I didn't have a reading culture at home. We subscribed to the newspaper, and to the popular Malayalam weekly Manorajyam for Amma and Ammumma. However, the reader in me was only interested in Balarama, the children's magazine that appeared regularly in my friend's house next door, which he used to keep hidden. He allowed me to read it only under his strict supervision. I was never allowed to take it home. He hovered around me like a policeman watching a prisoner whenever it was in my hands, and each time he would snatch it away before I finished reading. Perhaps it was this yearning for a forbidden fruit that spurred me to go in search of books. In those days, Sovietland was a regular feature at home and I would flip through it for the pictures that introduced a whole new world for me. Textbooks were covered using those pages and when the Soviet Union disintegrated, I was most saddened by the loss of covering material for children. Yet another interesting thing at home was a book that Achchan had bought for 75 paise. It had exquisite pages. I tried reading it, but the first line left me shaken and unsettled. I was so fascinated by the book that I carried it to school every day. When I grew up, I realised that the book was the Communist Manifesto, the spectre that had stirred up the world. These intriguing external factors have certainly influenced my reading. That's how I became a member of the local library, where I tried reading OV Vijayan and Paul Zachariah, among others. It was when I read Khasakkinte Ithihasam [Legend of Khasak] at a later stage that I realised how much of a failure my initial attempts in reading were. Nevertheless, the books that I tried reading during my initial days as an uninformed reader, welcomed me wholeheartedly when I read them again.

One Hell of a Lover

‘You Can Hide the Most Powerful Gunpowder Within Language’