Love of Books
Books transform lives. They enlighten us. I am a lover of books, stories and pictorials. Media articles, weekend magazines and podcasts. This story is how my love of reading began and continues to thrive. They were a centrepiece in my early childhood, teenage years and beyond. It fuelled my imaginative mind. I am a better person because I read.
My grandmother was a tantalising storyteller. She lived with us from time immemorial. She latched onto a set of unique stories about animals. About crows, foxes, cows and rabbits. While she fed me, she’d make rice balls and tempt me with her stories. She’d slowly push a rice ball in when she had my attention. Mesmerised by her stories and immersed in my grandmother’s unique linguistic skills, I did not notice that I was being fed. I was treated again to her stories when I slept on her bed. They stoked my childhood imagination till I fell asleep. I dreamt about her stories.
My grandfather was a retired school principal. He was a learned man, way ahead of his contemporaries. In his home was a large cabinet filled with books. It was huge and tall. It had glass cabinet doors and was a spectacular early childhood visual impression, a marvel for a small boy.
When I was seven, I received my first holy communion. It entailed a ritual ceremony in a Catholic household. Among the gifts I received was a prayer book from my godfather. The small handbook was beautifully laid out, with vivid colour pictures of a religious nature. I cherished the prayer book, turning its pages daily for many years.
When I was eight, my father gave me a picture book based on the Old Testament. The book was about the bible character, Joseph, and his generosity and forgiveness. Joseph was his father’s favourite son. His elder brothers were jealous of him. He was sold to the slave masters by his brothers, and they lied to their father that Joseph was killed while travelling. Joseph not only survived but, through sheer hard work, became a leader in Egypt by the time he was thirty. Instead of taking revenge on his brothers who plotted to perish him, he forgave them magnanimously. It was a life lesson for a young boy.
When my grandfather passed away, his shiny book cabinet ended up at our home. It was placed in the front room, now occupied by my uncle, my mother’s brother, who kept it locked. Whenever I had a chance, I peeped through the room window, admiring the cabinet and the books on display from a distance. It stoked my curiosity and imagination about what these locked-up books contained inside their pages.
When my younger brother turned one, there was a small ceremony. He was placed in the middle of the house on a mat. Varieties of food, fruits, a rosary and a book were placed on the mat. Everyone watched what he would pick to predict what his future could be. My brother picked up the book, overlooking the food and the rosary. Everybody clapped at his selection of a book.
When I was around ten, I was a regular visitor to Glen Kehl’s home, one of the neighbours. Glen and I attended preschool together. He had a collection of comics on Superman and the Long Ranger. I spent hours reading his comic books at his home. Glen was generous and allowed me to borrow them regularly.
I read the weekend newspaper from the front to the last page at home. Local and international politics, world news, art and society, pictorials and short stories. I loved the short stories and pictorials. They were fascinating. I read them everywhere, sitting on the floor at my father’s feet, on my bed and on the steps of our verandah. I learnt a lot about the world order.
Master Tissera was a distant relative and a retired teacher who lived in our neighbourhood. He and his wife had no kids. He’d engage me in serious conversations when I was in the neighbourhood. Figuring out my interest in reading, he invited me to his house to borrow his books and magazines. I took up his offer. In his home was a large library filled with books and magazines. As I kept browsing through and applaud it the range of books he owned, Master Tissera engaged me in serious conversations. He was a socialist, and our chats centred on socialism and the evils of capitalism.
At eleven years of age, I learned through his books and magazines that the Western bloc was creating havoc in its pursuit of global military and economic power. Unrest in Vietnam against America was brewing. I read first-hand accounts of starvation in Africa and Asia and the resulting deaths. Meanwhile, rich Yankees were dumping their excess stocks of wheat in the ocean to maintain high global prices for their produce.
Then there were magazines from the UK, USA and West Germany to which my father subscribed. These were free magazines extolling the life of the free world and democracy. The western embassies of Sri Lanka tried to influence the populace by distributing free magazines. Immersing in these magazines, I glimpsed the virtues and evils of both socialism and capitalism in the world outside Sri Lanka. I became egalitarian in my outlook early on.
I lived at the Christian brothers’ boarding school and studied in 7th grade. Master Jayamanne, my class master, was great at storytelling. He taught us Sinhala literature and history. I studied English and the local Sri Lankan language, Sinhala. I read junior fiction, Robinson Crusoe and Oliver Twist in English. I learnt Sri Lankan literature on the previous births of Buddha in human and animal forms. The Buddhist stories were fascinating and dark in contrast to my upbringing. In the boarding school was a small library of English books which I helped myself lavishly. I read Time, Newsweek and Life magazines from the library. I lusted for anything with print. I became a fast reader. I was becoming a world citizen.
