Saturday, January 06, 2007

Books and Me

Growing up I was one of those kids who read everything assigned to them and a lot more. Close to our home there was a library walk able distance from our house and Veena and I used to go there once a week and spend an hour there, and bring back few books.

We also subscribed to lot of magazines and lots of memories are associated with them.

Chacha Chaudharay - I remember reading this book too, but do not remember lot of details. I remember how Chacha Chaudhary looks. This was the only book in Hindi I used to read.

Chandamama - I used to love the Vikram and Betal stories.

Gokulam - This was a magazine published in Tamil Nadu. It was monthly magazine and I used to go buy it at a book store. I even to this day remember few of the stories they used to publish. They had a series called 13th window, in this a family moves into the house and a little girl counts total number of windows and she finds that from outside there are 13 windows whereas from inside there are just 12. And the story is about the little girl's quest for the 13th window. Then there was this other series called Undir stories. This was stories about rat, and these rats lived life like humans and each issue had something new about the rats life (sounds lame now, but was very very interesting back then).

MISHA - This is a Russian Magazine, they used to have real thick pages and a distinctive smell. Even tough the book was thin (maybe had 20 pages total) we used to read and re-read till the next issue arrived. I guess they do not publish this anymore. This was during my early childhood days so I barely remember the stories.

Panchathantra Tales - My parents got me this huge collection of panchathantra tales and I read and re-read them all the time. I knew each story word by word and still read it.

Tinkle - We all have read this, this was mainly read when we traveled. We brought this at railway station and read it. Suppandi was my favorite character. When I got to my grandfather's place Veena and I used to act out the whole Suppandi story for him.

Wisdom - This was a book that dad made us read. We were never too excited about reading this, but we still read it. What I remember on each page, at the bottom, a quote was printed. For some reason I used to enjoy reading them and used to make an effort to actually learn that quote (what a dork I used to be).

Readers Digest - This is the only magazine that I still read. As a kid I wouldn't understand most of the jokes, I just read it because Veena read and I wanted to do everything like her. Now I have started to enjoy it, and yeah Veena still subscribes to it.

Now I still read a lot, but mainly novels. I can not get myself to re-read them again. Now I just think re-reading is plain waste of time and lost all the magic a re-reading brings.

No matter now or then books just bring joy to my life

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

ah!!! the memories your blog evokes!!
I used to have the amar chitra kathas too.. (bound ones still with me in my library...)and the commando comics, which found their way into the house with my brothers and which I too read coz I had this irresistable urge to read anything that came my way.Forbidden to read at the dining table,I would read the labels of the bournvita and pickle bottles. How sneaky wad that??!!

Neihal said...

"chacha chaudhary ka dimag computer se bhi tej chalta hai."
"jab sabu(the giant) ko gussa aata hai to jupiter par jwala mukhi phadta hai."
my fav lines from the book.:))

pls pls solve the 13 window mystery.
great post yaar!!

Geets said...

Enid blytons & Amar Chtrakathas for me

Archana said...

OMG - exactly ditto at my house too :-D!!! And yaay, someone else knows about the Misha magazine too :-)!

Only slight diff is since we used to read Chacha Choudhary comics in English our parents did not encourage it too much as the English translations were sometimes quite bad.

I still subscribe to RD too :-) - but don't you think the RD standard has gone down a bit now since the time we were small?

p.s. Did you ever read this American maganize called "Span"? It used to be printed on really good paper and was good time-pass. I remember you could get subscriptions for these at book fairs.

Flyaway Mind said...

during my childhood, it used to be amarchitra katha & balarama..i used to love manadan suppandi & shikkari shambu :)

you used to read readers digest jokes just bcoz veena did..ha,i too used to follow my elder sis's path always

NITHIN RAMACHANDRAN said...

hey .....

finally i see someone who used to read gokulam....u remember the undir tales....mama undir with jet lag n all ...

man it used to be my fav...

it was gr8 reliving those old times with your article...

please check out ma blog too...be a pleasure ...


btw..i got u at kerala blog rolls ...fellow mallu i guess....gr8 work ...keep it going

Thanu said...

