It all began on a warm, summer day of April 1975! I was twelve when I was introduced to Madam Blyton. It sparked off a love-affair the intensity of which remains undiminished to this day. As a top ranker in fifth grade at St. Andrew’s High School, Mumbai; I had received a prize. The prize - as I would discover later - was in reality the key to a fascinating world of enchantment, adventure and knowledge: the world of books. Enid Blyton’s ‘Good Work, Secret Seven’ was presented to me that evening amidst warm applause. The serene seventies were devoid of distractions like mobile phones, play stations, satellite television and the worldwide web. Little wonder, then, that our favourite pastime at school used to be exchanging books during breaks.
Madam Blyton captured totally the imagination of a twelve-year old and within the next couple of years I was the proud owner of a collection of all her titles in the ‘Secret Seven’, ‘Famous Five’ and ‘Five Find-Outers’ series. She painted a vivid yet mysterious picture of Old Blighty and thirty years later on my first visit to London, I was simply delighted to have found it precisely as Madam Blyton had me imagine!
The reading bug had bitten me completely and the malady grew and started spreading when cousins and friends introduced me to Richmal Crompton, whose ‘William’ series captured most humourously the antics of her protagonist schoolboy William. Frank Richards soon followed with ‘Billy Bunter’, the ‘fat owl of the remove’. The writer opened a new vista of residential schools and hostel life, through his unique brand of slapstick humour.
As I progressed through my teens, humour made way for adventure in the form of Franklin W. Dixon and Robert Arthur; whose contributions to teenage literature in penning the heroics of the Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators, respectively; can never be overemphasised. Their profound impact on our impressionable minds prompted us to form our own group of ‘investigators’ who tried to invent mysteries in order to solve them, often with disastrous results!
Captain W.E. Johns, who had served in World War I, provided an altogether new dimension to young adventure with his crisply crafted tales of James Bigglesworth the intrepid airman, whose exploits took him and his friends all over the globe. I travelled with Biggles across time from Nazi Germany to the neighbouring iron curtain of erstwhile Czechoslovakia through the jungles of the Terai and the deep blue waters of the South Seas, pausing en-route for a while in the hot Gobi! Suddenly, I too wanted to be a pilot!
When Dame Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle acquainted me with top class detective fiction set in the U.K., I was hypnotised and totally under their spell. With the Belgian detective of the egg-shaped head full of grey cells; and the suave, pipe-smoking sleuth of 221, Baker Street; each exercising his powers of deduction in his own inimitable style, could I be far behind? All of a sudden I was a combination of Poirot and Holmes, trying to deduce each and every thing from each and every thing, while driving each and every one I knew, up the wall!
The rigours of graduation and post-graduation robbed me of all time for leisure-reading and proved to be the chief culprit in weaning me off the reading habit. A high-pressure job in corporates further contributed to the decline. The years simply flew past.
As the nineties gave way to the noughties, I came upon a book by Ruskin Bond and devoured it. Being an ardent admirer of the North-Indian hill-towns, I relished it thoroughly and was re-awakened to the joys of reading. The realisation of what I had missed in the previous decade and a half hit me like a thunderbolt! Bond integrates his love for nature and an eye for detail with such skill that the result is a simple yet thought-provoking piece of literature! Over the years Bond has become one of my all-time favourite authors and I was absolutely thrilled to have greeted him in person on his 77th birthday at his home in Mussoorie in the summer of 2011! I too would love to be a published author some day!
I am now largely into non-fiction, as I prefer the truth, which is supposed to be stranger than fiction. Bill Aitken, William Dalrymple, Robin Sharma and Orhan Pamuk, among others; continue to enrich my life and ensure that I do not stray off the reading path again. If Blyton ignited the spark and Christie and Johns got the adrenalin pumping, then Bond soothed me at a stage in life when it was required; and the gentlemen mentioned earlier are helping to keep the flame of knowledge glowing brightly.
My love for the English language and the re-discovered joys of reading conspired to facilitate my entry into the noble field of education, something which I had not imagined even in my wildest dreams! It is my constant endeavor to impart to you- the citizens of tomorrow- whatever I have learnt from my illustrious teachers and these authors nonpareil.
My reading habit has shaped my destiny. It can shape yours too.