Books...Books..books..

I like books.
But ( forgive me for beginning a sentence with but..) I do not recall even a single instance when i received books as gifts...I guess I haven't publicised it enough that I would like to have books for gifts...( I amend this critcal error right now)
I end up gifting ppl books( because I like books..I think...irrespective of whether they do or don't.. ;))..

My foray in literature happened with Hindi "Sahitya"...
I read all the stories in my hindi book...( I am starting from the beginning..from the time I was in second or third grade)...then I moved on to the books of my neighborhood bhaiyya and didis who were 4 or 5 years ahead of me academically...

Then some years were spent reading Russian books translated into Hindi..courtesy one "Raduga Publication".I was sick for sometime and couldn't go to school for about 4 or 5 months..so my Dad bought a load of these Russian books for me.
Some were Russian Folktales( " Roosi Lok Kathayein" to be exact) and some were Sketchbooks.
I loved those stories...
The Hero(or the protagonist) was always called Ivan ..or sometimes Andrei , who'll eventually fall in love with a beautiful girl with some exotic Russian name . But , the king would also have his evil eye on her and to get her, he would send Ivan for seemingly impossible tasks .
Ivan would return home dejected and the pretty and intelligent wife( oh yes, now I remember, her name would usually be "Buddhimati Vasilisa ") would tell him...."So jao. Raat ki baat kabhi sach nahin hoti . Subah zaroor koi rasta nikal aayega ".( I still think of this phrase sometimes when in despair...That's why I end up sleeping so much ..)

And then in the morning she would wake him up with a solution. She would give him a ball of wool with the instructionto follow the ball wherever it rolls.And the woollen ball would always stop in front of a hut rotating on "murgi ka panja"..Ivan would ask it to stop so that he can enter it.Once inside he would be greeted by the witch "Dhaddho Baba Yaga" with a
stump for a nose and a broomstick for an automobile.The witch would ask " Ae rusi khoon tu kahan se aaya hai aur kahan jayega".Ultimately, she would agree to help Ivan in his tasks.She would sometimes refer him to her other sisters also.In the end, Ivan would return victorious after crossing " nau tiya sattais"( nine threes are twenty seven) countries.

One of my favourite stories has the title "Jaao wahan na jaane kahan, Lao use na jaane kise".
Another one which I had really liked was called "Kohkaaf Ka Bandi" .I believe the English version is known as "The Prisoner of Zenda".Here, a soldier returning home is captured and held for ransom by the Tartars( a Russian Tribe ).The story revolves around his attempts to escape and also about his friendship with a young Tartar girl who helps him.

Then , when I reached 7th grade I grew out of this magical world of Russian folk Tales where the wolves could talk and you could go into one ear of a stallion and come out as tall , dark and handsome out of the other,of evil Kings and helpful witches, where one whistle from a notorious dacoit killed hordes of people( from "Seetiwaala Daku"...Believe it or Not !!)

I now entered the Land of Faraway Tree with Enid Blyton where there were no worries and days were spent gorging on orange and cream tarts and jugs full of cold milk and lemonades,where the Five Findouters scurried away when they heard the trin trin of Mr.Goon's ( I think I got the name correct ...apologies if not) bicycle.And now my favourite amongst all the Enid Blyton books..."The Malory Tower" series....with Daryl and Sally and Alicia and
how can we forget ..Gwendoline Mary( who used to brush her hair a thousand times or a hundred maybe ,every night to keep them soft and shiny...I think, once,even my mother gave me some funda like this...I never had the patience or that much
hair...)

Around the same time , I also discovered Mills & Boons and Barbara Cartland.The timing was very wrong...on one hand I was reading all the kiddie Blytons and on the other MB's. At my grandparents home there was a huge collection of Perry Mason also.Initially, I found it interesting...the suave Perry Mason, a little hint of romance between him and the secretary Della Street , and last but not the least, the private investigator Paul Drake. But, then the lengthy court room cross examinations became monotonous, so I hopped on to Sidney Sheldons. I don't know why people love Sidney Sheldon so much...he always has some bizzare and gross sexual drama also going on besides the main story...maybe that's why.

Back to Mallory Towers for a moment...
When I went to a residential school in 9th...my cousin asked me in her letters if we also had midnight feasts...I wrote back saying that we had, albeit of a different kind ( aloo bhujia and tomato sauce).We didn't have a small pool as the girls at Mallory did but even we could go for Horse Riding. This whole residendtial school thing and Mallory Towers remind me of a
term found only in the vocabulary of hostel sudents , "TUCK".ItsBrit term meaning sweets and snack food but for us it meant something from home,something to be excited about and something which won't last for more than one night.

Next , came the classics.."Gone with Wind " and all...But , I never had the patience for Pride and Prejudice kind of books.There was this phase of Danielle Steel also , where the girl is just seventeen and gets married to someone who is fort five or fifty.Then some years down the line she falls in love with someone who is more her age. Though , all this time she also loved
her husband who was old enough to be her father.Then the lover would get killed or something.Basically, by the time thewoman reaches forty or fifty herself ,she has gone through quite a few men.

The books I read and liked in recent times are "To Kill a MockingBird" , "Memoirs of a Geisha" , "Kite Runner" and some more. But, more about them in the next post.