A tale of tales...

A tale of tales…This is something I’ve always been wanting to write on but never had the push till I was tagged…When I kinda wonder where to start, this little mental image pops up...Comfortable and cozy in my great grandma’s lap, listening with rapt attention to her wonderful narration of mythology, her expressive voice drawing me into the realms of strange kingdoms, wars,princes and princesses…She was my “mobile de bibliotheque”(pardon my French!) a person who inspired me to read, sing and basically live life to the fullest. Born with a passion for reading (not self-praise really!),it became an obsession because of my dad. He was an avid reader who was rarely seen without a book by his bed-side. He was a great story-teller and used to tuck me in to sleep with his ever fascinating stories. I used to wonder as a kid if he’d ever run out of stories..Much to my glee,he never did, still never does but right now he has turned to non-fiction and philosophy.
So I did grow up amidst books. I was often found, as a kid, lost in some fairy tale probably trying to ward off the villains or dance at the wedding of the princesses. Being an obsessive reader, I finished the entire Enid Blyton collection before my fifth standard. I had inherited (?!!) so many books from my mom and dad..Among them, my favorites were a collection of Ukrainian folk tales, some classics like Alice in wonderland, Treasure Island, a set of Tinkle’s mythology series and a sci-fi book called “2000 miles under”. It was some where at that point when I wrote my first story “Ivan and his horse”…I was inspired by this Ukrainian folk character Ivan who of course starred in my first story…
Then there was this period in which I read classics non-stop. That was because of my teacher Mrs.Stephan who introduced the concept of writing reviews of the books we read. Classics certainly gave me more to comment on. First the abridged versions and much later the unabridged versions occupied my cluttered book shelves. I’ve still not got over my liking for classics but hey isn’t that what classics are meant for?
Stepping into adolescence, I started with thrillers, romances and whodunits like Agatha Criste, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and yeah, Mills and Boons did enter my life…Pretty much the same fairy tale structure, same story line but different characters was what I found in most of my M&Bs…I’ve gotta couple of them with me still but the books really worth mentioning are “To marry a stranger” and “Rings of fire”..These stood apart from the proto-type M&Bs with an excellent and sensible story line and fantastic language. It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t pay homage to the “queen of whodunits” Agatha Criste…I’ve never put down any of her books before I finished her last page even if it meant a great dose of scolding from my mom…
I often tried to imitate the most famous detective Sherlock Holmes and despite of succeeding very rarely, I still never gave up the idea of becoming his successor..Laugh if you want to but hey, he was one guy whom I never could accept as a fictional character..I guess Arthur Conan Doyle must have been really upset having Holmes cloud his extensive historical works(I’ve tried two books) but Holmes-Watson team surely rules!!!!…I relish narrating these to my sister as her bed-time story..
I’ve surfed through virtually most of the famous works of Jeffrey Archer, Danielle Steel, Wilbur Smith, Sidney Sheldon, Michael Crichton, John Denver, Mary Higgins Clarke, Edgar Allan Poe and the rest…Sidney Sheldon dominated my reading time for a year till I got absolutely frustrated with his style of writing that I switched on to Jayne Ann Krentz…Now she is not so popular but her books are basically on corporate romances mainly and I loved them…
J.K Rowling brought in her magical Harry Potter Series to which I was introduced(rather forced to read) by my cousin…I did enjoy her first three books immensely but then the charm faded..I’ve got a few friends who do go bananas over HP(Daniel Radcliff does play a role in their craze) who’ve booked for their copies of the sixth book about 2 months ago…I say the magic was long lost…
My current pick is P.G.Wodehouse, his not-too-subtle English humor and his comical virtual world..It often made me yearn to be one of his characters whose principal worry was to choose dresses, think about the “annual fat pig contest”, make and break up engagements, have dinner parties and yeah, such trivial but still entertaining prospects…
H.H Munro also has this great sense of English humor though his inclines to a more satirical and subtle humour..I strongly recommend these two writers for a perfect holiday light-reading…
I’ve also had this fascination for serial murder stories(still do) and I’ve read so many of them(most of them really stupid) of which my favs are “Eyes” ,”Preying Mantis”,” The Vanishing Act” and “Somewhere Someplace”…

I did try my hand (or eyes rather) on non-fiction too…This includes a great deal of biographies, auto-biographies and a few books on philosophy…

Well now I think it’s time for me to sum up
1. Books I own…..I really don’t know as I’ve just got too many
2. Books I like……Same here..Too many to name a few
3.Books I recently bought…..Wilbur Smith’s “River God”, Crichton’s “Congo”, James Hadly Chase’s “You find him, I’ll fix him”,Saki’s collection of short stories, “Anthology of Crime and Murders”, “World’s best 500 short stories” to name a few
4. Books I read recently…..Now that I am sitting vetti, I’ve been reading too many books to remember

I really couldn’t give an indepth write-up because I’d never be able to finish it…

Now and then, you’d still find me engrossed in an Enid Blyton, some fairy tale or an Wodehouse ..Well that’s my idea of a perfect escape from reality…