Reading … My first Love

Reading always took me to a different world. I loved being in that world.

Diamond Comics, Tinkle, Champak, Target, Chandamama, Nandan, … that was early childhood.

I read a lot in my school days. In the school library I discovered Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle  and 3 Investigators by Alfred Hitchcock and read up every available title. Also, read up almost all of the popular titles like Around the World in 30 Days, 20,000 leagues under the Sea, Moby Dick and so on. We used to have one library session at the beginning of every week and we could borrow 2 books. I used to go to the library again on Friday and return the 2 (which I would have already read) and take another two. I used to do this at least twice every month. I remember i even received a prize in ou annual function for being one of the most voracious readers in school :P

Year 1994. End of school. A break / pause to my reading habit. Reading slowed down to a crawl.

Took up Science in college. Burden of Studies increased. Free time and vacation was consumed in coaching classes. Then took up Engineering studies and reading seemed liked a habit of distant past. Post engineering entered the corporate life and there seemed to be no time at all. I just managed a few books every year all thro those years

The Dot Com Bubble Bust of 2000-2001 did one good thing for me. I lost my IT programmer Job J I started to prepare for the CET (had just one month) and the first thing I purchased along with the study material and books was a set of 4 books of a series which seemed to be pretty popular around. The first 4 books of the Harry Potter Series J It took about 8 days of my precious study time to complete all 4 of them and I called it practice in Reading Comprehension J I felt good. Very Good. Extremely Good to read sooo voraciously after such a long time. I consumed the 4 books in 8 days like a person would gobble up a 6 course meal in a matter of minutes after being hungry for like forever. That was year 2001. I rediscovered reading fiction after a span of about 7 years.

I was back as far as reading was concerned but this time around something changed. After having lost the job, I was not interested in working for someone else anymore and started a Training centre along with my friend Nikunj. So my reading began to move from fiction  to include personal development. I began reading self help books on personal development, public speaking, Vedic mathematics, etc. Variety came to reading but it was with a purpose. The leisure aspect of reading was lost over a period of time.

Although, I still enjoyed reading … but it was different.

Then, after a year, NITIE happened. Academic Books and notes were back and fiction was reduced to few. A major achievement was reading Fountainhead 'completely' J

Post NITIE, back in corporate world. Reading took a back seat.

Reading was revived again when I went onsite to Switzerland and I had my travel time of about 30-40 minutes  which I began spending on fiction again. A year of blissful reading. Discovering Robert Ludlum's, Dan Brown's, John Grisham's and Sidney Sheldon's…. Year 2006

The years 2007 and 2008 were again sluggish with little reading being done. Partly due to entry into married life and partly due to work and chasing another passion called Bloozle.

It was nice to get back to reading in late 2008 when the Dubai project began in August. I spent the entire 2009 in Dubai and hence it became the year of getting back to books ... fiction ... novels … the world of fantasy and mystery … the visual treat generated by the written word, the edge of the seat suspense thriller, the whodunit, the Robert Ludlums, the Matthew Reilley's and several other story tellers …

I usually read during travel between home and office and Dubai gave me that (although in small doses) hence I got back to reading and slowly, steadily I began to get back into the groove of reading once again. Most part of the year I spent reading books from my own collection.

Towards the end, Shraddha made me buy Matthew Reilly's CONTEST and I was like hooked on to it. She had introduced me to Satyajit Ray's FELUDA in 2008 and I was equally hooked on to them. She is partially to be held responsible (in a good way) for making me fall in love with books all over again.

Now reading is back for me ... my old love :) my first love ... since early childhood …

I am going to carry quite a few books to SA now in spite of the 20 KG check-in baggage limit. I am scheduled to be there for about 6 months and I hope to make the best use of that time. Since I cant really carry many books, I might end up reading a few eBooks too (something I have never really been very comfortable with)

BTW … My best friend, Shraddha, is an absolutely voracious reader and has a 'library' (most recent estimates reveal a number close to 200 books and this only includes Fiction) and so she is my supplier of good books J. She not only recommends good books to me but also trusts me with her books J  I also have a moderate collection of about 70-90 books but they include books across a variety of topics, subject etc and purely fiction might come close to 40-50 maybe.

So we are doing a kind of exchange program of books; although I am at a disadvantage … Her collection is far more awesome than mine ... and the reason is simple. She is far more awesome than i am.