Summer and Reading The very
Summer and Reading
The very 1st summer reading experience I can recall was the summer between 4th and 5th standard. My uncle who had recently gotten a job had bought us ( my brother and me) a shiny new British edition of The Famous Five- Five go off to camp. It was so beautiful in its glossy cover, we awaited the arrival of the summer vacations to read after feasting on mangoes. That opened doors into a world of adventure and scones and lemonade. Many years later when we went to England, we had a traditional English tea with scones and finished it with great difficulty! But they still taste so good in black and white!
Then came the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Three Investigators phase with Sherlock Holmes peppered in. My brother, our neighbor and I were they! We created mysteries in the backyard, under the shady mango tree and we wove mats of coconut leaves and sat on them to "consult". Somewhere along that time, we began reading The Ramayana and Mahabharatha written by Sri Rajagopalachari. A friend from school and I would check out a book each and read both within a day and return the next day to get the next 2 out! Those days, the private circulating libraries of Chennai allowed only one book to ensure availability to all the book-thirsty kids in the neighborhood. It was around that time when MGR's commitment to public education ensured, along with the noon-meal scheme, the mushrooming of District libraries across TamilNadu. Was I thrilled to have one right next door! The librarian & I were spanking friends and I would help her with shelving books and thus got first dibs at getting the newly accessioned ones! Over the years, all the way to college, that library was such a boon. It had a terrific reference section on the 1st floor that was mainly locked and kept, but opened for the exclusive use of serious students. Some rare books that were not available even in our college (owing to their cost) were there- at my disposal.
It was the summer of '84 when I read my 1st Georgette Heyer and "fell" in love! Last week, I checked out The Foundling and read it after 21 years. The elegant language and a sincere and good-hearted villain is hard to come by in any other writer. Romantic love as expressed between men and women is kept to a minimum but there is an expression of love of all types, siblings, parents, filial, friends, even villains! Oh what a treat to enjoy a read like a cooling evening breeze in summer. No Mills and Boon publication can come anywhere close to the quality of Heyer: she is in a class of her own.
The long apprehensive months after the dreaded 10th Board exams took me to my grandpa's book collection. Thatha had these rare editions of philosophical works from Adi Shankara to Aurobindo to Ramana. While some of them were yellowed with brittle pages and unappealing to read, the Valmiki Ramayana special publication from Kalyana Kalpathru with their color plates were a treat. After that marathon read, came another marathon read of the Far Pavilions the following year. Ash or Ashok seemed such a cool bloke- what we call a cool dude in the West! It was a perfect bollywood-style masala novel and confirmed the old adage- birds of a feather...
Those were the pre-JNU days. I read books without judging the intention of the author. The book was just that- a book with a story to tell. I felt sorry for Shylock but didn't understand the history between the jews and the christians- both were equally "alien" to me. I equally loved the stories of Mulla Nazirrudin and Tenali Raman. The 365 stories from the Bible (Hamlyn pub) were as wonderful as the Ramayana ( Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan). After coming to America, when I wished my son to read Uncle Tom's cabin, I was told that it was not politically correct to read it!?! Nor was The Merchant of Venice owing to its "anti-semetic" feelings. And I had thought, that Uncle Tom would have taught the world how to live in dignity and win the respect of the "oppressor" while Shakespeare through Shylock would have driven home the fact that justice, for all the talk of being blind, has always taken side with the more popular group.
This summer, the reading is more an experiencing of Vasishta's Yoga- a commentary by Swami Venkatesanada ( vailable online at Barnes and Noble). Moving from reading through eyes to reading thru the heart...
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