“Read, read, and read. Reading transforms into thoughts and thoughts result in action.”

Given above is a famous quote about reading. During school days, I used to add this quote in most of my answers on reading. But I never made use of it. I never read.

We had a pretty good school library. It had many collections of books. Yet, I never found interest in reading. For me, reading gained nothing. I only mugged up the textbooks.

One fine day in June 2015, my teacher asked me to read the book called “Aadujeevitham” or “Goat Life” by Benyamin. It is a part of the curriculum. I picked up books from the library. I made sure that I never wasted my time in reading this. I truly sucked at it back then. I planned to read one page a day. After the first two chapters, I reached a point where I got reluctant to put the book down. I felt every emotion of the protagonist. All I could do was weep in the end. The novel ignited the spirit of reading in me. Although I do not remember the story, I remember that it is a story of survival.

Not that I have never read before that. I used to. We must read a book every week at school. But all we did was to take the book and keep it in our bags forever. On the day before the return, we copied the blurb to the summary book. That was my reading pattern.

After reading “Goat life,”  I realized the power of reading. Yet, for two years, I did not read. I found it useless again. I was a science major in my Pre-university. Naturally, I instilled a thought that I would never be able to read anything except the academic materials.

On one fine September of 2017, I visited a book fair. This time I picked up a book that I wanted to read. I carefully read the blurb and understood the genre. I got hooked up with words. From then, words have always been there with me. My passion diverted towards words, and I felt pleasure in reading. Then, I made a shocking decision. I informed my parents that I do not want to be in a science background anymore. They did not expect this.  I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree

I read a lot nowadays. I read every day. I realized that my life took an unexpected turn that I never imagined. Reading helped me to survive when I was left alone. It made me sick of existing people and helped me to understand emotions.

It feels good now.