Bookchor

My entire childhood was a lie!  I hated studying and you know how that happens, right?  You are too busy playing or socializing in the class so you end up not listening to what the teacher is teaching, so you end up not knowing stuff and then not finishing your homework and then lagging behind and eventually you start hating studies!  This precisely is the cycle, right? (I can see Riddh going through the same cycle right now while Dhruvi is that annoyingly studious kid who loves doing her homework as soon as she reaches home!)

Thanks to the vicious cycle, I hated studies, ergo, hated books!  No bugger ever told me that there are books beyond these subjects that we study in school! (Okay, my father tried really hard to imbibe the habit of reading, plus we did have library period but my aversion for studies was so strong that books literally repelled me!)

First Crush:  The Codex by Douglas Preston

When I was in the first year of my college, my father took Reader’s Digest’s subscription because my brother loved reading and that’s how I had my meet-cute with books!

At some point they had an offer on a set of four books and one of them was “The Codex”!  Remember, in one of my blogs, evolving as a traveler, I’ve confessed my love for everything old, antique and kinda archaeological?  Well, “Codex” happens to be an archaeological thriller! I still remember the story; how fascinating, exciting and thrilling the ride was!  I just could not keep it down! And that’s how it all started!  

I wish I still had the book!  I gave it to an A-hole of a friend for reading and he never returned it! (Turns out you need to be a gangster (literally) for the bugger to return your books! 😛 )

First love:  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Many came and went and as I grew up, I realised that “Codex” was just a crush! I had my head over heels moment when a colleague at A TV, Hyderabad gave me Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”!  That book just blew my mind in multiple ways! It redefined so many things in my head! I truly feel it was way ahead of its time! I am still in awe of the book and you too must read it! (It has some real intense scenes, if that makes you pick the book up! *wink, wink* ) 

While we were having a conversation on the same, a friend said, “Atlas Shrugged” by the same author is better than “The Fountainhead”!  I really wonder if that’s even possible but yet to find it out for myself! (recently a friend gave it to me to read but…what do I say…procrastination rocks!)

Book-fluenced: The Palace of illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I remember my brother saying that after watching a Bruce Lee movie, people went berserk thinking that they too were action heroes and ended up doing crazy stunts, getting hurt eventually! (I guess that’s why the warning: “These stunts were performed by professionals, DO NOT try them at home!”)  Basically that was the power of Bruce Lee movies! Well, books have a similar effect on me! 

While returning from my best friend’s 30th birthday celebration in Mumbai, she handed over “The Palace of Illusions” to read on my flight back home! Well, it’s an extremely interesting book to read but it turned out to be a nightmare for my family; I behaved like an eternally bitter and tormented angry woman all the time!  Draupadi has gone through so much sh*t in her life and while reading the book I felt the exact same emotions!  

I felt Ram was being unfair to me by expecting me to get both the kids ready and off to school! I also felt that the kids were being super mean to me by expecting me to serve them food THRICE a day!  (Well, consider the fact that I have a cook and a maid…getting kids ready for school and serving them food is pretty much the work I do in a day!) I felt the entire world was conspiring against my happiness and I was on the verge of depression!

Well, Ram probably figured out the source of his agony and cracked the code! Coz the moment I finished the book he was ready with another one!  (The bugger was smart enough to not ask me to leave the book halfway or all hell would have broken loose and he would have faced my wrath!  Imagine me screaming with a bitter face: “WILL YOU DECIDE WHICH BOOK I SHOULD BE READING, NOW?!” )

Happy Times: Marry Me, Stranger By Novoneel Chakraborty

The book Ram had ordered for me immediately after “The palace of illusions” was “Marry Me, Stranger” which happens to be out an out Tharki-Thriller! (Sensual thriller) Well, needless to stay, the bugger had a great time and….well…so did I! (Yup! He’s a jerk! A smart one at that! 😉 )

This reminds of the Facebook Book Sharing thing!  Remember there was this post trending on Facebook where you send a book to one person and get around 10+ in return??  Well, that really works! Basically I had to send a book of my choice to my friend’s friend, a stranger and then post it on my wall so my friend’s friends would send one of their choice to me!  I actually received 5 books from strangers! How cool is that, right?!

Oh btw, guess which book I had sent to the guy, my friend’s friend?

“Marry Me, Stranger!” 😀 😀 😀

I knowwwwwwwwww!! I do like to mess around with people just for fun!! And if he too gets “book-fluenced” easily, like me, I am pretty sure I would be getting a lot of blessings!! 😉

Lock the box: Bookchor’s Book Fair!

Okay, so all this bookish saga boils down to this! BOOKCHOR! This event made me take a walk down memory lane, revisit all the stages from being a book-hater to a book-lover!

Recently, we went to this event in Jayanagar called “Lock the box: Bookchor’s Book Fair”, where you need to buy boxes and there were three options; Odysseus, Perseus & Hercules, basically small, medium, large for INR 999, 1499 & 2499 respectively. And you could buy any number of books that you could stuff into that box! Catch is, you should be able to seal the box with a tape and all the books should just fit in!

It was a huge, huge convention hall full with books for different age groups, belonging to different genres!!  Riddh and I went hysterical looking at the place! We were there for almost four hours and it still wasn’t enough!  We had purchased a Hercules box for me and Odysseus for Riddh! (Yup! Mr. Not-so-little-anymore loves reading too! Well, that is one good quality of mine that I am proud to pass on to my younger one! 😛 )

Interestingly, of all the books I got home that day, I picked for reading first was “Hippie” by Paolo Coelho, which I think signals at my current state of mind! Stay-at-home-mum who gets to step out of the house only during weekends, that too if her introvert, sleep-loving, home-loving, lazy husband is up for it!  Oh how I wish to run away, wear colorful clothes, meet random people, travel the world and you know, just be a little less responsible?! (Okay, fine! I’ve a cook and a maid but I AM STILL RESPONSIBLE for my partner and kids, right?! Now bugger off! And no I am not PMSing!)

You know what is even more interesting?  The book Riddh picked for reading first! It is called “The Parent Agency” by David Baddiel where the kids get to choose the set of parents for themselves!  Yup! Clearly shows his state of mind too! *rolling eyes* (Thanks for planting this idea in his head, David Bad-diel! Okay, Bad-joke! 😛 )

Bottom Line!

“Lock the box” event is a huge hit!  If you are ‘me’ from recent times, then you HAVE TO go to the event whenever it happens in your city and buy your own stash. If you are ‘me’ from the earlier days, JUST GO GRAB THE RIGHT ONE and fall in love! Coz eventually it is all about finding the right one; your soulmate to ascend with in this fascinating world of books!

Your turn! Which was the first book that made you fall in love with reading? Please tell me in the comments below!