I could not resist opening my grandfather’s books during school holidays at home. I figured out how to force the cabinet doors open when my uncle was away during the workweek. It was a huge achievement to open the treasured book cabinet, having dreamt about it from the time I could remember. I started browsing the books and magazines starting from a corner. My grandfather’s books and magazines were dated from the early 1910s to the 1950s, a nostalgic era when knowledge gain was much harder.
There were issues of the National Geographic Magazine from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. I read their captivating articles and admired their vivid pictures. I had great glimpses of the world outside my small island, Sri Lanka. I learnt about the magnificence of the world’s tallest building at the time, the Empire State Building, with its 102 stories. In comparison, the tallest building in Sri Lanka had only 13 stories. The contrast in development between my country and the western world was far too wide to compare. I was amazed to read about life in Europe and the Americas.
There were bound Encyclopedias, a treasure beyond measure at the time. I turned their pages, mesmerised by their details. I could hardly understand the content. For a boy curious about books and knowledge, they were manna from heaven. I turned pages one by one every day, almost unable to grasp the variety and width of the knowledge in front of me.
Then there was a range of religious books with pictures. They had picture-perfect images of God the Father, Jesus, the angels, Mother Mary, Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden of Eden, the vicious-looking devil in the shape of a black servant. Dreadful images of sinners burning in hell created to generate fear among little boys like me. There were Old Testament chronicles, images of Abraham, Moses and other key characters from the Bible.
Some notebooks and journals belonged to my grandfather. Journals carried his essays. The majority of the topics were on character building and good values. These were from 1910 to the 1920s when he was a young man. His grammar skills in both Sinhala and English were impeccable. His handwriting was beautiful. One his firstborn grandson could aspire to. I was destined to be a no-nonsense human. The wheel had been invented for me in my family line.
My mother did not know I was going through the family book archives in my uncle’s room. The books and magazines were considered precious. A kid of thirteen years was not expected to handle them and possibly damage them.
I continued my probes of the books and magazines, hiding in the front room. Curiosity had got the better of me. Printed words and pictures seemed to have a way with me. It was an addiction I could not give up.
Meanwhile, in school, I helped to run the school bookshop. It was a privileged opportunity, and I took it up. Often, I ran the bookshop myself with no supervision. It was a responsible, prestigious position for a thirteen-year-old boy. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Boys from the school would queue up at the counter. Being in charge of so many books and stationery was a privilege.
In junior school, I helped in the publishing of the school newsletter. I produced short articles and combined them with my artwork.
In high school, I read Readers Digest magazines borrowed from my classmates. In the boarding school, I was voted in as the secretary of the English literature union. I felt great conducting the monthly meetings and publishing the minutes. It was another opportunity to read more and lead. I had read most of the English literature in the boarding library. I was now bi-lingual at thirteen. That too fluently in both languages.
Being in a religious institute, I was given a missal, a liturgical book that contains readings for everyday mass. Once a week, I stood in front of the church congregation and read at the pulpit fitted with a microphone. A coveted privilege for a fourteen-year-old boy.
In high school, too, I helped out in the school bookshop. I did well in my English literature, surpassing my grades in Sinhala, my native language, at fifteen in the general certificate of examination. My father joked that I was forgetting my mother tongue.
This was the age of curiosity for a teenager at fifteen. There was a metal trunk under my parents’ bed. Fascinated by this newfound treasure at home, I managed to open it. I found a treasure of books and magazines inside it. Film magazines with photos of film stars from the 1950s. Then I found another treasure. Several sex education books. I figured that they belonged to my father when he was a young lad. Sexuality is not something that is openly discussed and debated in Sri Lanka. I delved into these magazines when I was free, enjoying them thoroughly in my growing-up years.
I started to exchange novels with some of my classmates in school. Prominent among them were novels by British author James Hadley Chase. His novels were so fast-paced that I was compelled to turn the pages in a non-stop effort to reach the end. Sex was implied rather than described.
I was fascinated by Tin Tin, the worldwide comic character of the 20th century. I started buying each of the comic series with my pocket money. I bought one painstakingly every month. I read them repeatedly until I knew every page of the vast collection. I accumulated the entire Tin Tin collection over a few years. I wanted to be like Tin Tin. He was my hero.
I continued to read any book, magazine or newspaper I could lay my hands on. I frequented the library in my early years at the university college. If there was nothing to read at home, I read my parents Bible. Particularly the stories from the Old Testament about conflicts, wars, miracles, kings and sexual adventures. The latter was in cryptic words written to deceive youngsters like me.
