Sometimes I wonder…is it possible to satiate the hunger for books? A deep gnawing hunger tearing you apart when you have no books in hand ! I guess no.The more you read the more you want.And there is no bound to what you read.It can range from a scrap of news item to a long drawn out novel.The thing is ..you need to read.Not want..but NEED. As you need oxygen so you need books. When I recall my childhood the image that comes to my mind is a book in my hand with one finger inserted as a bookmark.Wherever I went my book remained with me. .My love for books started with my elder sister introducing me to Enid Blyton. Ah!!!…..if there was Heaven that was it!!! The world of Noddy, Amelia Jane, Mr. Meddle, Mr.Pink Whistle embraced me in their fold and there was no returning.

After exploring their world I graduated to the Enchanted Wood Series and never a day passed without me dreaming and wishing and imagining myself up the Magic Faraway Tree , venturing into the Land of Birthday Parties along with Silky and Moonface after getting drenched by Dame Wash-a-Lot😂

As the years passed I moved on to St Clare’s and Malory Towers and started to walk and talk like Darrell Rivers.Many a times I pestered my parents to put me in a Boarding school just because I wanted to have midnight birthday parties with canned pineapples and sardines,ginger beer and scones ,thick cream with strawberries.Ooooh… as I write I am still drooling. The craving for Boarding school remains and I still regret the fact that I didn’t have the chance to play pranks on Mamzelle!!

Along with the Boarding series were an assortment of Enid Blyton books which remain close to my heart till date. I read them over and over.Six bad boys, Mistletoe Farm,House at the Corner, Mr.Galliano’s Circus…the book that made me want to run away and join a circus and live in a caravan frying sausages at the end of a marvellous performance! Ah…the freshness of sheer innocence ❤️

Within no time we grew up and entered our teens. Reading became ‘I’ to ‘We’ as for a time being our girl gang shared passion for same books…. huddling over Mills and Boons and Nancy Drew.And Ned Nickerson entered with a bang!😍 Every teenage girl fell for Ned Nickerson and wanted to be a Nancy.Trust me…it’s true.And now I see another Carolyn Keene in the making in my daughter as she devours her first Nancy Drew Case File and writes her first detective story. Nancy ..Nancy….every teenage girl’s role model … perfect daughter and perfect detective. Along with Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators with their Gold Rolls Royce also managed to carve out a place in my heart. Not to forget Katy Carr in What Katy Did! The trying moment for our parents was when Mr.Carr became our model ‘Papa’ and we all wanted a papa like him! 😅

As I ponder I do agree that as you age your taste for reading changes…develops. But still the books that held a golden place in your heart could never be replaced.Nor could you limit what you read. Anything can appeal to you.That’s the reason I could be seen reading Amitava Ghosh one day and Harry Potter and Percy Jackson on another.I am in my mid-forties and though I like more serious reading now yet the ‘Archies’ and ‘Asterix’ with Obelix digging into juicy wild boar remain a constant in my heart.

And though I read and read to satiate the never ending hunger yet it burns like an all consuming fire…a lifetime is not long enough to consume all that you want to read. As every reading “experience is an arch wherethro’/ Gleams that untravell’d world” of books yet to explore!