They thrill your mind, move your heart, take you deeper into the oceans, farther into the skies, unknown territories, into complex human minds.
It is collecting, arranging and rearranging them is another pleasure of its kind.
On a dull rainy evening, she plays Jenga with her collection, stacks them up according to shape, size, and colour one at a time. In between, she flips the pages, inserts her nose deep inside the pages and gasps out Maa how chocolaty and woody they smell; Biblisom is a kind of drug addiction, I guess, for the nerds.
When I was looking for a table to put the laptop on, she instantly created one by stacking books in two rows. Books are a handy tool for her psychic recreation and sometimes physically too.
With no visitors and outings, this lockdown brought entertainment to our doorstep through books.
We had longer evening sessions of spending time on the library couch after her classes.
While she avoided her school books, I delved deep into her social studies books of classes 9 and 10.; The newfound obsession with geography made me play with maps in my head, on paper, the walls, in the dreams everywhere.
If I cannot travel the world physically, there is always an alternative to it, Social studies books to youtube to google earth. This lockdown, they handheld me into the remotest corners of this globe.
I visited all the seas and zoos, from the Arctic bears, bearded seals, wolfs to Antarctica penguins and killer whales. Sometimes into desserts, other times into space, circled Saturn and mars, empathised with pluto for getting downgraded as a dwarf planet. I visited space stations, hydel power stations, watched the mechanics and making of Brahmos missiles.
Now I am so obsessed with maps that I ordered a world map wallpaper to cover one of the walls inside the house.
The man mocked me for not being a good student in school, for reading geography basics in the mid-'40s, which gave me the much-awaited impetus to yell at him, yes Ji!
"I have to see all this on youtube because you don't take me anywhere because you are not a travel freak, now don't be a dominating husband, stop taunting me and do not curb my freedom of travelling the world via the maps, at least."
I completed my pilgrimage of char Dham in these two months, circled Kailash Parvathi, trekked to Kedarnath Ji, wandered in the bylanes of Banaras eating puchka and chat, sitting on the ghats watching Ganga aarti, ending the day with a Banarsi paan. Mind it, All this I did without asking for your help!
To which the daughter said, Dad, you purposefully provoke and make her violent. You should see her happiness while reading and watching history movies; she becomes too analytical and starts acting like Sangamitra, Razia sultana; sometimes enters strait of malacca to understand its importance, she makes strategies to curb Chinese aggression in the south china sea. She speaks to Modi about foreign policy as if he is listening to her..lol.
Mom is crazily happy in her world of current affairs and 10th class social studies books.
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The daughter and I are now partners in the crime of reading the books, we shouldn't be at this stage, but who cares for "what should we read when" rules, as long as what we are reading is titillating, stimulating, oxygenating, rewiring and brightening the inside of our heads,
it's perfectly ok!
She may not crack the Medical entrance for not reading the right books at the right time, I may miss some work, but some misses here and there will help us get some straight hits in the future. I am convinced.
Let us not try to arrange and organise our future sitting in the present, leave some work to the creation. Life is not over in a day week, or in passing an exam or cracking a code; every thought, action and decision has its repercussions.
My learning: Keep the intent clean and remain engaged with the pains and pleasures of life. Be a little empathetic, be a little giving, be a little caring, be a little helping and leave the rest to creation.
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