A reader is a nerd who knows his way home

This is one of my favourite childhood memories. This is story of ‘how I began reading’or rather I say ‘how I become a reader’.

I was 4 years old when I were, first, shown a book. That book was full of colourful images and all the popular rhymes like ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Johnny Johnny…’ etc and was a book that would interest a four year old and I was no exception. I wanted to explore more.

By the age of 8, I would read all my course books, without waiting for my teacher. I was ahead of everyone, when it came to knowing a story in the class, or a poem, or some basic knowledge. Yes, I even explored mathematics textbooks, for the funnier matter of fact. A kid is a kid. I was a curious one, and the books satisfied my curiosity. It fed me a little knowledge every time I read it and even more when I re-read it.

Reading comes from heart and you starve for more books, the more you read it — ‘The endless hunger’, what I would call it. When our family used to travel anywhere by train, I’d notice those book stalls and all those vendors who would sell books. I had no knowledge of genres of books. I just wanted them. The only 3 check points were that:

I’d beg my father to buy me just one of them and it ended up being a ‘comic’ mostly, which I happily accepted. A book, mostly every time we would travel. My parents really admired how fast I was to finish a book already. Apart from comics, they also noticed that I’d entirely read even my elder sister’s English textbooks (because that’s all I understood, her mathematics was too tough for me).They were happy that I was a ‘pages and pens’ kid, in the ‘internet and television’ era.

So, by the time I was 10, they bought more comics for me, until I was bored. They did not know what kind of genre I read, because I did not know that either. My father, then took me to a near by library and let me explore that whole room. It was a set up routine. Me and my father going every Saturday evening to the library for reading. Until, one day my father fell sick and he suggestion ‘Why don’t you go by yourself?’ and I went to the library, that day and from then on, by myself.

There was this friendly uncle that I met there, whom I do not remember anymore, but his idea I do. ‘Why don’t you simply issue the book?’ He asked me one fine day. And obviously, I did not know anything about issuing and returning a book from the library so, he helped me with it. It was my daily escape place and my family was so proud that a 10 year old, finally know what kind of books she wants which was ‘Classics’ and ‘Romance’. A reader, the first in the family that I was, is appreciated so much in my family.

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