Came across this interesting meme in
squidoo by BigGirlBlue. Yes I do get this bloggers block and then don’t know
what to write. So writing these memes are not bad ideas. So here we go.
Copy and paste into your blog and change comments to your own answers. Use the title of this meme in your subject line or create your own. Feel free to tag your friends or not.
Write about five books that left a lasting impression from five different times of your life (or more if you've lived longer). [in my case its lil shorter] Don't limit yourself to the "best books ever". Books can leave an impression for other reasons. This meme was inspired by A Diary of a Mad Mammy.
First Book Read to Me – Thakumar Jhuli (Grandmother’s Tales)
If I have to think back then this was the first form of stories
I have ever heard. My mom and grandmother used to read folklores and fantasy
stories from Thakumar Jhuli when I
was a kid. This book is synonymous with Bengal. There is hardly any kid in
Bengal who has never read or have been read form Thakumar Jhuli by Dakhinaranjan Mitra Majumdar. I think even today it is as popular as it was some
25 years back. Characters like Nilkamal, Lal Kamal & Byangoma Byangomi were
legends in themselves. Sonar Kathi Rupar
Kathi used to be one of my favourites. |
| Back then it used to look like this, the exact cover of the book |
These days there are various other collections of folklore &
fantasy moral stories available as Thakurdar
Jhuli and all. And there are animated films available all across Youtube. You
can see some of them here.
First Book I Coveted – Three Little Pigs
First Book I Coveted – Three Little Pigs
 |
| The exact cover that I had picked up |
Another thing synonymous with Kolkata (where I grew up) is the
Book Fair. Bengalis love their literature and the love for books compels every
Kolkatan to visit the annual book fair once during the fair days. I remember on
one such outing when I went with mom (who is a bookworm) I had got this little
book The Three Little Pigs.
I must be in my kindergarten then. It’s a fairy tale. I must have picked it up because of the cute cover design then. But I remember that it was the first book I had bought.
I must be in my kindergarten then. It’s a fairy tale. I must have picked it up because of the cute cover design then. But I remember that it was the first book I had bought.
The Teen Years – Adventures of Feluda & Sarat Rachanabali
This
is one time when I read very less than my other friends. Don’t know if I had lost
interest (!!!) or something else. But this is the time when I got addicted to reading
only and only thriller, detective, and murder mysteries.
The times when girls
of my age wanted Mills & Boons I used to read up on Perry Masons, Sherlock Holmes
and Adventures of Feluda (in Bengali of
course).
Satyajit Ray’s collection of stories were the ones that I liked most during this
time I guess.
There’s
also this book which I must mention and if I don’t then it will be a sin. I
absolutely loved works of the renowned Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and read up
from my mom’s collection this huge fat book called ‘Sarat Rachanabali’. Much before all these hype of ‘Bollywoodized’ Devdas
and Parineeta came to life, I had read them and absolutely loved them.
[Specially ‘Parineeta’, ‘Biraj Bou’, ‘Datta’].
Believe me they are much better to read than on the silver screen with the
entire extravaganza. Ohh how can I forget ‘Srikanta’!
It is the best novel and character I have read probably till date. My
goodness I had forgotten about the great Bengali novels in recent times. If you
like to read intense drama and emotion then you cannot miss the novels by this
great novelist of Bengal. I am sure you get English adaptations of his works. I
need to get a new edition of it. Without this book my little library (currently
its only a book shelf) is incomplete.
Did
I just mention I read less when I was a teen?? I can find I read considerably
well than I used to think.
The Roaring Twenties – The Da Vinci Code
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I
don’t remember much what I was reading in college [I think I was too distracted
for being in college in the first place forget reading]. But I remember two
books that I loved reading while I was in college. I had got this book called Tenida Samagra (Collections of short
stories on the adventures of Teni Da – a
fictional character) for doing good in my 12th boards. This one was
also a big fat book by Narayan Gangopadhyay and is very famous among Bengalis. I
don’t think many wait till their 20s to read this up but me being me read this
late.
In
2006 I watched The Davinci Code (movie) and heard the novel was better than the
movie. Though I absolutely loved the movie I decided to read the novel too and
borrowed it from a friend. If I have read any novel the fastest then it has to
be The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I remember reading it in class, in canteen,
while traveling and till 5 AM in the morning without sleeping. And finished it
in a day or two (don’t remember exactly). And that’s where the love for Dan
Brown started and I started reading Angels
& Demons & Deception Point
quite late. After The Lost Symbol I
am currently reading his Inferno,
however, I still need to read his first book Digital Fortress.
Some
other books that I liked lately which I will remember many years down the line
are Dear Zari by Zarghuna Kargar (I
need to write this review ASAP), The Harry Potter series, The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth, Bourne Series by Robert Ludlum, Two States by Chetan Bhagat (that is the
only one of this works which made some sense to me) Shiva Trilogy by Amish (currently on book 2 and book 1 was
awesome).
I still have some time to get into the thirties so will do a
post when I am there. But you can write your own post if you are there.
Infact you can add the decades which suits you if you are
tagging yourself. And do tag me back.
Image Source: Google Images
