Book-ed!

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

Books have always been a part of our lives. And although I wasn’t much of a reader, having access to them made a big difference to the way we spent our vacations. Growing up I spent most of my time inventing and playing games on the streets with a bunch of kids my age. I hated to read and the only concession to this were the textbooks that I had to read to ensure I passed my exams. The older siblings were voracious readers and I would often find my oldest sibling with her nose buried in her books. Mum had picked up the Amar Chitra Katha series of comic books and if pushed to read anything other than the textbooks from school, I would read the comics. Art was my outlet of choice. I used to sit and color, doodle, and draw if I was told not to go out and play. So, participating in one of the many Camlin Art competitions was a normal weekend pass time. The process to participate was simple, Camlin used to conduct art competitions once a month and in some instances used to tie up with government bodies or other institutes to sponsor these events. Students who purchased any of the many Camlin art supplies that included crayons, oil pastels, pencils, watercolors, and acrylic colors could participate in these events because each Camlin product came with an entry label. All we had to do was participate in the event, fill in our details on the labels, and stick them at the back of our submissions. Needless to say, I had participated in every event Camlin conducted. At one of these events, I won first place. As the school name is usually mentioned on the submission labels the school was notified and they in turn announced it in the assembly. Having your name announced in the assembly and collecting an award in front of everyone used to be a big deal. This was before participation certificates and consolation prizes became a thing. The principal was thrilled and she wanted to know what I had painted. I had been to more than 6 Camlin competitions in as many months and every time I did a different painting. Camlin usually announced the award every few weeks, so I had no way to identify which art submission had got me the award. The principal was thrilled although she was unhappy not to have a copy of the award-winning artwork that she could’ve displayed on the notice board. recollection of what I had done to win this award. I was thrilled to have got an award, although it was just an envelope. Hoping for the best, I opened it to find a gift voucher from a famous bookstore for all of Rs 500.

At this point, I rarely read books, and if I did, then I liked the mystery kind of books, so Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew were all the rage. Our school library had a few confiscated books they used to distribute to students during the library period, and these were the only books I read not because I liked reading, but because they were issued by the school and I read everything issued by the school. That evening I handed over the voucher to Mum who was thrilled that her effort in taking me from one competition to the next every month had finally gotten a result, but she was as stumped as I was about the winning art piece. Her next query was to understand what I planned to purchase with my voucher. Now I was stumped. ‘Should I get a couple of Enid Blytons? Or perhaps a few Nancy Drew books?’ I was so confused. Also, ideally, I would have loved to have gotten the entire collection in the series and had no clue if the voucher amount would get it all. In the late 80s, 500Rs got you a lot of stuff but I had no idea about the costs involved in procuring foreign publications, so I could not decide on how many books I could get myself. I told Mum, and with every word that came out of my mouth after the, “I want to get Enid Blyton or Nancy Drew”, only got her eyes bigger and bigger. Eventually, she just raised her hand for me to stop, and told me that she would not allow me to get frivolous books with the voucher. She felt that since I had won an award, the book would be something of equal importance.

Off we went to Blossoms Bookhouse, one of the oldest bookstores in my hometown. The store was a nondescript room with racks built from floor to ceiling. There were books stacked everywhere, the aisles were filled with books. Books were stacked in tall towers all across the store. If there was a flat surface it held a stack of books. The store smelled like books and the shop boasted of a collection that included all kinds of books. I walked in and almost like I was hypnotized my eyes spotted the Enid Blyton collection which was stacked right next to the Nancy Drew collection. There were so many books! I lifted one book and flipped it to find the label to see the cost, Rs 50- which meant I could get only ten books. I turned to see where Mum had gone to find her at the far end of the shop, near the General Knowledge section. Mum liked to tell us stories, so I assumed it would be easy to sell her the storybook purchase. And I wanted her help to shortlist the 10 books I could purchase. When I got near Mum, she held two books in her hand, one was the Dean’s book of questions and answers and the other was a generic General Knowledge book. She turned to me and told me that as I had received the art award, I should get a book with some interesting artwork so I could use it as inspiration in future events rather than pick a few books from a larger collection. She convinced me that it was always better to read a GK book because each page was filled with new information, rather than reread the same 10 books again and again as that would get boring. Simple logic! I got my first book that was not a textbook from school, “Dean’s Big Book of Questions and Answers”.

This book is filled with random information placed alongside some interesting watercolor sketches. I’ve used this book as an inspiration and painted the picture of the tombstone and Jesus standing on the hill, the parakeet, the tiger, and the cricket from the cover on numerous occasions. It’s 3 decades old and even my kids have used this book for reference. This was the first book I put in my library when I got married and moved homes. It’s the only book I continue to read even today and I would recommend it for kids aged 7 upwards. There may be a wider selection of books on offer today filled with more information and better visuals, but the USP of this book was its watercolors and the size of the writeups just perfect to get you curious to read more.

