I woke up to the loud ringing of my phone. It was a call from the Amazon delivery guy. All I felt was dread. Scared that I need to face another bad day.
It was already 1pm. The good news was that only half of the day was left. I walked to the broken elevator in my flat in Marathalli in Bangalore stumbling in a half-asleep-half-awake state clinging to the slightly rusted railing. Received the parcel and hurried back to my room.
I saw a familiar name. “The Palace of Illusions” was the third copy I received as a gift from different people expressing their love. I opened the book and inhaled the scent. It felt like home.
This book was a gift from a book club in Delhi but my brain was clouded with a fog thicker than Delhi’s winter. I wanted to be able to read again and feel something. I wanted to be affected. I wanted to feel the gut punch of terror and sorrow and the rush of joy and light which only a good book can give. But I had nothing.
I told myself that I get disappointed when I finish reading a book. That games are better because there’s another level waiting to be played.
Once upon a time books were also like games with multiple levels to fly through. They were once my personal Narnia wardrobe. I used to travel to ancient castles to enchanted forests with impossible quests on moonlit nights.
I entered Level 1 of the books game, when I was introduced to books as a child. I learnt to read and write by the time I was three-years-old. I have no active recollection of what I read back then but my family remembered me always sitting with a book.
Level 2 was falling in love with books. And that happened when Harry Potter entered my life at the age of 8. By the time I was a teenager I aced the 3rd and 4th levels in this game. Now, I considered books as a part of my identity and they made up a big part of my social life. I didn’t need much human interaction; books were just perfect.
And then came Level 5, where I got stuck, unable to read. I started hoarding my books in the hope that I will surely cross this seemingly interminable level and go to the final level – rediscovering the joy of reading books.
But it appeared like I would be in Level 5 for a while.
My mind refused to focus long enough, my eyes read the words on the page but my brain refused to register them. There were some days I could read a bit. But my memory recall was awful and I had to read again and again to really understand what I was reading.
I looked at my book rack, rapidly collecting dust. It showed the different phases of my life. Books I couldn’t put down, books I tried so hard to like just to impress someone. There was the book, which was my companion for evening walks near the river, and the book that I have four copies of, somehow. I revisited some of these old friends with a sinking feeling in my stomach, feeling the texture of the scribbles on the margins, carefully holding the soft slightly cracked spines.
Seeing the bookmarks on my half-read books hurt me the most. Do they show that the book was half finished or hardly begun?
Maybe things will be different this time, I thought, as I picked up a forever favorite – Harry Potter. Aah, I missed the pleasure of losing myself in good fiction.
Instead of joy I felt irritation bubbling up.
I cursed myself for ruining my favorite book. I abandoned it.
I spent the rest of the day playing on my laptop. I’m sure this time my books are angry with me because I have an unconditional relationship with games where I don’t expect anything. Not so with books. I always need them to manage my emotions. They’re expected to calm me, make me smile, help me escape.
I still want to read. Perhaps, without any expectations this time. Because they deserve better.
