It takes a lifetime

I have been writing for over 15 years. Initially they were notes, doodles, and diary. But it became blogs and short stories. I didn’t grow in a house full of books but when I found them I took to them like fish to sea. A new world opened up to me, the one with magic and reality. As a child there were only three books at our place, owned by. Eldest brother. 

The autumn of patriarch

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

Don Quixote  

These books in no situation are the starting books for someone. I still can’t read such heavy literature. They are intense and heavy.  The comic strips in the newspaper elated me. I would put my Hindi and my grandpas Urdu versions next to each other as they went in opposite directions. 

I took to Hindi comic books eventually I found at a distant cousins place. He had 100s of those and I would go to their house to read them all the time. The big fat digests of Nagraj, Doga, Captain Dhruv, Pinki, Chacha Choudhary and many more. This was before I knew of spider man or batman but saw their glimpses in these local characters. Bought from local book shops or train stations they were my favourites. I would negotiate with my mother to buy me a copy whenever we went to the market. I would start reading it while walking, waiting or returning in the rickshaw. 

When I was 10 I would get Rs 10 pocket money and would go to this book shop in the market or my residential sector. The guy would rent out one comic at Rs 2 per week. If you got late he would charge extra from kids. I was happy to read 5 comic books in cost of one. 

I would visit my mother or fathers cousin sister’s home. They had a lush girly room with Archies lying in a corner book shelf along with MBs and other novels. While the college girls were being what they are at that age, I stayed in a corner with a comic book and spend hours. Where ever I went I would find a corner and a book, and simply forget the world. Archie’s was special as an almost teen. I rooted for the nice and kind Betty, but now I know Veronica is just being herself and Archie is no big deal. 

Then I made a friend. She was the daughter of my fathers bureaucrat friend. A business man had a friends circle. Our families often hung together. She was two years younger to me and her house was full of books. Her mother who became fond of me would often have me for a night stay. My mother who would never allow me sleep overs was surprisingly ok to. She had Noddy, Cinderella and all sorts of fairy tales which my Hindi background was not familiar with. 

Finally at school library I discovered Enid Blyton and the English classics. We had an English teacher at Sacred Heart convent. Mrs Vasundhara Bhatt, a smart Kashmiri woman. She gave us a summer holiday homework to read The Wuthering Heights. My first romance novel and that too a tragedy. It broke my heart and for the first time love felt so painful. My simple mind could f fathom why two people who love each other can’t be together. Most problems in life are poor communication. 

Anyways then I moved to SRCC college in Delhi and found the ancient library. True to its genre it had economics and accountancy books for the past 75 years of existence. I wonder if the problems have changed over this period. In one corner there was some novels of not such high quality. I read Second Lady which was a sleazy spy novel about a US President. I read The partition book by Urvashi Butalia and many other books on partition as I sat in the heart of Delhi telling its tales. 

But the biggest source of books came from my college BF. She was an avid reader something she inherited from her well read father. She would keep buying books and also recommend me. I read some beautiful literature thru her. The love story, Angela’s Ashes, and many others. She had a great taste and I got hooked. At one time she stopped talking to me. Probably because I left some marks on two of her books while borrowing. Not sure but we never found out the why. 

Then I read some street literature during my hostel days and PG stints in Mumbai and Noida. Much feminine fiction which is exactly I was surrounded by - Indian + Women + Drama. Probably that’s what I still like. Explore some great book shops like the Paperback at Prithvi Theatre, Oxford Connaught Place, Om and Crossword bookstores. This was the first time I was earning and I was enjoying my favourite hobby. I found many a heroines and their inspiring stories. The tales of sisterhood, mother and daughter, generations of family and the legends passed. I discovered the different genres of Indian and some women fiction with the brilliant works of Chitra Banerjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie and many more. 

https://storywala.blogspot.com/2014/09/indian-subcontinent.html

When I moved to Mumbai again with Lehman bros, I found this wonderful online library called Kwench. It was everything - minimal fees, delivered on site and a wonderful collection. I explored the different worlds of Indian literature with aspects of immigrant fiction, Bengali classics, detective works and Hindi literature. Manto, Sarat Chandra, Devkinanda Tripathi, Rabindranath, Bhisham Sahni, etc etc 

I would finish books per week. There was one year when I read 55 books. That has not been repeated since. I made a good book friend, with whom I am still friends. We meet every time at a bookshop and still share books every time we meet. 

That’s around the time Lehman went bankrupt and I was coming to office without work anticipating some kind of acquisition or bailout. This was the window when I was sitting in front of a computer without any work. That’s when I was introduced to the world of Blogging. I read and write significantly at that time. Whenever I was done with the free games me and my colleagues were playing to pass time at work. 

The two blogs took birth - Pictures and Words and Pictures and places. I head read somewhere that visuals were important to make your blog attractive. Hence it has been an intimate part of my blogging. There is always a visual. I wrote and I wrote. I found Good reads which was a great site for book lovers. Completely harness this was not blocked by IT teams. This was the kind of social media I could spend hours on. I read and reviewed books. It was my fav part of the day. 

The blogs shaped up, with book reviews, travelogues, beautiful clicks and stories. They became a vision of my thoughts, dreams and ideas. An online journal  of my hobbies - reading, writing, travelling, clicking pictures, memories, tales and thoughts. I grew with them and so did my art. 

The short stories came up, I took a writing workshop and an acting workshop. Both exposed me to art of story telling. Yo cherish experiences and channel these into stories. Both Ramesh Menon and Niraj Kabi are good teachers passionate about their art and craft.

I started discovering international literature the great works from Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.  My wanderlust dreams took me to new worlds thru the imagination of some great authors. American and British fiction is by far well distributed and I was able to get to the translations as the world opened up to new languages and stories. Imagine reading - So long a Letter or Things fall apart from Africa, Three sisters and Haruki Murakami from Asia, the European literature of Swedish crime fiction and Milan Kundera’s surreal literature.

Some countries continue to be my favorite -The close to home and heart - Pakistani literature by Kamila Shamsie, Moni Mohsin and Mohsin Hamid. Iranian literature by Azar Nafisi, Marjane Satrapi. Nigerian literature with Adichie and Nearly all Men in Lagos are Mad.

 Some real gems have come my way over the years and I have built a  reasonable circle around of people who read and talk books. Even if you come from a family where they don’t have a book shelf forget a study. Or a husband who reads Harry Potter, Robert Ludlum and Wilbur Smith, and never talks about books. You will find your people. I have been part of book clubs in Mumbai and Bengaluru, I have had libraries at work and Copenhagen. 

It took me some time to accept my writer self to my corporate self. I divided these one for sustaining my heart and one for the tummy. The realisation that they don’t need to be mutually exclusive they can find themselves if I pursue both. When you don’t know what to choose, engage yourself equally, then life will choose and it’s never wrong. This is how the process of manifestation works. 

May be artists, authors have to be a bit maverick. Self motivated, passionate, creative and know the art of storytelling. Finally my book of short stories, Keepsake is around the corner. I can’t imagine I have had such a long journey. It takes a village to bring a book and it takes a lifetime to write one. But it was a good like filled with  stories of all sorts.