Later that year, my class teacher read us Coma, by Robin Cook during our SUPW periods. I was in grade 5 and used to read the story books issued by the school during the library period. From Enid Blyton to Nancy Drew to Erle Stanley Gardner, to other random authors I can’t name or remember we were issued books in random order. Every class had 50-odd students so during the library period, the class monitor would go to the library, pick up a pre-sorted pile of 50 books, and bring it to the classroom. The books used to be pre-sorted by the librarian and we had no choice in what books were allotted to us that day. Every month, the books would get shuffled and we would get a fresh set of 50 books. The books would be placed in piles on the table and the class teacher would sit next to it with the library register for our class open next to her. Against each name, we would write down the name of the book we had received and the point of this exercise was to keep tabs and ensure that we did not get the same books again and again. Every month, each class was assigned 5 assorted thrillers, 10 Enid Blyton’s, 20 General knowledge books, 10 Nancy drew books, and 5 random GK booklets. Every time the books were shuffled I hoped that I got an interesting book in the first week because books were currencies in class if you had an interesting book, then you could barter it for another book you wanted to read if not, you waited until the demand died down and then did the barter. If I got that interesting book in the first week, then I could try to finish most of the interesting books allotted for the class right away, else I had to sit around and wait to catch up over the following weeks. Our SUPW or craft classes, art classes, and oneft with a little more than half an hour in class that day for reading. The first half hour was spent with the teacher bringing us up to speed with where she was in the book currently, chapter 4. We were hooked. Just as she opened the book to continue reading the story, the bell rang and the sigh of woe from the class was palpable. Promising to bring the book the following day for the SUPW class, she left the room. This reading continued for the next few weeks and we were a class of reformed readers. Our school principal used to walk through the school corridor after the last bell, before we started the evening prayers, and was often stunned to find our class sitting in silence consistently. My class was one of the more notorious sections in school that year, we never kept silent and were often hauled up at the assembly as an example of the class not to ape. That year we won the discipline cup three weeks in a row because we were so silent. We were called on stage during the assembly, our class teacher was happy and almost every student from the other sections wanted to know how we had made that transition. Thank you, Robin Cook, for enabling that change in a small class of 50 students. It is often said, that all it takes is one book to change the world, for us this was true. One Robin Cook later we had moved from being the noisiest class to being the most disciplined class on campus.

I read Stephen King’s Cujo when I was in grade 11. I picked the book from the local library where my older sibling had an account. She told me I could go there and get a book, and the first book I picked was Cujo, by Stephen King. I had never read a Stephen King book earlier and had no idea about horror as a genre. I had read Bramstoker’s Dracula and had found it highly entertaining and if Stephen King was more of the same, I was ready for the ride. As it happened, I brought home the book after college around 6 and started reading the book then. Cujo had me from the first page and I was done with a couple of chapters before I had to take a break for dinner. Dinner at Mum’s was fixed at 9 pm and it did not matter to her that we had exams or projects or were on vacation, we had to be present at the table when she called or we lost privileges. So, although the book was interesting, I had to put it down during dinner. Dad knew I had brought a new book, so he asked me about it. When I told him it was Cujo, he advised me not to read it overnight. I nodded my head sagely while gulping down dinner and as soon as I was done, I went back to bed. We were not allowed to lie in bed and read books. We had to sit up leaning against the wall and read books. So wrapped in my blanket, I sat leaning against the wall and continued from where I had paused before dinner.

We had just moved to this house a few months ago and were still getting used to the noises. The evenings were quite chaotic with cows in the vicinity mooing on their way home, the cowherd’s rhythmic thwack gave this walk back a regular beat. The stray dogs following the cows and those defending their territories barked at will. It was a humid July evening and while a catfight or two was expected having a few cats joining in only added to the cacophony of noises on the street. 7 pm to 9 pm were chaotic times and then everything and everyone settled for the night. Typically you would hear the sound of the beat cop banging his stick on the pavement as he made his rounds late into the night, but tonight I had no ears for anyone. I was engrossed in my book. Ignoring Dad’s instructions I continued to read my book.

In our previous house, we lived within city limits so we could hear and on occasion feel the movement of traffic through the night. While the mooing of cows was limited, the barking strays and mewing cats were aplenty. I’ve never lived in a house that went silent post-dinner before we reached this house. We were in the suburbs and at least a half hour away from the city. While there was the occasional movement of vehicles, it was limited and after 9 pm everything went eerily silent. Most evenings, after our dinner at 9 pm, we used to sleep, but I had just got a book and it was interesting, so I was awake at 11 pm when the crazy noise began. The book was in the interesting part, where Cujo is in the middle of his dilemma- oscillating between the rage of wanting to bite his owner and the perceived loyalty that prevented him from biting the hand that fed him. It sounded like a child was wailing. We usually kept our windows shut at night, the flip side to living in the burbs was the insects. If we left the windows open, then the house would be filled with flying cockroaches and I had no intention of flinging things across the room aiming to kill them. So most often our windows were shut, and on the rare occasions that I heard cats fighting, I used to ignore it and go to sleep. Tonight was different. It did not sound like a cat, but like a child wailing, so putting the book aside, I headed for the door to go out to see what was happening outside. The street lamps outside the house and up and down the street were on. I waited silently standing in the shadows, looking up and down the street. Nothing moved, but the keening started again and was followed by a hissing and suddenly something jumped from under the porch where I was standing and a shadow vanished into the buildings in front. This was followed by a cat walking out, with its tail twitching in the air. Phew! It was just another catfight and not a wailing child. Irritated I went back in to read. A couple of hours later, I was done with the book, and just as I was putting the book down the stray dogs on the street started howling. You may never hear a dog howl in the city, but in the suburbs, animals howl. They wail. They make a raucous cacophony of noises that can wake the dead. I was merely a groggy human. The following day, I was hyperaware of the number of dogs on my street. Any dog walking in my direction with its tongue hanging out of its mouth made me cross the street and walk on the opposite side. Cujo had left its mark.