Reading...

One of my favorite subjects in school was English. One of the good things about being in a CBSE school was that we got to read some quality prose. Unlike Maths where I have to make an effort to keep my eyes open(especially after the thaiyir sadam lunch), I would look forward to those English periods.

Ruskin Bond comes to mind when thinking of short stories. I remember one story that touched me immensely - It was about a man who was begging on the streets since he lost his leg in some kind of natural disaster like a gas explosion or something. He is narrating how he was pushed by this other guy who in a bid to survive and get out fast, pulled him down. This man was left there to die and eventually was alive but without legs. He narrates the story to this rich guy when asking for money. The climax is beautiful - The man who pushed was the beggar and the rich man was the man left behind but who still managed to survive.

Then I remember the Last Leaf by O.Henry which was about a girl who is sick with pnuemonia. She counts the leaves of an ivy that crawls outside her window and proclaims to her friend that she will die when the ivy leaves fall down. The ivy leaves were falling down fast and is synonomous to her withering away. After this one storm she frantically looks out to see if there are any more leaves and there's still one. Days pass by and the leaf still stays there giving her hope. She gets better and when she looks closer, she notices that it is in fact a painted leaf. Her friend had told about her fancy to this old painter. This was his masterpiece and he succumbed to pneumonia dying to save her.

Then there were the nice greek mythology stories - Medusa, Pegasus, Pandora, Chimaera...

Nondetail which was pretty detail were good too - Jekyll and Hyde was pretty freaky, Oliver Twist, Robinson Crusoe were all good.

Non-School reading: Some favorites were Swiss family Robinson - I would wish we were shipwrecked in an island and we could survive just like the robinson family and live in a tree house.

I also absolutely adore the goblin-pixie- magical stories of Enid Blyton. I could very well curl up on the couch today with something to snack on and an Enid blyton book (Yeah right! A distant reality with the kids and a husband). Wishing Chair, Hop Skip and Jump, Mr.Meddle comes to mind.

Some heavy novels like Silas Marner, great expectations, Jane Eyre were good too.

I would be scared to sleep alone in the nights after reading Agatha Christie's Evil under the sunshine. Death on the Nile was the best - better than And then there were none.

Rant about not pursuing English in college:
If only we didn't have the taboo of being looked down upon by all the kazhla bolts, mamas and mamis, maybe our country would have people who work to pursue their passions and not have a bunch of useless average engineers.