Not everyone remembers how or where they found their favourite book , some don't even know what that book is . It's that one book you could read over and over again but never tire of the story that rests in it's soft pages. For me , it was when I was 11 in Grade 6 ( being a December baby , I spend most years being the last to hit the appropriate age for my grade ) and the book that became my most beloved was "A Suitable Boy " by Vikram Seth . A heavy and large novel that often (as the author warned in the poem that was on the front pages ) I did sprain my wrists many times carrying the immense volume around.
I recall finding the book , hidden amongst the various papers and files of old electricity bills and family photographs . High up in a cupboard in the kitchen , one that I could reach by getting onto the cold counter and holding tightly onto the bars of the window , all the bric-a-brac that couldn't be thrown away or stored elsewhere had lain dormant for a while . Now to understand why I had ascended to the heights of this cupboard , it must be stated that I was searching for a comic book I thought I had lost . I had an insatiable appetite for Archie comics , at that age it was to read something not so serious . They had taken pride of place among my classics and books about war or history or something altogether too depressing when one needed a laugh . So I went on a hunt to find a few that I thought had disappeared .
It must've been summer , because I remember the day being chilly and cloudy skies that threatened to dampen the freshly cut grass in the neighbours yard . So I dragged a chair over to the cupboard(being my last resort as nowhere else yielded success ) and climbed up . I love the smell of paper, old paper to be specific . Not that musty scent but that warm aroma that seems to smell like sharpened pencils , so this cupboard was filled with these smells and also of the glittering pine-cone smell of Christmas decorations that were in a box in the corner . Well I used to think it glittered as the tinsel peeped out of the box . I digress , anyway , so I sifted through the cupboard with one hand (the other clinging to the window bar like a monkey of sorts ) and after a long time I noticed a thick book I had ignored for a while . I had read one or two other books that my father (who is also a voracious reader) had left up there , but they were Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy . Not really what I was looking for , but nevertheless I hauled this large book out . The cover was of a river and a boat with two silhouettes on it and the pages were the most delicate and thin I have ever felt . Almost see through and incredibly smooth, the ink stood out dark and rich to the touch. I should have read it immediately ... But I didn't .
Instead I read a bleak drama about a woman who decided to move ahead in life and mine gold after her husband died ... And then I re-read Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw ( My Fair Lady in theatre ) and eventually I got to reading this book that would keep in enthralled for days on end . I've learned that the beauty of a good book , is not merely the first page ( because I will never just read the first page ) but the first two or three chapters . However , this book had a first page that leaped out at me .. And soon I was taken to a wedding in India ..
That is the mark of a great book . I won't dwell on the rest of the book because there's too much and it's too real to be boiled down into a quick summation. At its core is a love story , not completely atypical but not your cookie-cutter boy-meets-girl . There are extracts I will read in isolation or maybe I have a whim to relive the entire book . Invariably it is the latter .
I'm not saying , "Go read it !!" because all taste does differ (however I highly recommend it ) but find a book , any book , that you can read again and again , finding something new each time . And find a book that speaks to your core , regardless of how abstract the relation may be. The solace of a good book surpasses any other distraction when you most need to find comfort ,
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