchan, all veterans in Nepali literature. I think it was my sister who took me into the realm of modern English fiction. I used to read every book she kept on her desk without her knowing it. This is how I grew my interest in adult fiction.

I live with the characters of every book I read. I find pleasure in living with the Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye, dreaming like Santiago of the Alchemist, learning philosophies like Sophie of Sophie's world. I used to discuss philosophies of Plato and Aristotle with friends to whom they were but some characters from Mars. I didn't care though. I continued living in my own world of books. Astounding events, breath taking characters, touching emotions, painstaking efforts, I was living through every bit of them. Every time I complete reading a book, emptiness strikes me. I feel nostalgic. And the hangover haunts me for few days.

Books have provided me with a blissful world of words and emotions. Khalil Gibraan's Prophet taught me to live, Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea to move ahead despite all adversaries, Arundhati Roy's God of Small things to dare and go against the conservative society, Yaan Martel's Life of Pi to learn from life as it comes. I have learnt to enjoy the wonders of world through books. The complexness of life, relationships, pleasure of love, enthralling adventure, fidelity of people from different society, religion, beliefs; I have lived through all of those in books. Be it exam's tension, anguish of breaking up with boy friend or having a row with my sister over some petty issues, I have come over them and lived my life as happily as ever all because of this wonderful world of books.

At one point of time I used to read books out of necessity and compulsion. Then it was for amusement. Now, having come to this stage when I read book for pleasure and peace of soul, books have become my passion, an obsession indeed. It has become a part of my life without which it is very difficult for me to move ahead.