BOOKS

I often wonder that the people who claim not having the patience of sitting at a place and spending their time idle as an excuse for not reading books know what they are missing. I mean right now I am reading Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes, and despite its sensual plot, the description of the feelings of love and despair, the loneliness especially when you are surrounded by people, and the feeling of not owning anyone, has struck a chord with me. Indeed falling in love is a great feeling, but it leaves a person totally shattered after it’s over, no matter how short the duration of love itself maybe. But that’s not my point here; the main point is that fiction (in general) always somehow seems to interpret the feelings correctly. If you are happy, the protagonist(s) will share your happiness, while the same people seem to be a part of your foul mood as well. A single book can be understood and interpreted in so many different ways depending upon the perception of the person reading it, and yet each interpretation sounds as true as the other one. Strange, but just like films, the books too make us involve in their plot, and evolve with them as the case maybe. People say that the truest and instinctive feelings come not from heart, but from your guts (Thank God, otherwise I always used to think that I am a one up feeling from my stomach, but I guess that just shows the intensity of my feelings, and the passion behind it, and I always feel pain and love from my guts), and after reading a brilliant piece I feel from my guts. Yap that’s how a compulsive reader I am, I get totally and absolutely absorbed in the book I am reading. I cry and laugh with it, feel for the people and also try to understand others better after that. Some people prefer reading e-books but I still feel the personal feeling of reading a book physically (and not virtually) and the involvement with it can’t be replaced with anything else, and absolutely not by reading the summary of books on the Wikipedia. That feeling what the readers feel after reading a really good piece just cannot be expressed in mere words, the feeling needs to be experienced first hand, and I pity those who don’t like reading. I mean how somebody can not like and enjoy reading? I am myself against forced reading, but my idyllic holiday necessarily includes leisure reading of novels. Being the moody person that I am, I think books have always been my best choice of company because they cater to my mood swings and keep me at bay from thinking about other painful things of life (I never forget the best memories). Indeed the quote (which is kind of compulsorily displayed in every library and reading room, don’t know why) about books being our best friends, holds some true value after all.