MY LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE WITH A BOOK. The long sandy road leading from school stretched in front of me – an ample play ground that hosted my most treasured childhood memories. On the sides of the road were huge seemingly endless stretches of farmland. Tall palm trees and other gigantic tree crops grew amidst dense shrubs. Now and then, a squirrel would run from one side of the farmland, across the dusty road to the opposite side. The many returning school kids would make a chase for it but never did I witness any lucky result. However, if a snake made that famous road-crossing, all the kids would scamper away with so much speed, falling on each other, sometimes inflicting injuries. All the while completely oblivious of the fact that the snake had not given a chase, it rather fled for its own safety. All of these spelt fun for me; the kid-romances that developed as we hung our heavy school bags on our backs and trekked home from school, the many trial-kisses and the puppy-fights were things I looked forward to at the breaking of each new day. I was quiet and very reserved. I mostly just sank into the mood of the day. If the boys were so drunk with excitement that they chose to do some dangerous somersaults on the hard ground with no protection, then I was happy. If everyone was sad because most of the crew had been sent home earlier in the day for not paying their school fees, then my noon was dreary. As I trekked home on this day with the other kids, I could not shake off the feeling of pandemonium that had settled over me. It was the last day of school, which meant the holidays had begun. All the excitements in the air had not affected me on that day. Hard as I tried to make that last day count, the heavy lump in my chest refused to go away. I hated the holidays. It meant I had to stay home, and that for me was hell. Home was a tiny two-bedroom flat among a dozen others in an estate filled with people but empty of love. The narrow sitting room had a low wooden table placed in the middle of three old couches. At the far right corner was a cassette player, and demarcating the dining room and sitting room was a huge cupboard filled with books I considered too ancient to ever peek at. On the walls were baby photos of myself and siblings. Nothing exciting was to be found anywhere. We had no TV set and cable was completely out of the question. In the evenings, I would sit with my parents and siblings in the parlor and listen to whatever it was the only radio station had to give. I would often hear laughter from the neighbor’s house. Sometimes I imagined they laughed that hard and left the volume of their TV set so loud just to spite us. Most of the other kids who didn’t own TVs could be spotted wrestling for viewing room at the windows of those who had – a sports I could never participate in. My mum would skin my butt and serve it fried if she ever caught me with them. So all I basically did at home were chores which never ended, eat and sleep. On this beautiful Tuesday, I had gotten about fed up with my life – Dad had just seized our last game acquisition – a ludo set. I set out to the huge cabinet, opened it and looked through the books. I found one whose title caught my fancy; it was ‘love is an eagle’ by Barbara Cartland. Not sure how my parents would feel about me reading a book that was obviously not for kids, I sneaked into the bedroom I shared with my siblings and began my journey into what I fondly refer to as my world of books. Each page I flipped introduced me to a new world out there; a world I didn’t know existed. And even though I was just a child unfamiliar with the emotions of love, I found that I identified with the feelings Barbara described. I smiled and cried and lived and felt. My heartbeat tripled when disaster got too close and joy exploded from my core when love won. I had never known that a book could have such a magical effect on a person. It was a discovery that developed in me an endless appetite for more. In the days to come, I would go about my chores with a smile on my face, knowing that there was a world out there, a vast one with endless opportunities, believing that my knight was on his way for the rescue, and more importantly, knowing that the cupboard had many other untapped fantasies just waiting for me to unravel them. It’s been more than eighteen years since and my knight is yet to arrive, but it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is who I have become, what I have learnt and the many things I have dared to do since Barbara Cartland came into my life and opened up my world.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 09:16:56 +0000
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