Books. What would we do without the treasure trove.
I grew up in a house where books were not kept aside. They
were in the middle of everything. Conversations would slip into quotes without
announcement. Characters would come up like familiar people.
And because it wasn’t just one reader but everyone, the
conversation never really ended.
One person would pass a book, another would respond with a
different one, and slowly you found yourself inside that flow without deciding
to enter it.
That is how most of my memories around books are held
together. Not as separate moments, but as people passing something to me at the
right time.
My grandfather did that first. While others speak of summer
outings, mine meant walking into Higginbotham’s and coming back with
illustrated books. He was an accomplished teacher, known among his students as
a walking dictionary. With him, books weren’t a hobby. They were the most
natural gift.
At school, my mother extended that same rhythm. She would
bring home library books for the holidays, and I remember feeling quietly
included in something important. That soon turned into rental libraries, where
the pace picked up. Two books a day. Read, return, exchange. It wasn’t
pressure. It was momentum.
So when I watched R. K. Narayan’s short story series on
television in fifth grade, it didn’t feel new. I had already met that world
through Swami and Friends. This was just the story continuing in another form.
My uncle, who watched it with me, seemed to understand that. The next time we
met, he gave me the published version of those stories. Another handoff.
Another continuation.
That’s really how it kept growing. A library teacher placing
The Good Earth in my hands. My brother bringing in non fiction that stayed with
me through my corporate years. My mother reading Shakespeare and, without
saying much, showing me what language could hold.
And then, much later, Srikanth slipped into that same
pattern without trying to. When we first started talking, the conversations
didn’t really stop. Somewhere in between, he mentioned that the latest book he
had read and discussed with his grandmother was The Tao of Physics. It sounded
like a conversation already in motion. And I remember thinking, I want in. So I
read it. Cover to cover. Entirely to keep up, and also, if I’m being honest, to
impress that very interesting grandmother. It gave me a place in that
conversation. That’s all I needed.
Even now, it hasn’t changed. I still read across genres. I
take recommendations from my niece. I return to the same people to talk about
what stayed after the last page.
When I look at it now, it doesn’t feel like a series of
memories. It feels like one continuous exchange. Books moving through people,
and people shaping how those books stayed with me.
Writing, then, didn’t arrive separately. It grew out of that
same exchange.
Books have always been there. But more than that, there has
always been someone placing the next one in my hands.
From a Tamil aficionado aunt who drops a line so precise it
sends me back to the book, to a cousin who insists, “Akka, you have to read
this,” to a friend who checks in on my take on whatever is on the
bestseller charts, to someone who sends a quote with a quiet smile because it
mirrors a core idea I often return to, all of you are part of this.
Which is to say, I am always one recommendation away from a
good book. What’s yours?
P.S. If you’re curious about what I’ve been writing, you can
find it here: https://www.amazon.in/stores/Janani-Srikanth/author/B0BTX2G413
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