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“My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” —Tahereh Mafi

Turning the page...


Eesha Duggal

“My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”  —Tahereh Mafi

Moments turn to days, days to weeks and weeks to months, but words once read, once felt, may inhabit the crannies of the mind for eternity. Every so often, they get stuck to the soul, only to be our vanguard and saviour. A pen is mightier than the sword and “a word after a word after a word is power”. That’s what literature does. It strengthens… word after word.

Some stories become our distinctive roadmaps and characters companions. We empathise with them, surrender, and sometimes even fall in love with them. And oh! How profoundly we connect to Quasimodo’s pain (Notre Dame de Paris), Meursault’s detachment (The Stranger), Prince Myshkin’s innocence (The Idiot), Atticus Finch’s sagacity (To Kill A Mockingbird), Heathcliff’s agony and passion (The Wuthering Heights) and Anna’s emotional honesty (Anna Karenina). Good books stir, shake and shock. Sometimes, they take us to the rainbow and let us fly. Other times they burst our bubbles. “It kills me,” as would say Holden Caufield (The 

Catcher in the Rye). 

 

I opened a book and in I strode

Now nobody can find me

I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,

My town and my world behind me.

— Julia Donaldson

“We often get consumed in the mundane and the alacrity with which we should lead our lives goes missing. Sometimes, we are completely oblivious to how many emotions are at play in our system; and then you come across an awe-inspiring book and amazingly, it speaks for you. It breathes life into those entombed dreams. It is almost cathartic, surreal. You find solace in the lives of protagonists and even anti-heroes, as you laugh and cry with them. The mere feeling that you are not alone in your experiences of joy, sadness and madness is a relief. Can we ever get this close to reality anywhere else? Maybe we can, maybe we cannot. But it doesn’t matter. A book makes up for it all,” says Shawal Aulakh Virk, a former lecturer of English at LPU and at present working in student services at a Sydney college.

“I cannot boast of having read as many books as I’d like, but whatever I have has shaped my imagination, ideas and perception,” says Shawal.

 

“If there’s a book that you want to read, and it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison

“I have been an ardent reader since the age of 10. I started reading novels serialised in weekly newspapers and it kindled my interest in reading. Since then, I haven’t known a friend better than a book,” says Kunal Verma, a postgraduate in Economics, as he flips through Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.  

“Books are home. You develop deep connections with some characters and when you realise how beautifully they resonate with your thoughts, you wonder how they manage to do that. How in the world did they translate it in words? And that’s the time you know your life is a story too and that your experiences are special, if not extraordinary. Literature has not only made me tolerant, but has also sensitised me to the fact that all humans are uniquely imperfect (and it’s okay), and that every man is defined by his destiny. I hope to bring my own story to the world someday,” admits Kunal.

 

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” —CS Lewis

“When I was in school, we were given books as gifts. I started off with Noddy series in KG and the bond has only strengthened since. Not only did I love reading, especially The Hardy Boys and Agatha Christie books, I also felt I was the heroine of those stories. I had my imaginary spy hat on every time I read detective novels. Dabir Sheikh, my schoolteacher, would often quote Keats and Shelly in the class. Not just the English writers, but he was proficient in Urdu also and it was a privilege to listen to him quoting Urdu couplets. All this has made in me the person that I am,” says Indu Bala Singh, a retired professor of English and a documentary and film-maker.

“I did honours in chemistry but since I was well read since schooldays, going back to literature and completing Masters in English was never a challenge. As a professor of English literature, I managed to inculcate in my students the love for books because of my teachers. Besides, I am also a documentary maker. I keep exploring the power of celluloid literary adaptions and ways to bring out characters of the book on the screen,” she maintains.  

“Literature connects. It transcends all barriers. I went to Turkey a few years ago especially to visit the Museum of Innocence after reading Orhan Pamuk’s book by the same name. On my way to the museum, every person I came across felt like a character straight out of the book. I met a beautiful young girl at the museum and told her she reminded me of Fusun. Of course, she had read the novel and we immediately became friends,” says a smiling Indu. 

 

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” — Maya Angelou

“I can’t claim I have been reading since an early age. I developed taste for it in teenage. I met some really inspiring teachers in college and that’s when I decided to pursue the same profession,” says Rana Nayar, retired professor of English from Panjab University and a literary critic.

“There’s a deep connection between life and literature. Books have to transform your life. They have to be the way you live. If you can’t connect literature with life, there’s no use of it. You have to love the books you read and the books you teach,” says Nayar.

 

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” —Neil Gaiman

“When you’re somebody who connects more with the people in books than with the outside world, you must brace for some unpleasant judgements and allegations. And that’s why people must read in order to be more accepting and compassionate. I have always preferred a leisure weekend with my books over ‘hanging out’. In school, everybody thought I was struggling with inferiority, that I was a nerd with my nose in the books all the time, incapable of forming friendships. But when you read, it naturally makes you less vulnerable to follies and triviality. And when you do form relationships, they are genuine and deep. I have a family of scholars and they are very supportive. I am married to a woman who’s also my best friend. And because I have my books, I shall never be lonely,” says a software engineer, who would just like to be called ‘Frankenstein’.

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