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I don’t remember the first time I started reading. Probably because it was not a particularly glorious moment or maybe because it was very early on in life. But what I do remember is how I felt when I read. To find a Metaphor to describe what reading feels like is futile, because the experience is different for everyone

But for me this feeling would be the feeling of being underwater. This is quite ironical for I have never learnt how to swim. But every time I read I feel the gentle flow of words bubbling and filling the space around me. It seeps slowly from the corners and occupies every nook and cranny of my mind. Then I start holding my breath. And till I re-emerge from the book, I am a water baby.

Which brings me to the book Water babies. Our school library had a strange custom of lending random books to students. There is no choice involved. You take home the book that appears on top when your turn comes. It always reminded me of wands choosing the wizard in the Harry Potter books. The books chose us. And one day Water babies chose me.

I have never re-read the book. And I have but the vaguest remembrance of its contents. But I remember distinctly reading a paragraph. It described the protagonist falling into a lake feeling the water surrounding him, fearing that he would be drowned but suddenly realising that he could breathe under water. And I recognized that feeling because it described how I felt when I read. It is always a fear as to what I am getting into, where the words would lead me, where they would take me. Then amidst the breathless quest, I would realise that the breathlessness under the ocean of words is not so bad. I can breath here, albeit in words and musings of a thinner more woody air. The scent is not of the earthen air , but of vannilin and tree bark. The very breathlessness of this world illuminates the experience of reading. A waterworld of letters.