Confined To A Genre 📚

Being confined to a genre is more common than the reading fraternity would like to admit.

My personal favorites were Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie with classics like ‘Pride and Prejidice’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ thrown in once in a while for good measure.

For decades I couldn’t pick up anything contemporary, regional or anything other than my favorites.

If I happened to start Chetan Bhagat, I would wonder, “Is this even  English? How did he even get published in the first place?”

I didn’t feel the effortless ease while reading Indian authors in English. It was like driving a very old car with jagged gears. It was  really easy to relinquish them totally and return to my comfort zone ie., Agatha Christie and Holmes.

Reading is not just for knowledge it is for companionship and I was most comfortable in their company.

Once in the library certain titles began to call me out. I guess I was at the threshold and crossover was just natural.

‘The Alchemist’ by Pablo Coelho ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma, ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne, ‘The Biology Of Belief’ by Bruce Lipton and many more.

One friend led me to another and for the first time in my life I was among so many friends who cared for me enough to not only help me escape into a book but show me the way to the things I knew not.

It wasn’t really a crossover, only I had more comfort food in my pantry now.

Next I became part of a Critic Club where reading a story of the writer sitting in front of me in flesh and blood was a great high and then when I joined a Book Club which hosted and interviewed the new age Indian authors, sensitized me towards Indians writing in English. They were talking about the world as it is. It was not easy to shut them out, for they were saying what needed to be heard.

English began to appear not just as a borrowed language but a Universal medium unifying culture’s, communities and conscience.