Both my parents read. They each had their journals. My father kept written records of everything. I admired his skills in writing and his deep understanding of social issues.
Every night, I read until I fell asleep. My father habitually checked on his children after they fell asleep. He turned the bedside light off, turned off my transistor radio and removed any books found on my chest.
When I started working, I frequented bookstores now that I had a disposable income. I bought pop and Indian film magazines. I bought MAD magazines. I loved reading them all. Magazines from England, the US and India. My English continued to improve with exposure to a wider range of international linguistic skills.
I read during every free moment I had. I read during my travels and bus rides. I was so engrossed in reading during the daily commutes that I occasionally missed my bus stop.
I continued my beloved habit when I landed in Dubai in my early twenties. Reading novels and magazines became a natural pastime for me. Working in a British bank, I had access to a range of English publications, particularly the Financial Times and the Economist. I read them at home and in my shared taxi ride to work and back. Dubai was a country with strict censorship. Many articles from the magazines were blacked out by the country’s censors.
I worked in technology in finance and subscribed to a few American magazines. PC Magazine was one such magazine. I particularly liked articles from John Dvorak and his brash commentary. Americans have a way of telling you what it is. A skill I learned early in life.
When I migrated with my young family to Sydney, Australia, it provided a great opportunity to dwell on my past time. Libraries were and still are everywhere in this country. My daily commute to the central business district and back took one hour each trip. A perfect time to enjoy my reading. I borrowed books and magazines from one of the biggest libraries, the Sydney City Library.
My kids were growing up. I introduced them to the joy of reading. My eldest became an avid reader, just like her dad. A time came when there were no more junior fiction books in the city library in Sydney that my eldest had not read. I borrowed a maximum allowed of ten books at a time, and within a week, I had to return them after my kids had finished with them. My eldest, at a young age, started reading books and novels way beyond her age. Early on, she became a pragmatic socialist and literature buff. In junior school, she looked after the school library. For work experience in high school, she ended up as an intern for a leading technology magazine and eventually graduated in journalism.
Libraries are places to fall in love with books, magazines and pictorials. Library environments provide enchantment. Shared spaces and the serendipity of silence in a library are divine experiences. The surprise of finding a book I had never thought of in a library is divine. I developed my photography skills by emulating famous photographers' work from borrowed books.
My favourite authors are Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Shyam Selvadurai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth and R. K. Narayan — A common feature among my favourite writers are they are a collection of ex-pat writers from the part of Asia I hail from. I admire the direct language of Arundhati Roy, including her political bravado, the sophisticated storytelling techniques of Rohinton Mistry and the beautiful narratives of my home country by Shyam Selvadurai. I am dazzled by the old-world stories of R. K. Narayan. All of them have influenced my creative writing.
I would not be what I am if not for my reading. I am a better human, thanks to my addiction. I have books and magazines everywhere, in my lounge, work bag, and bedside, just like when I was a teenager. I listen to podcasts from creative writers and designers during my daily walks.
Where are my characters today?
My eldest child, a bookworm who graduated in journalism, is now a design guru in Sydney. I now borrow books from her instead. I help her with the charity foundation she has set up with her husband. I learn about advocacy for two causes she is passionate about, climate change, women’s education and eradication of poverty. Room to Read is one of the organisations she helps with. I borrow books from her now. How’s that for a complete reversal of roles?
My younger brother, who chose a book over food at one year of age, ended up being a scholar, earning his PhD in Canada. He was the first to obtain a degree in my neighbourhood and probably the first to obtain a PhD in my home village.
I worked with a direct descendant of the founder of the Smithsonian Institute in the USA when I was in Dubai. Thank you, Jane Smithson, for your candid interactions with me back in the day.
Most of my parents and grandfather’s books, notebooks, journals and diaries have survived, showing a glimpse of their aspirations to seek knowledge. They are now preserved with me here in Sydney, Australia, some 9000 kilometres from where they penned them. They will be passed down to my future generations as a testimony of the spirit of their ancestors before me.
My Tin Tin collection was lovingly preserved by my father and is in Sydney. The series will be gifted to my grandchildren when they are big enough to enjoy them.
My father’s Parker Pen is also preserved here in Sydney to be passed onto my descendants as a symbol of their proud heritage.
Glen Kehl, who generously parted with his comic books for his friend, lives in Melbourne, Australia. We keep in touch regularly, reminiscing about the carefree days on the island of Sri Lanka.
We were also a family of journal keepers; it is a story for another day.
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