THE trouble with books is that they grow on you -- or, in other words, you grow on them. In still other words, you cannot do without books once you get into deep bonding with them. Though to many that may be a negative obsession, one must insist that such a habit should be considered far better than many other addictions such as alcohol or tobacco or endless cups of coffee, for example. For the loud-thinker, an endearing and enduring comradeship with books is the best thing to have happened in an otherwise routine life. He realises how books have made his life much easier to live, much better to enjoy, far more meaningful than that of many, many others for whom books are an unexplained -- even illogical -- anathema. What matters most in one’s relationship with books is the manner in which the books grow on one and one grows on books -- as if books cannot live happily without their best friend. Just as friends gravitate to one another, the books and their lovers, too, do similarly.

 

In today’s tech-savvy world where electronic or digital platforms are considered best for reading, books are still holding on to their own -- for the simple reason that the tech-friendly world is yet to find an equally effective replacement of the physical books on paper. That is another sweet trouble with books -- that they have no replacement in any science, no matter all sorts of devices -- that really come nowhere near the traditional books. Once you open a book, its pages consume you in their embrace. You read on and on, in search of more about the subject, and then suddenly comes the end of the book. That saddens you like nothing else does. For, that is like the end of your over-coffee meeting with friends in the corner cafe` down the lane. The subject -- a story or a poem or an essay, so to say -- has already gripped your attention and you do not want to lose that warm, cosy feeling being amid printed pages.

 

The romance, however, is not with only the printed pages. It is also with the subject, with the author known or unknown, with one’s own mental state as one picks up the book. In certain mental states, certain books appear to be tremendously friendly. On other occasions, the same book may appear to be plainly hostile. But then, do not similar things happen in connection with humans as well? No matter all the explanations and justifications for reading books, one thing is more than clear -- that without books, life would have been such a massive and unending boredom!! Because there are books, life is happiness incarnate!