Human beings are funny creatures. The world – a funnier place. We do not fail to look at and grieve about the numerous instances and situations in life that give us unhappiness and sorrow, however we seem to be incapable of discovering the things that give us most pleasure.
Book – a simple word with four letters and one syllable, can bring us so much happiness, a quantity which our comparatively tiny mind cannot measure. Books make you travel the world without feet. In other words, books are uniquely portable magic. Sitting in a little corner of your home you can visit places millions of miles away or even places we humans consider non-existent. A good book leaves you with many experiences, sad, happy, slightly exhausted or even overwhelmed in the end but you live several lives while reading. The happiness felt by us when we read can be expressed as the feeling of eternal bliss, when we get lost in a world of our own, unaware of our surroundings and the related
problems. To simply state, a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge.
There are so many books and yet such little time. Whether you are in for adventure, thrillers, romance or even reading about the lives of great people, the world of books has so much to offer. As an honorable man once said and I quote- ‘a room without books is a body without soul’. Books are mirrors to our inner selves – we see in them only what is already inside us. They contain the darkest of our secrets, the deepest of our thoughts. They help us in discovering ourselves and most importantly play a big role in our lives as they influence our thoughts and shape us into the individuals we eventually become. The sequestered nooks, the enigma and the sweet serenity of books also help engrave in us the thirst for knowledge and hunger for learning.
When I was about eight, though unknown to me at that time, I realised that the most wonderful thing next to a human is a book of his choice. Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like
expressing your ideas, like listening to music, like looking at a beautiful view, like taking a walk on the beach. I read books as I would breathe air, to fill up and live. Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry, and find a meaning in life. What a blessing it is to love books as I love them – to be able to converse with the dead and to live amidst the unreal. To simply lose myself to the millions of emotions they bring out from within me, most of them I never even knew I could experience. They bring peace to my mind while at the same time cause deep unrest. A friend may bid you farewell, the people you love may leave, the world you know to be may shatter but a book will never leave your side until life brings you to its threshold.
A word is worth a thousand actions and a book contains millions of these – imagine the power they contain. It is in our hands to unleash this power. My books are my friends, my most prized possessions. My best friends indeed.
Article by Sripriya Singh, 14 years, living in India.
