My Journey as a Reader

When I was a kid, I wasn’t much of a reader, more of a listener. I loved it when my father read me stories. I remember the first book he ever read to me was of Chicken Licken, a chick that feared that the sky would fall on its head and wanted to inform the king about it. I could never get enough of the story and would ask my father to read it to me again and again. He bought me a lot of story books but I just looked at the pictures and guessed what was happening in the story. I even made up my mind about which character I loved and which character I hated based on those pictures. In later years, I actually manged to read those books, and I laughed at myself because most of the times, what I had assumed to be happening in the stories based on those pictures would turn out to be the exact opposite of the actual story.

But I really started reading when I was in grade four. We had this rule in our school that we had to borrow at least one book a week from the library. At first, my friends and I just borrowed books for the sake of borrowing them. We had no intention whatsoever of actually reading them. But I did read it. I don’t remember why, but I did. And I thought it wasn’t too bad. I mean, I picked up a random book from the book shelf that was closest to the door and it wasn’t the most interesting story. But I went back next week and searched a couple of shelves before I settled for a book to read. After that, I was a regular in the library. At grade four, we were only allowed to borrow books from the junior library and I read a lot of short stories, animal stories, fairy tales and all that.

We got access to the senior library when we were in grade six. At that time, I loved to read Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Famous Five stories. After finishing a book, I would discuss the books with my friends and if they had read other interesting books, I would try to get hold of that book. We would wait for lunch break, gobble up our food and rush to the library to see what other books we could find.

Mysteries have always been my favorite genre. In grade six, I just loved reading books by Enid Blyton. And later, when I discovered the writings of Agatha Christie, I fell in love with her books. In fact, I think I read all of her books that were there in our school library. Apart from mystery, I also enjoyed horror a lot and read a lot of Spooksville and Goosebumps. Even my friends who hated reading books started borrowing those books. And then, there were the ‘Harry Potter’ series. I don’t even remember how many times I’d read Sorceror’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and Prisoner of Azkaban before I got hold of Goblet of Fire. My friends and I used to discuss the stuff we liked and did not like about the characters, Hogwarts, the whole story and what it would be like if all of it were real and we were a part of it. Waiting for the last three books to come out, we would compete on who would get hold of the books first after it finally did come out.

I only started reading love stories towards the end of grade nine. A few of my friends were really crazy about a book. I don’t exactly remember the title of the book but its cover was pink with a red orchid in it. It was quite attractive to look at. Anyways, they were so crazy about the book that they would hide in the library where no one else could find it so that they could borrow and read it again and again. Eventually, they let me read it too, but I couldn’t figure out what the fuss was all about. I mean, the story was nice but it wasn’t that special. But I did read other love stories that I grew to love. I specially loved books by Danielle Steele at the time.

If our school had not made us read at that time, maybe I would never have known the pleasures of reading. I’m really grateful that they did make us read. When I think about it, I wonder how empty my life would have been if I had not started reading all those books. I would never have known about all the wonderful people like Agatha Christie, J. K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Paulo Coelho, Danielle Steele, Sidney Sheldon and all the others whom I have grown to love and respect through their books.