It is one of those fairy tales. No probably not the girl doesn't really wear those stereotypical dresses and dream all day of some tall dark handsome man or fall head over heels in love with some extremely rich/poor guy. No I'm not talking of Mills and Boons, I'm talking of the fairy tales. Well they have the same stories. Trying not to digress I go back to my basic premise, the fairy tale. Well now I have a doubt if I can call it a "Fairy" Tale, I see the smirk on some faces. It is about a girl, it has to be a fairy tale. They don't live in "real" world any way. Talk about living in a real world, leching, raping, gaping, being stared at....I wonder if it can get more "real" than that.
There once lived a little girl called Amu, it is good to read books, she seemed to have heard. Nobody knew from where she had picked up the habit, probably she saw her parents read, probably it was one of the "moral" lessons her teachers taught her, but she took to books. Some people brought her moral stories, some brought her mythologies. She devoured them all. She began believing in them all. If a book said it was good to speak out, she thought so. If Raheem in his couplets said "Don't divulge the details of your pain, as the world would never understand", she applied it to her life. When the Hindi text book taught about "Isa Maseeh" and how he suffered, she felt pity for his suffering, when it taught about Buddha overcoming his desires, she decided she would do so. She wanted to take in from everything, she wanted to be everybody. When there is something to be learnt from everyone why should one learn, she would say. Isn't that what Kabir says "Take in from the world, as much as you can". Books were her treasures, she had them all kept in an old trunk. With each book read she would feel an immense pride of having conquered the world. Each read book would be kept carefully into the trunk. Each time the trunk would be opened, she would sit and count the number of books she had read. One day the trunk will overflow, one day I will have a house full of books, probably I will own a library, that was her fantasy. Each time there would be a book exhibition, she would have an elaborate ritual of choosing the books to be bought. Some day I will have more money and I will buy more and more books, she would think. When her friends would show off their new geometry boxes and imported pencils and erasers, She would show off the books she had read. Will I ever write a book, will I ever see my name in print, she would wonder. The day her article was published in her school magazine was the day she would remember for long. People are all fighting among themselves, with all the wars imagine the number of animals that get killed. I will write a story where the animals all gang up together and boycott the world, the head in search of a world where there was no war. She believed such a world existed.
As the little girl began to grow up, she learnt that there was another side to the coin. All that was written was not necessarily true, there were ways to look at the "truth". She realized truth is subjective and not objective. It didn't dissuade from the world of books, it only made her read more. I should read everything to understand how many sides a coin has, to understand which version of the truth I subscribe to, she thought. As she grew older, her optimism had turned to skepticism, she no longer believed in a world where there was no conflict. She understood, it would be a better world if there could be conflict and people understand that truth is not ultimate. She now knew, she probably would never own a library, and probably it was not so much about owning one as it was about reading. She realized it was not just about written word, but she could read from everything. Her only worry was that she wouldn't read much. Now she didn't want to show off how much she read, she only was guilty she wasn't reading enough. By now the world had termed her nerd, she was called a bore. Not that people didn't read, but it was about e book readers, faster downloads, the latest books in town and posting a quote of Facebook, the world seemed to be in a stage where she was fifteen years earlier. When her mates moved on to romantic relationships, she stayed devoted to her first love. She did date a few men and women but somehow they seemed too hollow. She wanted a partner who read, someone who could be read, someone who would compete in reading and reading was not the trend of the day. This phase was very short lived, it ended just as it began. One could not read books but read people, but not reading anything is a criminal waste of time, she thought. Now she not only read, but talk eloquently about what she read, her eyes would light up when she spoke.
Am I getting obsessed with it, she wondered quite a few time. But isn't it better to be obsessed with something, won't life be empty without it, I think I have come a little too far to go back, I can only go ahead and don't see a way back. I think I have become an addict of reading, she thought. May be one day I will attain enlightenment like Buddha did, or see the light like Rumi talks, the little girl in her wasn't lost completely after all.
