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Saturday, September 24, 2016

The Transporter

Reading is very calming, Mr. Reader. It is almost magical, isn’t it? A written word, coupled with the imagination it produces can transport you into completely new worlds. You know what I love the most about books though, their complete honesty.  I don’t mean all books write the Truths, what I mean is the honest transparency of characters that you feel as a book places you in their shoes. Maybe that’s also why I much love fiction to non-fiction, because I love stories. I love to see the world from different eyes, eyes from different ages both bygone and futuristic ages to come. I have started to diversify my reading lists venturing into ever newer categories although I must say that medieval dramas and fantasy worlds that mimic the medieval dramas are my absolute favorites. Stories of Kings and Queens and brave Knights and famous Princesses, it just never gets old enough for me. It’s so simple isn’t it; we really never grow out of our childhoods. Although now I appreciate stories not just from a Knight-kills-the-Dragon-Story perspective, but rather also acknowledge the politics, diplomacy and power around it.

Some books are gems. So easy to read, so relatable, so masterfully crafted, reading them is almost like eating a huge mouthful of yummiest chocolate cake. I have felt a few good things from reading that I want to share with you Mr. Reader. Isn’t it almost impossibly magical that regardless of whichever book you pick up, a good story teller can metamorphose you into its characters? Sometimes it’s numbing to look at the books in my cupboard, they are all a world in themselves and I feel that I have transported back and forth out of them. Like I have lived a hundred lives, like I have seen the world from a hundred eyes, a hundred souls. The most striking thing is that you can relate to ALL of the characters, orphans and kings, men and women, soldiers and criminals, victims to perpetrators. People of all ages from all Ages! It’s truly incredible and to me reveals an exquisite truth – that really we are all alike. Deep down, really, we are all really alike.

What I crave the most in books is this deep rooted truth the honest transparent feelings that are so completely relatable. Because people in good books do not lie to you, good books tell you all about all the feelings people in them have. Real world is different, very different. People highlight their differences. We yearn to standout from each other. Real world is all about hiding true feelings or showing half truths. Book Worlds are different. The characters talk to you their true thoughts, all their good and bad feelings. They are not diplomatic to you. They tell you all what they feel and then as you get more engrossed in their lives you realize that you would feel pretty much the same. Books dissolve the differences. I am an introvert Mr. Reader. Small talks bother me. I can talk incessantly with my most favorite people in the world – my band of core group members of my life - family and close friends. Why? I guess it is because half truths bother me. Pretences bother me. If it is impolite to share all my true feelings with someone, I would rather just not share any feelings at all. Which is also why I truly treasure members of my core group, because it is incredibly liberating to be true to a few people. Books are really good that way, they are always honest. My best friends from Book World far outnumber people I know from Real World.

Sometimes I feel that if everybody read a whole lot of books there would be no hatred in the world. I think the dirtiest trick that all powerful rulers in the world have played is highlighting differences. It is outrageous isn’t it - biologically and chemically we are all really alike, and if we are all so alike inside how can we ever be so different due to outside factors? Not just all people you know, scientifically all animals and all plants evolved out of the same paradigms. I mean it’s not a philosophical debate, it’s a fact! Maybe it is fair to be proud of everyone’s unique individuality, but to hate anyone because they appear to be different is ludicrous! Real World is sometimes prominently disturbing that way, if you start to think about all the unfair things all the injustices it is quite unsettling. How can we all collectively exist without mobilizing forces to uproot all the Evil in the world?

But then again Mr. Reader that’s why probably Real World is quite real that way. Half Truths and half Evils make this world full. Life is not really black and white; nobody is completely good or completely bad. Maybe that’s why all forces in the world cannot be mobilized to extinct Evil because a little bit of Evil lurks inside all of us. And maybe that’s why Reading is exquisite – it lets you transport back and forth between Truths and Half Truths at your ease. 

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