Book Reading

My father proudly boasts when talking about his reading vocation that he has completed a city branch library's collection by the time he is in 8th standard. It draws a lot of admiration especially from people who don't read a lot. To people who struggle to traverse from the first page to last page of a single book, it surely looks like quite an achievement. During my childhood I looked up on my dad as a source of inspiration and as a man of achievement. How ever, I cannot say I took up habit of reading by drawing inspiration from him. More it appears to me so, because despite having an admiration for my dad, our paths diverged by the time I reached fag end of teenage.

It may have something to do with genes as science folks call it or it may have something to do with samskaras as religious/spiritual folks call it. Some tendencies came to me from childhood and my dad proved to be a catalyst. My dad did his best to ensure myself and my sister read every story of every child publication every month like chandamama, bala mithra, bala ranjani etc., The habit got cultivated in me and my sister never ever inclined to read anything outside college curriculum. So I need to think it is attributable to samskara or tendencies. As a kid I did not have the ability to distinguish between good read and bad read. My mother had to give up her habit of reading novels and other weekly magazines as she got scared that I am reading them when she was busy. I read everything starting from old news paper to anything that is available. Once when we were on a trip to holy place called MahaNandi, my family locked the room and vacated the choultry with out realizing that I was missing from them as I was busy reading an old news paper I found in the back side of choultry. Did this reading help me anyway? I think it surely did. In one of the school internal exams our telugu teacher who is little adventurous formulated question paper with one question that is out of syllabus. I became overnight star in school and my telugu teacher canvassed for me. On another occasion I stepped into class X's room to meet our head of department for telugu to nominate myself for essay writing competition. Our head of department was asking another out of syllabus question "who wrote book named Svarganiki Nichenalu? If you answer this you are smart and if you don't answer this you are waste as he is the best telugu poet to have lived in this century" No one could answer. I took cue from "best telugu poet" and gave him the correct answer. At that instant I became his favorite student.

During school days I have spent lot of my pocket money on books. Everytime there is a book exhibition by Vishalandra publication or Rama krishna mission, I used to find some book or other that is worth buying. Many a time I cursed my small pocket allowance as it is not providing for buying all the books I wanted to buy. During my 10th standard and Intermediate, my madness reached its pinnacle. Most of my dad's salary went towards my book allowance. I purchased virtually every book available for 10th class students and some observers felt they are seeing a state rank student. It is a different story that I completely disappointed them. During my intermediate instead of spending festival holiday time with my parents, I travelled to Vizag as my uncle promised me some physics books he used during his MSc that may come handy for me. This is all academics so it did not people bother much.

Even though adhoc here and there I read books that I can lay hands on, real turning point was when I playfully stepped into college library's top floor where among list of abandoned books I found the book Svarganiki Nichenalu. Curiosity motivated me to read it to understand why the writer was named "best poet". Thats my first real encounter with work of Viswanatha Satyanarayana and it has gotten an ocean of change in me. Later I read novel "Cheliyali Katta", which depicts the limits a woman must not cross and the upholds Indian marriage at the highest level. By the time I read "Veyi Padagalu" I am a disciple. Today I have read more than 25 of his novels, all of his telugu dramas. It is a completely different matter that lot of people looked at me in disbelief that I spent over 6000 bucks to buy the prized possession of his writings.

In between, for a brief period I turned my attention to English classics like David Copperfield, Three musketeers. Irrespective of the language the well written book brings an 'aha' experience to me. The experience of learning a new aspect be it related to Indian traditions, lifestyle of ancient french warriors, mannerisms of British people of centuries ago. Cannot say every new learning accumulated induced a transformation but it induced a value ad at maturity. Surely some of this maturity came handy when faced with adverse situations in life. More importantly reading has helped me learn some skills that are very important in life like understand the difference between right and wrong, importance of character and how good deeds pay in long run and bad deeds cost in long run. Reading also filled the vacuum created in life when I had no access/less access to intellectual company of friends. It helped me also reflect internally on how in real situation I would have reacted if a similar situation as in book arises. Even though it cant be counted for as preparedness as every challenge in life I faced so far is unique one and path chosen as well is unique to my personality.

One book that stands out that influenced me althrough life is Ramayan. It is the Adi Kavya written by Valmiki and depicts life of Seetha. Yes true!! It is life of Seetha than Rama that Valmiki has written. He himself described its as Seethaayascharitam mahat. There are so many characters in Ramayan that are so Dharmic. Lord Rama who is an embodiment of Dharma. Seetha who is divine lady has shown how a chaste wife should be and kshama guna to be displayed. Laksmana is a special brother whom Rama describes as with out Lakshman I don't need Ayodhya, I don't need this world and even Seetha. Hanuman supreme devotee. Bharata who impresses me a lot for he has relinquished Ayodhya that has been given to his rule. Even Ravana himself is an ideal villain and Hanuma spoke highly of Ravana's stature which got corrupted by one wrong deed he committed. Every character is so ideal that's people say Ramayana is Adarsa Jeevanam. There are days when I used to roam in Koti/Abids area for searching good books on roadside shops. On almost every occasion I ended up buying one version/copy of Ramayan atleast as it pained me a bit to see such a great book to be placed on road platform.

In these years I have also come across some books that should not be touched, if reader is kind of person who easily gets influenced. I threw away certain books written by Tapi Dharma Rao, who tried to proclaim certain bad ideas with extreme explanation and derogatory remarks to certain customs. (excepting may be his commentary on VijayaVilasam for which he received Sahitya academy award) I have refrained from touching anything that has name Ranganayakamma on the front page.Her Ramayana Vishavriksham aimed at finding faults in Lord Rama, a flawless character and embodiment of Dharma. But there is a learning there too. People intended in finding faults can do so with any one. If one can find faults with Rama, what about mere mortals like us? A best seller book like Men are Mars and Women are from Venus failed to impress me. I knowingly purchased a book called maidanam by Chalam where he presented a case for infidelity. Naturally I am not an admirer of such things but curiosity dragged me into purchase of that book as I learnt that great book like Cheliyali Katta was written merely to counter arguments made by Chalam and to show how flawed they are. It is different matter that after first page I felt it too gross to continue reading.

I will conclude with a quote that "A good book is not the one which thinks for you, a good is one which makes you think"