Like any little girl of five, I was in love with Cinderella and Snow White, and princesses and fairies, but the ‘fairest of them all?’
The Little Matchgirl. Even though she was poor and hungry and died of cold.
The best stories do not end with “and they all lived happily ever after.”
My grandfather, who was quite the storyteller, used to tell us stories from the Colonel Ranjit novels he used to read. Stories of treachery and suspense, murder and mayhem; they were not the most appropriate stories for little children, but they held us enthralled.
The best stories are not always ‘appropriate.’
Kalra Book Depot in R.K.Puram had all the Enid Blytons, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys and Mills and Boons the heart could desire. At a rupee a day, it was the best deal in town!
Trash, some might scoff, but who cares!
The best books do not always ‘improve one’s mind.’
My folks started a lending library when I was 13. They ran it for 2 years. Thousands of books. Nothing like binding and cataloging thousands of books all summer vacation.
The best books have short titles, bind easily, and do not give you paper cuts!
In 9th standard we had a 22-year old English teacher who wore blue eye shadow and played guitar and taught us Shakespeare and Poetry....
Literature goes very well with blue eye shadow, Eric Clapton, and four inch heels!
I topped my school, Mater Dei, in the 10 standard board exams. (Fluke!)
My prize: books worth Rs. 200!!
I bought 4 precious titles: To Sir With Love, Catcher in the Rye, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Little Women...
The best stories are all heart...
11th and 12 at DPS brought the strangulating death choke of IIT JEE prep...reading got replaced by Agarwal tutorials...how horrid life would have been if I’d ever got through!!
The best books do NOT have ‘the molecular structure of the atom’ on the cover!
LSR...like rain after drought. Loads of time, to hang out, have fun, loaf around, and read, read and read!!! Some jewels from that era; PG Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer, more JD Salinger, and yes, even all those Booker/Oscar types: Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, V. S. Naipaul, Penelope Fitzgerald...
The best books are labors of love, sweat and staggering skill...
IIM Calcutta had a wonderful air conditioned library, with some real treasures hiding amongst all those business books: Steinbeck, Roth, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Capote. Is there a better way to spend an afternoon than curled up in a sofa reading The English Patient with the rain pattering on the windows, and the rest of your class asleep in the three hour Financial Accounting class?
The best stories are those you can’t put down even though you know they’ll eventually get you an F in FinAc.
And while on the subject of the marvelous city of Kolkata, with its magical Free School Street...I am forever indebted to the unnamed shop where I picked up my first JRR Tolkien - a worn sixties edition of The Hobbit - for the princely sum of twenty rupees...!
What would this world be without hobbits???
The best books are those that transport you, and introduce you to characters who become your lifelong friends.