It was way back in 2012. I was visiting my first cousin after a long gap. Unlike the previous visits, that visit was special. For the first time, I was going to meet my niece. She would turn three soon and it was a regret that I couldn’t meet her till then. As I packed my bags for the vacation, a sudden thought hit my head. How would I meet those eager eyes without a gift in hand? But what would make a possible gift for such a young kid? I neither had time left to go shopping nor did I have any intention of buying out such tender love with luxurious gifts.
As a sudden reflex I quickly walked to my books rack. Pushing aside the new titles of polity and history, I fished out my old books. Books that have seen my childhood spent amidst their cool shade. As I caressed through their hard bound smooth covers, I felt a wave of hair tickle my hands. Every time I go through this section of my rack, I get the same feeling of nostalgia. It was like attending a get-together of old friends who have remained unchanged and unaltered with age and time. The only visible change was the way they polish their narrations according to my ability to understand.
Caressing the titles in my hand and reeling through their gist in my mind, I thus spent a decent amount of time before I realized that I was searching for something bigger than that, something nobler, something worth more than an old book. As an afterthought I shoved through the cartons of old books. As I fished out my notebooks and textbooks of primary years of schooling, my heart was racing to find its most wanted treasure. I heaped the books beside me in an unruly manner. As I struggled through the end of the carton, for a second I remembered to have seen what I have been searching for. It flashed in front of my eyes before I heaved it into the disastrous heap. I slowed my breath for a moment and slowly removed the top layer of the heaped books one by one. It’s worn out red cover appeared from the midst. I carefully took it into my hands as if to feel the life in it. Its pulse was still hitting hard bubbling with life to tell its tales. As I carefully wiped the cover with a cloth, the golden font glittered over the red cover reading, “Chandamama”.
I put the book in my bag and rushed to the railway station. I would have missed the train had I not found the book on time. Mother would call me in a while to complain about the mess that I left behind. Anyways, all that matter right then was the book and its weight of tales that I carried till then. What was annoying yet interesting was that I haven’t gone through the book till then. That was the reason why I felt it a book worth gifting. The book was a collection of tales from a magazine called Chandamama. All its tales were narrated to me by my mother. I still remember the way I would run for the magazine and pester my mother to read it out for me. Once she completes her chores, as I sat across her stomach, she would read the story out and explain it to me word by word. We would then have a long chat about the moral of the story and why and how the characters behaved in a certain way. It was a long wait for the next month’s edition until I get to hear a new story.
As the train made way towards its destination, I tried to control my memories which seemed to compete with the train to reach their source. I controlled the urge to go through the book and relive my childhood. I didn’t want to plunder the treasure that I so vehemently protected for so long. Every time I tried to open the book I was either disinterested or annoyed. May be the book was not meant for me. I was just a protector of its tales until they reach the right ears. Laughing at myself for over-exhausting the situation, I called it a day as the lights turned shut down in the compartment. What I didn’t know that moment was that I had a greater task on hand more than just being a protector of tales.
The next day as I gifted the book to my niece she gave me a look of surprise. I knew at that moment that I was continuing the practise of my father, of gifting books to the young hearts in an attempt to stay in their good books forever. The meeting went as expected and I had no incidents to mention in detail. That night as I sat down to write my diary, my little niece approached me with the book in her hand. It was weighing too heavy in her little hands. Shoving the book at my face she asked me in one single word “Story”. I couldn’t help myself smiling at that innocent thirst for a story. With a contented heart I lifted her to my chair and opened the book. For the first time in my life I was reading through the book. As I went through the pages, I could see myself embedded within them lying on my mother’s lap hearing the tales as they spoke in a strange tongue to her eyes. Those jumbled lines which enthralled me as a kid were once again playing their trick at the kid in my arms. That moment I realized that while some books were meant for the eyes, some were meant for the ears. They are the books that love to be heard rather than read.
As a sudden reflex I quickly walked to my books rack. Pushing aside the new titles of polity and history, I fished out my old books. Books that have seen my childhood spent amidst their cool shade. As I caressed through their hard bound smooth covers, I felt a wave of hair tickle my hands. Every time I go through this section of my rack, I get the same feeling of nostalgia. It was like attending a get-together of old friends who have remained unchanged and unaltered with age and time. The only visible change was the way they polish their narrations according to my ability to understand.
Caressing the titles in my hand and reeling through their gist in my mind, I thus spent a decent amount of time before I realized that I was searching for something bigger than that, something nobler, something worth more than an old book. As an afterthought I shoved through the cartons of old books. As I fished out my notebooks and textbooks of primary years of schooling, my heart was racing to find its most wanted treasure. I heaped the books beside me in an unruly manner. As I struggled through the end of the carton, for a second I remembered to have seen what I have been searching for. It flashed in front of my eyes before I heaved it into the disastrous heap. I slowed my breath for a moment and slowly removed the top layer of the heaped books one by one. It’s worn out red cover appeared from the midst. I carefully took it into my hands as if to feel the life in it. Its pulse was still hitting hard bubbling with life to tell its tales. As I carefully wiped the cover with a cloth, the golden font glittered over the red cover reading, “Chandamama”.
I put the book in my bag and rushed to the railway station. I would have missed the train had I not found the book on time. Mother would call me in a while to complain about the mess that I left behind. Anyways, all that matter right then was the book and its weight of tales that I carried till then. What was annoying yet interesting was that I haven’t gone through the book till then. That was the reason why I felt it a book worth gifting. The book was a collection of tales from a magazine called Chandamama. All its tales were narrated to me by my mother. I still remember the way I would run for the magazine and pester my mother to read it out for me. Once she completes her chores, as I sat across her stomach, she would read the story out and explain it to me word by word. We would then have a long chat about the moral of the story and why and how the characters behaved in a certain way. It was a long wait for the next month’s edition until I get to hear a new story.
As the train made way towards its destination, I tried to control my memories which seemed to compete with the train to reach their source. I controlled the urge to go through the book and relive my childhood. I didn’t want to plunder the treasure that I so vehemently protected for so long. Every time I tried to open the book I was either disinterested or annoyed. May be the book was not meant for me. I was just a protector of its tales until they reach the right ears. Laughing at myself for over-exhausting the situation, I called it a day as the lights turned shut down in the compartment. What I didn’t know that moment was that I had a greater task on hand more than just being a protector of tales.
The next day as I gifted the book to my niece she gave me a look of surprise. I knew at that moment that I was continuing the practise of my father, of gifting books to the young hearts in an attempt to stay in their good books forever. The meeting went as expected and I had no incidents to mention in detail. That night as I sat down to write my diary, my little niece approached me with the book in her hand. It was weighing too heavy in her little hands. Shoving the book at my face she asked me in one single word “Story”. I couldn’t help myself smiling at that innocent thirst for a story. With a contented heart I lifted her to my chair and opened the book. For the first time in my life I was reading through the book. As I went through the pages, I could see myself embedded within them lying on my mother’s lap hearing the tales as they spoke in a strange tongue to her eyes. Those jumbled lines which enthralled me as a kid were once again playing their trick at the kid in my arms. That moment I realized that while some books were meant for the eyes, some were meant for the ears. They are the books that love to be heard rather than read.
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