B is for Bookworms !

I am not really too fond of worms. Icky crawly things I tell you. The only worms I love are book worms for the simple reason that I am one. 

A book worm is not just someone who loves to pick up an occasional book at times. It’s not that easy to get entry into the prestigious ranks of Bookworms. Being a bookworm is hard! A bookworm eats sleeps and breathes books and reaches the abysmal depths of depression if she should happen to find herself without one! We Bookworms are tormented souls. If we are forced to keep our book down to attend to the unnecessary tasks of eating sleeping or working, our mind remain in turmoil as we wonder what will happen next in the book.

Bookworms are ingenious when it comes to reading. We have the ability to read anywhere. I have read while waiting in queues and while standing in buses being jostled by a 100 odd commuters. I have read books hidden under a blanket with the help of a torch when it was well past my bed time. I have read in the loo when my family thought I was in bed asleep. I have read as I waited for a surgery to happen and I have managed to block out post op pain with the help of a book. I even wanted to carry a book with me in the OT and read but the surgeon squashed that idea by putting me under a general anesthetic!

For a true bookworm books takes precedence over everything. My Nephew, who is just 8 sat through his Birthday Lunch with his nose buried in the book that we had just gifted him for his birthday. Now that is a true bookwork I tell you ! As children my brother I never fought over games but we fought about who will get to read the issue of Readers Digest or Target magazine first.

I remember Gerald Durrell’s my family and Other Animals was one book I simply couldn’t put down. I even took it to school and read it in my economics class hidden under the text book. I can’t tell you much about the Theory of Demand and Supply but I can tell you all you want to know about Gerald Durrell’s adventures In Corfu !

Bookworms become oblivious to everything else while they read. The characters in the book become real to us. We identify with them, live the life they are leading. Everything else is unreal. We get a reality shock when we finish a good book and finally emerge out to realize that a world actually exists beyond the book.

And no bookworm true to his name would never ever prefer a movie over a book. Although movies are a visual experience I feel books are better because when you read a book, unlike a movie you don’t have to stick to the images shown to you. You can bring the characters and situations alive by using your own imagination!

No activity of ours is complete without a book. For us a comfortable couch has no meaning unless we have a book to curl up with. The aroma of steaming coffee is lost on us unless we have a book to read as sip it. We never venture out on a journey without a few books to read. A book is a perfect companion. You can never be alone as long as you have a book with you. 

Books are my solace, my refuge, something I always turn to when I am feeling down. A book is pure happiness, something as essential as the air I breathe!