$Anonymous
We were also never allowed to read at dinner table, but I never read pickle bottles..

$Neihal
Utna kuch yaad nahi, but it something to this regard.

There is a hidden room which has the 13th window, little girl is in search of the hidden room. Baaki yaad nahi re.


$techno malayali
Enid Blyton - We read from library - Amelia Jane is my fav.

$Archana
No heard of Span. Have u read Gokulam? When I wrote this post, I was sure u'llbe one person who has read Gokulam.

$Flyaway Mind
I know, everything chechi did I wanted to do.

$nithin ramachandran
Finally someone who reads Gokulam.... I used to love that magazine, it used to be so thick so I had so much to read... that was my favorite part. Will visit ur blog soon.

Neihal said...

aha!..hidden room...abhi theek hai:)

Anonymous said...

" Chandamama, Panchatantra-Tales, Tinkle, RD ... Enid Blyton (S-7, F-5) " ... you brought back memories ! i would also add Amar-Chitra-Katha, Indrajal-Comics .. then on to Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew and so on.
LOL @ the pickle-bottle reading comment :-)

Geets said...

later we graduated to m&b and denise robins, james hadley chase etc and left behind everything else

Malvika said...

i love books too. its funny how ur post reminds me of my childhood...supandi was one of my favorites too. :)

Sujith said...

panchathantrantales, balarama, poompatta.. me and my brother used to fight over it to read it first when our dad bought it home.. priceless gems..

mathew said...

loved the reader's digest of the old times..guess these days they are not as good as it used to be..

suppandi was terrific...

Anonymous said...

Very nice blogs you have...especially th eone abt your childhood. I think you are from Kerala.. I am from kerala too and also residing in California.

Abt the books you read in childhood. I do read them all i guess. I also liked the TINTIN)Blistering Barnacles...!!!). Dennnis teh menace... and a lot of Maar Chithra Kadha..

Keep Writing
Regards
Baaru
;-)

Anonymous said...

did you forget mandrake and phantom and the flash gordon comics?

I still have a stash of chandamama one is never too old to be a child.

blog on:-)

ciao

schizo

Kk said...

Gokulam is the reason I'm so wise today ! :D
Seriously ! A magazine kind of book with stories., recipes., news., science etc for kids ! That's something gr8 !!

Ar Ar Ar Arrrrr said...

I grew up reading tinkle digest and adventures of Chacha chaoudhary (jinka dimaag computer se bhi tez hai) along with sabu and evil raka...hehehehe :))

RD...hmm...since I started earning, I became regular subscriber of RD :)

Srinivas said...

wow.. can't believe u reminded me of tinkle. theres always something to rewind when i read ur blog..

Thanu said...

$Neihal
THat was nice series ... I don't remember how it ended.


$taks
Remember few books us mentioned. Enid Blyton - Amelia Jane is my fav.

$techno malayali
I have nver read a M&B. Never got into the habit of reading romance.

$Malvika
Suppandi rules..
Welcome hre.

$Jithu
Being the first one to read was so huge back then.

$mathew
I still enjoy RD. Maybe our std has increased hence we don't find RD that attractive these days.

$Anonymous
Hello Baaru, Welcome here...
I had a great childhood and I'm glad there is a medium where I can write abt that.
Thank you.

$Schizo
Welcome here..
Who says we can not read these anymore.

$Kk
SO strange not a lot of Gokulam readers..

$Arz000n
In shorts books rule.

$Srinivas
Thank you, glad that I have that effect.

Neihal said...

22 days...no post....kyun kyun??
that's why I had to tag you :)

N A R I YA L C H U T N E Y said...

OOpz ! Aftr going through your posts I am missing the strange head of Suppandi , the usual fly back of Vetalam and the smell of Misha . Quite a Nostalgic Post :)

alakananda said...

hey that brings back a lot of memories. i read gokulam too. and another tamil kids magazine too...ratnabala. that was a really good one too. yea, RD is not the same anymore and i wasn't allowed to read at the dining table too and like annonymous says i read all the labels of pickle bottles, sauce, and medicine bottles. ah, miss those goo dol'days. i used to get 'span' too and 'partha' a mag brought out by uncle pai.