The first-ever book I remember reading seriously was the ‘The Book of Sathyabhama’ from the Krishnavatara Series by K.M. Munshi. I was secretly proud that my Ajji’s name was Sathyabhama too and somewhere in the imagination of a 10-year-old’s mind, I thought that she too had a similar love story to that of Krishna’s wife. I was wrong.
Amma worked at a library when I was in middle school. She was an avid reader herself and was a great storyteller. She used to narrate stories with different voices for different characters — a high-pitch for ghosts, timid animals, and female characters and a low growling voice for villains, ferocious animals, and male characters — we used to find it very easy to identify them by listening to her.
As a librarian, she did not restrict herself to sitting behind the desk, stamping return dates for books, logging them onto the excel sheet that was maintained — she went above and beyond (much to her boss’s joy) to make the library a happy space that children genuinely looked forward to going, rather than as a punishment or time-out.
Amma introduced weekend activities at the library — from vegetable painting to Bandini workshop, to clay modeling to magic shows, to talent weekend to creative writing session to debate competitions, to carrom and chess tournaments to dance workshops — she increased attendance on weekends by almost 200%.
Right from creating the posters, talking to parents about the upcoming weekend’s workshop, to volunteering to keep the library open for an hour extra on Sunday afternoons, to selecting the prizes for winners — week after week, she used to execute it all by herself.
I loved going to the library too. On Mondays and Thursdays, and I’d be the quiet one sitting on the teal-coloured bean bag reading a Tinkle or an Amar Chitra Katha or a Nancy Drew novel or a Hardy Boys novel. I loved reading mystery novels back then. I was reading ‘The Message in the Hollow Oak’ and had forgotten about dinner until the next day.
Amma would finish her meetings with her boss and others and we’d both walk back home. Amma had me registered for the 2 books/person plan and maintained that just because I’m the librarian’s daughter, I would not be treated with any special benefits. This membership plan was renewed for 4 years until I finished High School.
We used to come back home to my Ajji around 7:30 and she’d ask me to narrate all that I did on that day. No matter how much I tried, I could never do it as well as Amma did. Amma would console me saying that storytelling is a skill and practice would make me better, but I wasn’t convinced. Pappa’s point of “You say things clearly. You should be proud of that”, made me feel better. I know that I should work on my storytelling skills at least for my own children (due in about 5 years).
I used to enjoy reading books in English. The characters lived, breathed, and thrived in my mind. I used to dream scenarios of tangential stories (I didn’t know fan-fiction back then) and imagine myself as a sidekick to these characters. It is funny how I didn’t see myself as the hero of my own imagination but was rather thrilled to be working and supporting the heroes of the stories I had read.
Imaginary conversations were fun, especially in math class when the teacher was droning about algebraic concepts. Reading also gave me a sense of confidence because I’d not say a wrongly constructed sentence — “I have read many books. I cannot make a mistake” was how I convinced myself to speak up in class or among family.
College changed it for me.
Reading became stressful in college. I was trained to look for a character’s trait, personality, preference, and all the other nuances by what and how they spoke, or if they were spoken about. I was constantly making notes and observations at every sentence or two and soon, it almost became second nature to have a parallel train of thought that was continuously working on shaping opinions on characters and their arcs, alongside the narrative that drove my imagination.
Characters were no longer two-dimensional heroes that I had fantasized about. I was no longer a sidekick in my head but rather a fly-on-the-wall — observing and predicting what they’d do next. We were trained to craft analyses on many famous works of literature. I remember getting a 7/10 on my Feminist analysis of Jane Eyre and the comment “expected more” marked in red, led to a venting session with my best friend over a plate of bhel puri.
Reading became exhausting.
It is unfortunate that I’ve somehow shifted to binge-watching than binge-reading. The wrongly assumed lack of time is now dedicated sincerely to a new Netflix show of the month. I spend hours scrolling through content carefully curated by social media algorithms, ensuring that their biggest competitor, my sleep, is never going to win.
I realize that while I have retained my ability to analyze (independent of the medium), I have lost my touch with Language. I have lost my ability to construct meaningful sentences and rely too much on Grammarly to rectify all the errors that I make. I hate that I now have to Google synonyms to words that I knew before (I scored an 8 in IELTS, just two years ago). The pandemic has affected my ability to articulate.
Like all well-meaning individuals, on Jan 1, I’m making a resolution and I’m putting it out here for my own accountability — I will read two books per month to come back to Language until I can confidently say “I have read many books. I cannot make a mistake”. Amma is glad that I renewed my dead membership (at a different library). She is thrilled that she can order books for herself too.
Ajji would have been proud of us.
