The joys of reading are always undermined. Its an exceptionally beautiful experience to lose yourself in a tale born out of someone else's imagination. In the underground world of fiction and fantasy I found my own little corner. Deriving strength and inspiration from the starlit world of books. The world of fantasy, where truth is hidden is a great escape from the outside more treacherous, more lethal world, which unlike my preferred underground does not give in to my whims. I govern this little corner- I make the rules. Someday it will be bright orange, gutsy and energetic, other time it may be a shade of grey - thoughtful and sad, it may be blue at times glittery and golden on other more ostentatious occasions. It does things to the soul, sometimes soothes sometimes incinerates it. One thing, though is always there with the world of stories and tales- one encounters happy endings often and even if it is not (fiction mirrors the real world, with growing mess in our world how can stories be spared ?), it does leave a lesson behind (without coercing the reader to endure the pain of a sorrowful experience on the ragged fields of life).
I have traveled the world with Verne within eighty days, I have wept with Laila and Mariam of Khaled Hosseni's writings, I have seen their land of thousand splendid suns turn into rubble, I have also lived with the guilt of Amir.I have seen fiction and reality merge. I have also peeked into the mystery of mythology, I have eavesdropped Draupadi's conversations, I have lamented the death of Karna, I have rejoiced the victory of Lord Ram, I have listened to the tune of Krishna's flute, I have met Amish's Sita, I have walked through Chitra's Palace of Illusions, I have met Kavita's Urvi and I have also fought Urmila's battles. I have also seen Tharoor's recreation of Mahabharata parallel to the independence struggle and hence I have also participated in India's struggle for freedom. I have lived in the war torn Kashmir, the lost paradise through Rushdie's words. I have heard the message about the Eagle landing when it did. I have cracked Da Vinci's codes. I have wept with Ophelia and with Romeo and for Juliet. I have also sang songs with Tagore's Chokher and Bali. I have laughed at Wodhouse's characters, spoke their witty lines with flair and perfect comic timing. I have done this all, and so much more and shall continue to do it.
Language, religion, space,time are no barriers; for human nature is essentially the same so are our emotions,as are our troubles and subsequently their solutions.
The beauty lies in the fact that stories never get old.
To Rushdie's question -"Who what am I?"
His own answer was : "I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me."
My answer would be a little distortion of his - I am the sum total of everything I have read, every story I have heard, of everything done-to-me.