My Relationship with Reading: The First Affair

(A personal essay)

The first thing that I read was not a book; it was not a word or even a letter- it was an expression of joy on the face of my mother. I forgot how old I was back then, three I guess. I was with her and my little brother living in the village as my elder brother and father were staying in the capital for an educational and professional purpose.

My mother was introducing letters to me. I can still remember her beautiful hand navigating a slate pencil, to me it was something magical. Before that, I forgot whether she held that chalk close to my eyes and said, “You should not eat this Baba. If you do, you’ll have pain in your belly.” While she was playing with her hand, I heard a mysterious melody composed by that pencil’s crunching, her bangle’s clinking and the country voice mumbling out from her lips. Of course, she was at peace; she was singing an unsung song and was smiling. I saw her draw a few signs on that slate, one after another. I was curious to know what they were, so I touched them with my little fingers as if they would come alive. I heard her making a sound. She made me pronounce those letters – for the first time.

On that day, I read out loud the first alphabet of Bengali language. I didn’t know what that means to me. I did not know- that was the beginning of my journey as a reader. But now, I also realize that there was a sense of aspiration and hope in those expressions of my mother which I couldn’t read that day- a hope that she had been cherishing for long, even before my birth- when I was her body’s part.

The first book I read was ‘Balya Shiksa’, it was a children’s alphabet book compiled by Ramsundar Bosak. After that, I read ‘Shishu Sikkha First Part’ by Madanmohon Tarkalankar and ‘Adarshalipi’- by Satinath Bosak. These books were great efforts to teach blossoming minds language and love for goodness. They were also very rhythmic. “Getting up early I echo into my brain- I’ll be a good boy, the day won’t go in vain.” I can still recall a few bits and pieces of me and my mother looking attentively at those books. I used to move my head like a pendulum tuning with the rhythm of those nursery rhymes. I’ve read quite a few books in different stages of my life- on parallel to that- I have become a humanist, a skeptic, a free thinker and no doubt many books played a transforming role, but I know for sure, those were the books which volunteered in making the foundation of the person I am today.

After finishing my pre-schooling our whole family started to live in Dhaka. Before class three I was not exposed to books outside my texts that much. My pastimes were playing in the field and watching cartoons and English serials on Bangladesh Television. And of course, I spent my vacations in the village. Going back to the village – to me – was like returning into the womb. There – all our cousins had story-telling sessions; I joined them too with some heard stories. I was not a good storyteller, but I was a good listener.

On our journey back home we had to ride a bus for more than 5 hours. I and my younger one did not like the idea of a bus. To us, all buses were stinky, and their whistling smell made our stomach squeezed. Whenever I got into a bus in my childhood, my gut-feeling broke the relationship with my brain, along with my control over my sense of trouble. We loved our village so much that regular puking session of our heroism into the bus was an acceptable deal. I often vomited over other passengers’ bodies and discovered how compassionate people can be.

A book accompanied me on the bus – in one journey, and that miracle occurred. All my bad feelings about that giant four-wheeler were shared with that book, with my new friend “Mojar Bhoot”. It is written by Humayun Ahmed. The reason why I chose that book was not that the writer was popular – which I didn’t know. Instead, I chose it to know what it reveals about ghosts- which I always believed are not real. ‘It is nothing to be afraid of’- I used to tell to my cousins. They didn’t believe me at that time. So I wanted to see if I am wrong and what a funny ghost had to offer. I started reading the book. When I finished it, our journey also ended. We reached our destination. I was amazed. I pointed out a few important things out of that experience: one, books are friends; two, the characters are your relatives; three, when you read books- time flies away; four, I was right- ghosts are not real and five, books could be a replacement of anti-vomiting tablets.

Before my friendship with Mojar Bhoot, I had some emotional relationships with Chacha Chowdhury, Pinky, Motu and Lombu, Phantom, Dynamite and a few others. These are comic characters by the way. My father was a school teacher. He didn’t like comics at all. Reading them was forbidden. But the human mind is very curious by nature and it has a sneaky and greasy attraction to forbidden things. And I was just a perfect four-foot specimen of this nature. Nobody knew – I had a ton of them beneath our high bedstead. I read them hiding in my text-books. Addiction! It was. I loved them not because the stories of those comics were fascinating; the reason was that they exposed me to different worlds. I did not care that – they were untrue.

