Joy of reading

What can be more wonderful than lying in bed with a good book while it is pouring outside? As soon as I open a book, I am lost in the world created by the author. Lying on my back, I enter strange lands, visit different countries, bask in the warmth of the sun on beaches or brave the cold of mountain tops. When I read, I either become the protagonist and experience all his/her adventures first hand or I become like a spectator in a play and watch the characters come to life as the story unfolds with each turning page.

Books have been my best friends since childhood. Mystery, adventure, romance, fiction and non-fiction-all have been grist to my mill. When we were children, my father would take my sister and me to the British Council Library every Saturday. What fun it was to browse through thousands of books, all beautifully jacketed and arranged according to the authors’ names. We would devour six books a week (each member was allowed to borrow three books at a time).

K M Peyton, Enid Blyton, Monica Dickens, Richmal Crompton and A A Milne among others were my favourite haunts when I was growing up. The older the book, with dog-eared and yellowed pages, the better I liked it. I imagined all the other people who had held the book and run their eyes over the pages and felt happy to be among the like-minded. With the passing years and fading eyesight, I’m no longer fond of yellowed books but prefer clean white pages with bold characters.

They say humour is the salt of life and similarly, it is the salt of books also. Without humour, no book is complete. In my opinion, if a book does not lift your spirits and make you laugh, it is not worth reading. Therefore, P G Wodehouse has been my favourite author for years. His mastery of the English language, his intricate plots-all the same yet different-and his comic style are truly incomparable. It is not possible to read him without re-reading his excellently turned sentences and laughing aloud.

A friend once told me that she always knew when her brother was reading P G Wodehouse because he found it impossible to remain seated then-he would be rolling about on the floor roaring with laughter.

When I finish a book, I feel a little sad to leave the characters with whom I lived for the past few days who had become my friends. Finally the real test of a good book is when, having finished reading it, the first thought that comes to my mind is-I can’t wait to forget it so that I can read it again.