Now that we are through with the introductions, let me kick off by sharing
some of my favourites:
As a kid, I loved reading
Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Three Investigators'. Hitchcock certainly fired my imagination as a kid and I could picture Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, Pete Crenshaw, their 'office' behind a trailer truck, etc.
Then
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came into my life. I read up all the
Sherlock Holmes stories and novels that I could lay my hands upon. I remember once in my (commerce) college library, I requisitioned "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" and the poor librarian hauled up a dusty fat tome, wiped off years of dust and handed it over to me with an amused look on his face. Sherlock Holmes was (umm, maybe still is?) my favourite fictional character.
Around the same time, I was also into
PG Wodehouse. The world of quaint earls and vicars and above all, Bertie Wooster and the impeccable English butler Jeeves was a nice and happy world to escape to.
In the genre of 'comics', two series stand out.
'The Adventures of Asterix' for some great fun time readings. Lot of pun on words of Latin origin which kids may not necessarily appreciate.
The second comic series is '
Calvin and Hobbes' by Bill Watterson. For me, the greatest comic book series ever written. For those of you who haven't read it - PLEASE DO!!
Calvin is a precocious six year old who has a stuffed tiger for company. For Calvin, Hobbes the tiger is a real being, a playmate. What I find fascinating is that Calvin one moment is mouthing (the writer's worldview) sarcastic comments about the world or some deep philosophical view point, and just the next moment, is a typical six year old with the love for the gross and dislike for girls! The quotable quotes from C&H can fill a book. here are a few gems:
"I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world."
"Reality continues to ruin my life. "
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. "
"The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life."
"You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it."
"That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse."
"Why should I have to WORK for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it! "
"I don't know which is worse...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low."
"So the
secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?"
"
It's not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality I accept."
Over the years, many good books have provided me with 'food for thought'. But some of them have stayed with me. Let me start off by sharing my thoughts about them in no particular order:
1.
'1984' by George Orwell
This book is hands down, an all time favourite. The bleak dystopian world of Winston Smith, though apparently far removed from the 'democratic' world we live in, has many parallels, if we think about the underlying issues deeply. The book has fascinated me every time I've read it. As an aside, whenever I read of present day North Korea, I'm reminded of this book. This book has introduced many terms to the English language - terms such as 'Big Brother', 'thought police', etc. I could go on and on about 1984, but enough for now!
2.
'The curious incident of the dog in the night-time' by Mark Haddon
This one was a seredipitous find. Something about the book's spine caught my attention in a library - maybe the font, I don't know. Picked it up, flipped to the back cover, and I was hooked. It's a first person narrative from the perspective of an autistic savant - a boy called Christopher Boone who is accused of killing a dog. At one level, it's about him solving the case, but at another it gives the reader a fascinating peek into the mind of an autistic savant. This book was an eye opener - a gem of a book.
3.
'The City of Djinns' and 'Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India' by William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is a writer I admire. He excels as a travel writer and writes about India with empathy as well as the independent viewpoint of an 'outsider' (not that I guess he's based in India, it's a moot question as to whether he can really be called an 'outsider'. Anyway, he loves India way more than many of our fellow countrymen). The first book is a saga of the city of Delhi through the ages. A reverse chronology from post independence New Delhi, through the various iterations of destruction and rebuilding, right back to the Indraprastha of Mahabharata. Nine Lives is about religion in modern India - about nine Indians ranging from a Jain nun in Sravanabelagola, Karnataka to a tantric in Tarapith, West Bengal. This book is totally about them and their lives and Dalrymple's voice as a narrator is barely 'heard'.
4.
'Yuganta' by Irawati Karve
This book is about some of the principal characters of the Mahabharata from a sociological perspective. The book presents these characters stripped of their mythological aura and as humans in the context of their day and age. One note about the author - she must have been one gutsy lady, the first womn anthropologist, having completed her Masters in Sociology from Mumbai University and then her
Doctorate in Anthropology from Berlin - in 1930!!
5.
'Interpreter of Maladies' and 'The Namesake' by Jhumpa Lahiri
One of the reason's I like Jhumpa Lahiri's work is that she etches out her characters (mostly non resident Indians, up until now) in such detail that I as a reader emphathise with them as if they are real human beings. The Interpreter of Maladies, a compilation of some very poignant short stories, marked her spectacular debut. The Namesake is a novel about the protagonist Gogol and his life. It also got made into a film which was good, but in my opinion did not and could not do justice to the book.
6.
'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel
This one's a fantasy adventure novel about Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi for short) as embarks on a journey with his family, survives a ship wreck and stays afloat on a boat/raft with some interesting company - a Royal Bengal tiger called Richard Parker, a hyena and a horse. On a deeper level, it's about life and handling the challenges it throws at you.
These are just starters. Let's have the main course now. Over to you friends!