Reading journey.... (Blog Marathon post no. 8)

My memories of reading  dates back to when I was a very little girl, may be 5 years old, I clearly remember reading Malayalam children’s magazine such as ‘poombatta’ (meaning butterfly)  and ‘balarama. I used to wait for my Grandfather to bring these books, the moment he would enter the house with it in the evening I would almost snatch it away from him and run to a corner to have a peaceful reading.

 I distinctly remember how I got into the reading habit.. it so happened that some evenings at our house in Kerala, when both my Aunts would be busy reading Malayalam weekly’s  I would be sitting in front of them trying to distract them from reading by following their eye movement on the paper and putting my forefinger on the exact lines they are trying to read so that I can block those lines and stop them from reading ;).    This was so because I could not read , also  when they were engrossed in reading they would not play with me  or talk to me .  So they found out this novel way of making me a part of the gang by inducting me too to the reading club early on and taught me to read and enjoy the stories by buying the children’s magazine for me along with their Malayalam weekly’s, and since that day I am hooked to it and I am so thankful to them for it .

When my Aunts would be at school and my Grandmother busy in the kitchen I would make use of the opportunity to rummage through the stack of old magazines kept by my Aunts, quickly get hold of one of the magazines and first relish the fragrance of old paper yellowing at the edges but full of stories and adventure and would try and read the small stories or cartoons in them because otherwise it was not allowed for me to read the weekly’s.

My reading journey has been quite a steady one, I started with children’s magazine but soon graduated to reading malayalm weekly’s as well and then hindi comics, especially chacha Chaudhary was a favorite of mine, then I was a fan of English comics such as Phantom, Mandrake etc. then soon it was Archies and then one day I landed up reading Mills & Boon then there was no  looking back , then one fine morning one of my seniors at school gave me a novel by Sidney Sheldon and it hit me like volcanoe !! and then there were the Daniel Steel, Robin cook, John Grishams etc. etc my reading journey  was quite a steady one and still going strong….

I am the happiest when I buy a new book to read or a book that I ordered online arrives at my doorstep.. though now I don’t get much time to read but still my excitement at the mere thought of reading a new book is the same as that little 5 year old girl who used to run to a corner to read her ‘poombatta’ peacefully.

There is more to my reading journey and the books I have read and want to read, all that in another post……