Reading

Reading is one habit that i wear as a badge of honor. Whether reading a book or article, this is what i do during most of my waking hours.

Children books

The first memories of my reading involves reading Tamil children magazines Poonthalir, Ambulimama and Rani Comics. Somehow my father always preferred to by Rathnabala, which i did not really enjoy.

I also used to read Sindbad and Chanakyan Sol, daily fixtures in Daily Thanthi, ↗ a Tamil daily bought by our elderly neighbor Janarthanam. Sometimes, they never made sense to me, but still i used to read them as a habit.

General books

As i grew up, read jokes and short stories in Tamil magazines like Kumudam and Anantha Vikatan, which were bought by parents. My father will ask me to read some interesting short stories.

Later my father encouraged me to read serialized translated fiction like Sidney Sheldon’s “If Tomorrow Comes” which appeared as Thaaragai (தாரகை). I also read “The Invisible Man” by H G Wells as Kannukku Theriyathavan Kaadhalikkiran (கண்ணுக்குத் தெரியாதவன் காதலிக்கிறான்).

I also remember reading some episodes of non-fiction “Neengal Virumbuvathu Eduvaanalum Athai Adaivathu Eppadi” a translation of How to Get Whatever You Want and “Idho Udhavi” a translation of “Here’s Help” by the same author.

During this period, i also read chapters of Kalki’s historical fiction Ponniyin Selvan ↗ serialized in Kalki Magazine, which was bought by our tenants.

My first attempt to read a English book was “The Body in the Library” by Agatha Christie also from friend Raja. This, i promptly returned as i could not make head or tail. Somewhere either before or after this failed attempt, his parents suggested me to read from their collection of Asterix & Obelix.

Libraries

Somewhere during my sixth to eighth standard, my father made me a member of the nearest Government branch library located in Akilnaidu street in Cuddalore .

After my tenth standard, i became a member of District Central Library in Manjakuppam, which was en route to my school.

There was a Deepam lending library in Koothapakkam at this point of time. I did borrow some Tamil books from here, but the owner was not the most friendliest person around. In fact someone had to recommend me to him before he even lent me the first book. He was also not willing to reduce the lending charges, if i returned the books earlier than the allotted number of days.

During my college days in Vellore , i had a lending library at less than 200m from my residence in Bagayam. The library was run by an ex-serviceman and it stocked a good collection of English fiction books. The owner was friendly and encouraged me by guiding on what to read next etc

Around my final year or somewhere there, i also became a member of British Council Library ↗ in Chennai. This i did mainly to get exposure to English magazines like “The Economist” and other British books.

At this time, i also used to listen to the short wave broadcasts of BBC Radio World service on a Philips Radio, a gift i got for scoring 196 in Mathematics. My friend Nagarajan used to make fun that i was probably communicating with Aliens, as the broadcasts were usually very noisy due to poor signal quality.

Later when i was in Singapore , i benefited a lot from their public libraries.

Learning to Read

During secondary and senior secondary years, my friend Lakshmipathy regularly won prizes in Elocution competitions. He was way more knowledgeable than me. He also participated in quiz competitions representing our school. He even had a mini library at home, as his elder sister was a lecturer in college. I used to talk to him about those books. He not only enthusiastically explained about them, he also lent me his books generously. Generally i returned those books promptly, but somehow i failed to return his book “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli and i still have it.

I grew up watching my parents and neighbors read magazines like Kumudam, Anantha Vikatan, Kalki etc or newspapers like Daily Thanthi ↗ . We argued about many things and he had strong opinion that those magazines are useless and instead urged me to read useful books.

I had already graduated from reading Daily Thanthi to Dinamalar ↗ , a daily bought at my pinni’s home. Everyday, i spent time either in the morning or evening, reading this newspaper. At this time, i had a long running argument with my friend Radhakrishnan on the relative quality of Dinamalar and Dinamani ↗ , a newspaper bought at his home.

What to Read

During the second and third year of my college, i spent almost the entire time reading fiction. Based on my request, he charge me a reduced lending fees proportionate to the number of days i lent it. This encouraged me read the books faster. I believe, i did skip content ranging from paragraphs to pages, if i couldn’t understand them.

I justified the above reading spree, by telling myself that I’m improving my English knowledge. I was preparing to take CAT, the entrance exam to Indian Institute of Management(IIM), the premier management institutes of India. This exam tested English skills along with Mathematics and General Aptitude.

During my third year, i signed up with IMS ↗ , the test preparation institute for CAT exam. When i took their tests, my scores in English grammar were not great. Around this time, i also bought the book “All About Words”. When i took tests from that book, it clearly dawned to me that even my English vocabulary is also not great.

By the time i reached my final year, i realized that my two years of reading English fiction has not been beneficial. By this time, my academics also had suffered greatly. Since i never applied myself to learn my engineering subjects, my knowledge was near zero. I just managed to pass those end semester exams, but mostly with poor grades. I made a decision to not read fiction anymore.

Buying used books

Some of the books that i lent from the Vellore lending library had other library names in them. On my inquiries with the Ex-serviceman, i found that those were indeed used books and he bought them from Chennai. In my younger age, i remember seeing used books being sold in Triplicane, Chennai.

I became curious and found that used books are available even in Vellore. They were available right behind Jawan’s Bhavan, a shopping complex, next to the then Bus stand. So i started going there once in a while and started buying used books. Majority of the books sole there were either voyeuristic in nature or christian missionary books. I bought and read books like “Tough Times Never Last, But Tough Poeple Do” by Robert H Schuller and “Up from Slavery: An Autobiography” by Booker T. Washington. I somehow lost or discarded most of the books that i bought during this period. When i saw the Schuller’s book again around 2023-24, and explained the previous buy to my daughter, she immediately bought the book.

Once i took my college junior Harishankar to that used book shop. On returning back, he was asking me on the reason for buying used books that too from such an unpleasant location. I remember explaining him to that getting books were so important to me, that i don’t mind standing there with all sort of people for few minutes. I reasoned that books are anyway untainted by the location, or the seller or the previous owner, as long as the pages were intact.

In Singapore , i continued buying used books, but most books for children. Around 2008, we bought a huge number of used books for children from Annual book sale conducted by NLB in Singapore Expo, Changi, intending to bring them back to India.

I continue to buy used books in Pondicherry too. There are a number of used book shops in MG Road. During Sunday market, a book seller from Chennai, Mr Idroose brings good collection of books and sells them at reasonable rates. His shop is usually located near the entrance of Sri Sithi Vinayagar temple at MG Road. Due to lack of good libraries here, i have bought huge number of books over the years from him both for myself and my children. His shop in Chennai is located somewhere near to MountRoad LIC building, and i met him there once.