I am not your typical girl. Well, I suppose there are no typical girls. But then again, I fall into no category ever. I am in a league of my own. I live in a world that is confusing for many to comprehend. I have many worlds. A world of my past, present, fantasies, and future, all woven into one complex web.
But if you ask me what my favourite place to be is? It is my world of books. I can stay hidden in them for days together if worldly obligations don't drag me back to reality.
I can go for years together without buying a single new outfit or accessory. In fact, I am doing just that. But that has to be a post on its own. Long story short - I am determined to work out and get back in shape, back to being who I was, before the pregnancies, hormonal imbalances, and perimenopause decided to wreak their havoc on me and my health. So I only have two classifications of clothes right now, and I vehemently refuse to buy more. One entire set of wardrobe that I have been faithfully saving up for the last decade, in the quiet, stubborn hope that I will one day fit back into them. And the other set, the clothes I wear now, which make me look so depressingly bad that they serve as my most effective motivation to get back into the first set. There is just no in between here.
But I still go on purchasing sprees. Terrible ones. Ones that leave me so consumed with guilt that I hide out the packages in my garage and sneak them in when my husband doesn't notice. And pray he doesn't notice. Because when he does, I am in for many, many subsequent days of relentless lecture and on his more theatrical days, outright ridicule.
The culprit? Books. Always books
Nothing pisses him off more than seeing yet another new bundle of books in the house.
Allow me to set the scene.
It is a time-honoured tradition in our culture. Before the wedding, the bride packs her belongings into suitcases. On the day itself, these are carefully transferred from her maternal home to her new in-laws' house. There are nominated volunteers just for this sole and sacred purpose - the weight-training brother or the young cousin, who has been feeling inexplicably powerful ever since the wedding preparations began. Their sole role throughout this entire wedding fiasco is to keep these suitcases safe and properly transferred across venues.
I have watched many cousins pack their suitcases over the years, meticulously and with intention. Filled with brand new outfits, some heirlooms, tons of new jewellery(Hello!! Malayalee here!), sandals, perfumes, some seriously questionable/debatable intimates, and even loads of homemade delicacies (because hey! you need something to remind you of home when you are busy settling in your new home and life).
But even then, I always knew exactly what was going into mine.
So it was no surprise that on my wedding day, when my brother was hauling my suitcases from one car into the other, he kept giving me the most threatening stare ever. Of my three large suitcases, two of them were tearing at the zippers - stuffed, unrelentingly, with hardbound books that had absolutely no intention of yielding to the pressure being exerted on them.
I carried them into my new home proudly. Not only did I have my brother move them across cars. I even made him lug it all the way up a full flight of stairs in my in-laws' house. He didn't speak to me much, but I could see his seething fury anyway.
When we moved from Kerala to Bangalore, I insisted we take them all the way there as well. So this time it was my husband who was seething with all that frustration and fury. I guess I was given some grace because I was still his new bride.
However, I am sure this is where he decided to get me an impromptu gift. His first ever gift to me - a Kindle Paperwhite. He presented it to me with what he thought was thoughtfulness and pragmatism.
But I have never felt so insulted in my life.
Before sundown, we went back to the store and promptly returned the unopened device. And I gave him my one and only lecture ever - Never ever get me a gadget or device that will replace a physical book.
Because for me, it has never just been about the words on the page. It is a holistic experience. The rustle of the pages as I flip through them. The smell, musty old paper or freshly printed ink, both equally intoxicating. The crinkled edges, the faded pictures, the weight of those pages in my hands - it is an experience unlike any. No device, however elegant, however convenient, can come close to replicating it.
Call me old school or call me a fanatic. But I am set in my ways, and I don't intend to change that. Not for anyone.
However, a decade later, his patience for my love of books has definitely waned.
Perhaps it is the credit card bills. The monthly evidence of exactly how much money goes toward books I collect with great enthusiasm and get around to reading at a pace that is, let's say, aspirational. Perhaps it is the books themselves, strewn across every level of the house, on every available surface, in every room.
Or perhaps it is the fact that children learn what they see.
Because now I have my little ones following in my exact footsteps. Not necessarily reading right away, but collecting. Saving. Curating their own piles for the perfect later time.
The war, it appears, is being fought on multiple fronts now.
And I am winning.
My haul from this week: Attached below
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