Unforgettable Readings

Today at noon as I dawdled in the living room, a toothbrush in my mouth, half-asleep, my mom had a wide smile on her face. “I have a treat for you!” I assumed that it was probably mangoes as I dug into the cloth bag she was pointing towards. It wasn’t mangoes. It was an issue of Champak.

A recent issue of Champak

A treat. That is exactly what Champak was for me during my childhood. It’s a bi-monthly magazine for kids which feature mostly animal stories. The stories are generally all the same. They find plot in Champakvan forest where there is a naughty monkey, a dumb ass(a stupid donkey)or a scamming fox. There is always some kind of moral of the story, that doesn’t differ much either. Other kinds of stories are informative, barely more than a conversation where one animal imparts knowledge to another. But with the funny names of the animals, the smart illustrations and colorful pages, Champak was an indulgent delight.

Our home had no TV. Our Radio had no signal. Our town had no bookstore. I had to entertain myself with the few books that we had in our house. Correction, the few English books we had. My mother and father both were avid readers and there was quite a store of Marathi books at our house. The only time I could get new books was when I visited the city. My Baba would buy an armful of books then but alas, I would gulp them up in no time. So I would resort to reading Champak, the only kids magazine available in Roha. Everytime I accompanied my mother to the market, I would rush into the little newspaper stall, run by Mr. Kulkarni. Mr. Kulkarni didn’t like disappointing me, so he would keep aside an English Champak from me.

It was similar with the postlady. I never knew her name. Her only identity was her big glasses, her grizzly hair and the khakhi saaree she wore. She would drop mail at our house at lunchtime generally and I would run to the door, pushing away my plate to see if the kind postlady had brought me my Newshouse. Newshouse was a weekly newsletter for kids that my mother had subscribed for my sister. I would find Newshouse boring and would only read the comic strips in it. Other stuff, like Tinkle, Chandamama, Magic Pot, Chacha Chowdhary and Archie Comics, I got to read only during railway journeys and those were few.

A Logo Of NewsHouse

The first book I read

The first book I read was Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven. We had a famous five at home, but it was old and yellow and I didn’t feel like picking it up. My cousin Sukanti had gifted me the secret seven for my birthday and she was adamant about finishing reading it herself during that stay. I was more interested in playing with her, but she was the boss, so I would quietly sit beside her looking over her shoulder into the book as she read. That is how I read my first book. But Sukanti was a little cruel to me, for she would read like lightning, turning the page when I hadn’t even finished half. So after she had left, I picked up the book myself, obviously interested in the book now. And once I was done with it, I found the treasure of many other Enid Blyton in my own house and began ravishing them like anything.

By the time I had read the first few books, I had only one aim in life now- to finish reading all 21 books! My cousins, Sukanti and Nikhil proved to be a real boon for they would exchange their books with me(it wasn't possible to buy all the books of course!). A family friend of ours, Mr. Karnik was kind enough to lend me his son’s Famous Fives. While I haven’t had any sort of contact with Mr. Karnik or his family for the past three years(pity!), some of his famous fives that I failed to return still lie in my bookstand, and I am ever grateful to him for those.

The quite old cover of the Famous Five

Hardy Boys

I had spent four years on Enid Blyton, reading almost everything she had wrote and even conjuring stories of my own(they were essentially Enid Blyton- a bunch of kids and a dog, solving mysteries) until my parents decided I had to move on. That came from our primary school principal, who gave me her daughter’s Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews over the summer, and a far off relative who gave away all his teen books, that he must have owned as a kid himself. 
And then of course, came one of the greatest things I know in my life- Aksharbaug. Aksharbaug was little library for kids started in our little town by two extra-ordinary ladies- Samruddhi Kaku and Nutan Kaku. It consisted of a single cupboard with two overflowing compartments of English books. So many families donated their old books and even a community of young readers was almost founded in the town. Something of a bookworm, I can boast of having read every book in those compartments.

As I grew up, my attachment to the books reduced. I found the wonders of hanging out with friends, watching TV. I moved to the city and I began watching more movies and plays. Books could now be flipkarted and crossworded. The immense need to own books disappeared with the struggle behind it. While I still read, I don’t read so much that I can write about it.

Today as I held the Champak, I found myself becoming that little kid again. I sat down to read it even before picking up the newspaper. It’s not the same Champak of course. The quality of pictures, paper everything has changed. The stories are still the same but the readers have changed too. As I have grown up, Champak has grown up too.