Monday, June 28, 2004
Nostalgia
The summer course on reading has made me feel enthusiastic about readign again. After a very long time I have started to enjoy reading.
Well, reading was just a hobby for me and I never liked to stick to books all the time. For that matter never like to do anything at a stretch. But somehow I am improving my reading and analysing skills through this class.
Was just wondering about my school years and the books I read. Frankly speaking,during my school years I used to spend very little time reading. But that little time was spent reading champaks( I luved the illustrations) some old chandamamas which my Mom had collected from the time we were too young to read. Other than that I luved browsing through the magazines my father bought. And of course "WISDOM" was a real good book. I luved to read it and it for sure enhanced my general knowledge and my thinking.
As I had an elder sister I did not have to worry about buying or borrowing books for the coming year.As she graduated to a higer class all her text books were mine.And during those times we had very interesting stories for our supplementary books and texts. So most of the time I used to read my text books ahead of time( well not the text but the supplementary texts which had very interesting stories by various Indian and international authors).
It was again a sort of peer pressure( or rather jealousy or maybe sibling pressure:)). My sister used to use the context of these stories which she had for her class and I used to feel j. And then as soon as I could grab them I used to read them and boast that even I knew Trojan war and Don Quixote.I wanted to be ahead of her or rather tried to oversmart her but was never successful:).
However, I am glad to have read all those books in my formative years which contributed a lot in improving my vocabulary, my creativity and my memory( I still remember them:).In fact the best part of my supplementray texts were the biographies of the authors.I now feel that those biographies had influenced me to a great extent. In fact they have developed my inquisitveness to relate a person's background to his achievements.I learnt a lot from them and had a crush on quite a few:).
We had a lot many stories written by some of the famous Indian authors and Premchand was my favourite. I really liked his stories. They almost often spoke of the struggles of the people in those times.Well, somehow I had a crush on Premchand at that point of time and liked all of his stories which I read. I also liked "Macbeth", "As you like it" and " The merchant of Venice" by Shakesphere. Leo Tolstoy was another favourite author of mine.
However the most favoruite books of mine were those written by ENID BLYTON. I loved to read her books. They were all fantasy stories wherein the trees could grow candies:) and the town always had some or the other festival of some sort.
The charachters were very funny and interesting.There were gnomes, pygmies and what not. I just can't remember any now. But I used to love reading those books. Her stories always an interesting end with a moral.
Thus a part of my childhood was spent in reading some real interesting stuff. But I just can't remember as to when I stopped enjoying reading. Could be somewhere in the seventh standard when the fear of board exams were induced in me. However, it's always nice to think back and remember those times especially when I have to read similar stuff for my student. Needless to say I enjoy reading them even now and wish my text books were as interesting as the Enid Blyton and the Munshi Premchand stories:).
Well, reading was just a hobby for me and I never liked to stick to books all the time. For that matter never like to do anything at a stretch. But somehow I am improving my reading and analysing skills through this class.
Was just wondering about my school years and the books I read. Frankly speaking,during my school years I used to spend very little time reading. But that little time was spent reading champaks( I luved the illustrations) some old chandamamas which my Mom had collected from the time we were too young to read. Other than that I luved browsing through the magazines my father bought. And of course "WISDOM" was a real good book. I luved to read it and it for sure enhanced my general knowledge and my thinking.
As I had an elder sister I did not have to worry about buying or borrowing books for the coming year.As she graduated to a higer class all her text books were mine.And during those times we had very interesting stories for our supplementary books and texts. So most of the time I used to read my text books ahead of time( well not the text but the supplementary texts which had very interesting stories by various Indian and international authors).
It was again a sort of peer pressure( or rather jealousy or maybe sibling pressure:)). My sister used to use the context of these stories which she had for her class and I used to feel j. And then as soon as I could grab them I used to read them and boast that even I knew Trojan war and Don Quixote.I wanted to be ahead of her or rather tried to oversmart her but was never successful:).
However, I am glad to have read all those books in my formative years which contributed a lot in improving my vocabulary, my creativity and my memory( I still remember them:).In fact the best part of my supplementray texts were the biographies of the authors.I now feel that those biographies had influenced me to a great extent. In fact they have developed my inquisitveness to relate a person's background to his achievements.I learnt a lot from them and had a crush on quite a few:).
We had a lot many stories written by some of the famous Indian authors and Premchand was my favourite. I really liked his stories. They almost often spoke of the struggles of the people in those times.Well, somehow I had a crush on Premchand at that point of time and liked all of his stories which I read. I also liked "Macbeth", "As you like it" and " The merchant of Venice" by Shakesphere. Leo Tolstoy was another favourite author of mine.
However the most favoruite books of mine were those written by ENID BLYTON. I loved to read her books. They were all fantasy stories wherein the trees could grow candies:) and the town always had some or the other festival of some sort.
The charachters were very funny and interesting.There were gnomes, pygmies and what not. I just can't remember any now. But I used to love reading those books. Her stories always an interesting end with a moral.
Thus a part of my childhood was spent in reading some real interesting stuff. But I just can't remember as to when I stopped enjoying reading. Could be somewhere in the seventh standard when the fear of board exams were induced in me. However, it's always nice to think back and remember those times especially when I have to read similar stuff for my student. Needless to say I enjoy reading them even now and wish my text books were as interesting as the Enid Blyton and the Munshi Premchand stories:).
