An insatiable appetite.

The Main Course :

I don’t remember how old I was when I picked up my first book. I don’t remember which book either. Probably a Famous Five or Secret Seven (Enid Blyton). When we had visited New Delhi, once to meet my Uncle in Faridabad and then to attend the Incentive Awards ceremony for my mother, we visited the National Book Trust. I was so excited and picked up 10-page illustrated books for myself along with my sister. One of the presents I had received for one of my early birthdays was an illustrated copy of Musicians of Bremen. I remember being super happy about it, keeping all other presents aside and excitedly showing off to my sister.

Summer vacations would go by reading Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and later, Agatha Christie and Perry Mason series. My mother would issue hoards of these from the school library and I would diligently read them one after the other – losing sleep, at the dining table with the three meals, in the toilet, keeping everything else aside and giving all my attention to the books. Each book was pulling me deeper and deeper in love. It was a beautiful relationship – me and books. They told me about worlds I had yet to learn of, of people and their habits which were so different from ours, of hypothetical adventures and mysteries. And they inspired me to write stories, poetry, essays. The love I had for books became desperate, for I would smuggle in books during my exams, hide them in my textbooks and become so absorbed that I would unwittingly get caught and yet, would audaciously repeat the whole charade again.

Reading wasn’t a hobby or an escape. It was my most comfortable space, my most intense relationship, the main course on my table.

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The Side Dish :

More often than not, life dictates changes and you fall into it, offering no resistance. And it was a pit of change that my reading habit fell into.  Once I got my cellphone, laptop and admission into graduate school, the habit slowly faded out of my life. At my fingertips was all the information and stories I wanted to know in the form of search engines, social media platforms and apps. The cellphone replaced the book in the same sequence of activities – losing sleep, at the dining table with the three meals, in the toilet, keeping everything else aside and giving all my attention to the memes, news-feed and Insta-stories. The cellphone became a constant with every meal, the kind of pickle that was lot more appealing than just to my taste buds.

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The return of the insatiable appetite :

I read Unaccustomed Earth (Jhumpa Lahiri) last week, a collection of short stories delving upon the subtleties of human relationships. As soon as I started the first story, I could feel my heart leap with anticipation, finding comfort once again in a lost habit that I picked up again last month. The book brought back a rush of nostalgia, a very familiar feeling, inspiring me to continue writing. I had fallen in love again. Jhumpa Lahiri writes about complex and intense emotions, underlined in every sentence, making you empathize and grow with each story and its characters.

I felt the same joy I did several years ago, reading short stories on the four-poster bed after a heavy Sunday lunch. I couldn’t put the book down, falling asleep thinking about it’s possible endings. I realized the addiction was back.

I am sure I will fall out of the habit again, as I get busy with other pressing responsibilities. But I feel content knowing that, some parts of my childhood will always remain, perhaps dormant at times but always joyful and unbound.

Here’s to rediscovering lost appetites! Burp.

Featured image is shot at The Storytellers’ Bar, Pondicherry, India.