I’m halfway through my summer holidays, and have started summer courses at my college. Doing a few courses so that I can take more later.
One of these courses explores literature. Our second class is tomorrow, and I was going through an assigned reading. “Reading and Longing,” by Daniel Coleman.
It starts by describing two children, and how the act of reading also works as a sort of connection for them. One to his family, the other to knowledge. It made me look back at when I was a true bookworm, in junior school.
Our first excursion into the land of the written word was with a wonderfully sweet librarian called Meenu Ma’am. We would go into the small library, sit on the rugs around her, and she would read out books to us.
Stories like “Clifford the Big Red Dog”, and The “Friendly Giant”. I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember it drew me into wanting to read on my own. Thus began my consumption of our small library.
Every day, whenever I had some free time, I would go to the library. If I had a book, I’d read it, if not, I’d issue one. Once I even issued a book, finished it and returned it within the same day. I also began helping out, putting books away and cleaning up after other students.
I even remember that the books were colour coded by their difficulty; though in retrospect, it may have been the content of the books as well. Green, Yellow, Blue, Red and Black, with black being the hardest.
I would be filled with pride as I would be allowed to advance to the next difficulty, always ahead of my class. I even remember having read all that I found interesting, and starting to re-read the older books.
I’d hide books under my desk and read them during class, I’d sit in a quiet corner during our P.E periods and read. Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember learning many rules of language, or many other topics in my subjects.
Every now and then I’d get caught, the book taken away and forced to pay attention to the lesson. Maybe it’s why I don’t read books quite as much now, though a good story does hold my interest well.
Writing this, I’ve started to recall the books I’d read. Urgum the Axe Man, Captain Underpants, Horrible Histories, Dead Famous, the Weird Teacher books, and the Scholastic Books lists we’d get, where we could order books.
Makes me think of how I’ve changed, from being a recluse to… hmmm. Well, a slightly less of a recluse?
From being this nervous, shy kid whose heart almost stopped when confessing his feelings to a girl to a more relaxed, confident guy whose heart almost stops when…
Huh. Guess some things never change.