What I grew up reading.

I have always been an avid reader. My first experience with reading was Tinkle. One of my friends had the subscription and I used to share hers. Later I discovered that one could find it in the school library. I was hooked to it. The antics of Shikari Shambhu, the foolishness of Suppandi, the evil Chamataka and the charming Pyarelal always made my day.

Later, a few of my south Indian friends introduced me to Gokulam and life was never the same again. The ever interesting Undir family tales, the challenging puzzles and the simple stories with morals were just right for me to graduate from comics to books. I even made a lot of pen friends thanks to Gokulam.

Then began a long and very enjoyable tryst with Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I used to read these during the library period(yeah it was called the library ‘period’) and if I could not finish in an hour, I would request the librarian to ‘hide’ it for me. The sweet nerd that I was, the librarian always agreed! Slowly I grew bored of the stories with kids as detectives, almost always solving cases successfully. I tried reading romance now. None of the Mills and Boons really helped. All they did was make me more disgusted with the girly types in my class.

I now graduated to ‘real’ books. Rebecca, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility happened and I discovered the most interesting and rivetting books I have ever read. I can still read them without batting an eyelid.

My love affair with books began very humbly with Tinkle and I cannot thank my friends enough for letting me share their comics. These comics/books feature very prominently in my childhood memories!

What did you grow up reading?

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