All About Reading....

"The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

Reading and books have become parts of my life. It baffles me when someone asks, fiction or nonfiction? How hard it is to apprehend that this is barely a way to show case the books on the shelf of a book shop. As famously said "A book you like resembles a friend. You read it, reread it, getting to know it better. Like a friend you accept it the way it is;you don't judge it". In a nutshell, a books is marvelous piece of art that doesn't age.

I have a very close friend who is a literary giant (till my road cross with someone who could imprint me more than him), he owns eclectic collections of books. How many times have you observed a person holding 13 books in his lap and roaming around in Landmak. He is the one of those kind. And when some attender approaches him with a basket, he murmrs ardently “Books are not commodity, it should be lifted and kept with immense respect” and denies to take the basket.

We have quite a contrast in our discussions about each and every hoo-has happening around this planet, whether it’s Indian media and it's irresponsibility's, American presidency election, French/Italian cinema or even Big Boss-2.

In our last Landmark visit he picked up one book from the shelf and stamped it with must read. It had very unusual title, so was the picture printed on it. But at the same time, I didn’t want to commit the famous crime of judging a books by its cover. On the other hand his last recommendation to me about a short story was a real cataclysm.

(Last month after our Crosswords visit he dropped in my room at 11pm and asked me to read a fabulous story. It certainly erupted rarity in me and I started reading that short story and finished it within 20 minutes. I approached his room to give the book back. He saw something on my face and asked "is everything okay, pal, Isn’t it an excellent story?" I was too atrociously shaken to answer him, I just nodded NOPE and went back to sleep. That book was about a drowned man whose floating swollen body was brought to village by fisher men, and the women of that village were so impressed by that dead body that they could stop watching and depicting it …..)

He has very strong view against a new hot selling author whose 3 books and a recently launched movie are selling in India like Aloo Gobhi. He adds that every Tom, Dick and Harry is writing books now a days, but it doesn't mean that we should be reading all these books. After all What you read is what you are. “We have got an itsy-bitsy life and we better be very selective in whom/what we read” he further adds.

To be continued ….