But, there was a period when I could not read them for some time. My father had a fight with the dealer who had been supplying me with all these drugs. And like all addict I became crazy as a wounded beast to take them, I mean, to read them. Then it happened one night; one peaceful night- a kind of night that most will considers ideal to fall asleep like the dead. Like a thief, I woke up from a fake sleep, I crawled down under the bed, lit up our kerosene hurricane, turned it as dim as possible. I lied down and read for two hours. For that underworld adventure, I had to do some preplanning. I had eating arrangements – a glass jar filled with Laddus and another with handmade cakes. I had a few uninvited guests as well; a few cockroaches and rats and some witless ants and some party spoiler mosquitos as singers. “Shush…no noise.”- I did not say. I am a human after all. They had their addictions too. But my hand started flapping on its own in the air. And accidentally I hit the jar. And with due respect to the laws of physics, it broke into few pieces. “Who! What happened?” – these were the questions piercing the atmosphere. I had the answer. But it wouldn’t make any difference. The end of the story is all the same, as I said earlier, my father was not a great fan of comics.

I grew older. One day I went to Dhakesswari Temple with my parents. After attending all the rituals we got back outside. We were searching for a ride. On the pavement, I saw a young man sitting with his books for sale. They were arranged in a way like the sellers of organic groceries from a lower-middle-class city bazaar arranges his vegetables. I stopped. My mother too. She was looking at me and called my father. I picked two books by ‘Vobesh Roy’. One was ‘Now I Will See the World” and the other one was “Daring Sea-expeditions”. I devoured them in two days. Then I felt like having constipation. I never knew a traditional stomach usually finds wonders and adventures hard to digest. These two books brought to me the bigger picture of humanity- which was unknown to me. I started to think about the relationship between man and man, and their relationship with nature. I started imagining things. My love for science and nature was beginning to increase at the same time through reading other books on history and science. I felt an unknown guilt when I read “Aronnyak” – by Bibhutivushan. Humans are matricidal, killing nature is nothing else – I realized.

In my high-school days- I read modern classics written by some of the most famous writers of Bengali literature. I read two old classics: “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana”. I was influenced by the life and works of Sukanta. I do not know why I considered him as my friend. There was another side of my readership. I also read books like ‘Three Detectives’ by Rokib Hasan, and translations of world classics published by Sheba Prokashoni. I enjoyed them for sometimes, but then I got bored. I found nothing new. Translations were not up to the mark, they were more like transformation. The same thing happened with writings of Humayun Ahmed too; I mean the ones, not for kids. In the beginning, I liked his popular vagabond character and the other one who is called a logical person – psychiatrist. I read so many of his novels from class eight to ten. But then I realized that my interests were becoming different. His writings had nothing to offer me anymore. So, one of my earlier favorites became one of my most avoided writers as I grew older.

My elder brother and I used to go to the old town and Nilkhet to buy old books. We were making collections at that time. All those money was precious, my brother’s earnings from private tuitions. From those old books, we sometimes found dry leaves of the rose, feather of a peacock. Among them, a few books were from public libraries. A good number of books were given to somebody by someone as a gift. There were handwritten wishes; their names and dates. I loved those little extras. Did I have the wish to meet them in person? Yes, but I never tried. In some books, those sort of lines were removed- fully or partially or stricken-through severely by pen- probably by the second owner- as if he or she did not want any trace from the past. The book is theirs now- they will be friends for eternity. How sweet! Then why they ended into my hands?

At the peak of my adolescent time I read “Kobi”- a novel of Tarashankar and something happened to me- I started writing poetries and I continued- still to this day. The concept of having a girlfriend or girlfriends was not there at that time. I did not have one. I wish books were girls; then I would have a lot of girlfriends. I had fallen in love with so many books. Wouldn’t that be great? I could have hundreds of relationships without hurting anybody’s feelings- without answering the selfish questions on loyalty- and getting accused of adultery. This is the reason why I read books, they love you unconditionally.

One day, I was reading on my table. It was a novel and it was very interesting. My mother was sitting outside; in the balcony- she was working on a sari with a needle and threads of different colors. I knew she was sneak-peeking at me from time to time to see what I was doing. She usually did that to see whether I am smiling or becoming sad. She was happy, as I was. I finished the book and left the room- I wanted to get refreshed. When I returned- I saw that her eyes became glittering pearls.

From that day, probably a decade has passed. Today my mother is not with me physically. But my relationship with reading continues. She was there when I read the first word. And, hopefully, she will also be there when some other kid from another part of the world will read my book on her. I know I was special to her. I also know that she wanted me to become special to others; like most mothers- that was what she hoped for.

(The End)

30 September 2018