"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."- Logan Pearsall Smith
Truth be told, I have been reading for as long as I can remember. My mother introduced me to the fascinating world of books when I was about 5 years old and since then there's been no turning back. Time travelling to the future may be a distant dream, but books are the perpetual little time machines we all have access to.
I believe books hold the power of transporting you to a world, to a different place and time where you actually want to stay and see the magic unfold. There has been no better way to escape reality than to lose myself in a book. Whenever it feels like I am drowning in my own thoughts overcome by unavoidable rushes of confusion, reading is the activity that has more often than not kept my head held high enough for me to find solace and happiness. With every page, I turn and seconds that pass by the problems of this world do not feel so intimidating and momentous, it's just me and my book and my imagination.
If you take a peek into my room, you would find shelves filled with books to the extent that it bows some of them down, although that has never been a reason for me to stop stacking up on books and maintaining lengthy To-Be-Read lists.
The greater half of my book collection is from the iconic College Street or as Bengalis would quintessentially call the' Boi Para', and rest from the annually held Kolkata Book Fair.
When I am not spending my time in a constructive way, I take the moment to close my eyes and envision my life in 5 to 10 years from now. The first major change I can see on its way would certainly be the change of city and scenario. My intuition tells me that I would be the person, who would inevitably miss her city at every chance she gets to do so. Known and unknown faces would keep saying that my love for Kolkata is a phase and that it shall soon pass but I would know in my heart, it never will. I have felt nostalgia about the places I have never visited and things I have never seen, these plethora of emotions rushing inside me would be unlike all of those times. I believe Kolkata, is the city of soul and once you leave, you inevitably leave a little part of your soul here too.
In my time away from the city of joy,there would be no place that I would not yearn to be back in the presence of, if asked to face the dilemma of choosing a favorite,College Street has to be the undeclared winner with credit to my love for books and literature.
The College Street Book Market,the world's largest second-hand book market and India's largest book market is a bibliophile's heaven. As they say, if you do not find a book at College Street, it probably never existed. Boi Para is not just a place where you find books, it's a resilient symbol of the old world charm that we have so less left of in the world.
Stepping foot in the narrow by-lanes of this literary landmark, at first glance there is nothing too striking to captivate your attention, small bookstore kiosks huddled against each other, shopkeepers calling each other out, pedestrians humming yesteryear sweet melodies who walk right past you, hawking horns and honks and the incessant shouts and screams, it appears to be another overcrowded city street but before you realise the Boi Para and its serene chaos has taken over you.
Boi Para is much like the people who you don't click with at first chance, but with each successive time you meet them, their existence as a whole gradually grows upon you and then there are bonds formed for a lifetime.
I would not say that my first visit to College Street made me aware of all it had to offer. It wasn't actually until a few visits later, that I knew I had been moved so deeply by the place.
The Indian Coffee House is just around the corner and we all must agree on how a good book and a cup of coffee is a combination that works wonders on the mind. Something warm to sip on sets the right mood that one requires whilst reading.
The number of trips, I have made to College Street is something I have fairly lost the count of by this time. The joy of life truly comes from new experiences and the primary desire to expand our horizons; this is exactly what I kept in mind while going book shopping and the reason I came back with crime mysteries, romance novellas, mythological fantasies and science fiction all at once, without burning a hole in my student life pocket.
Asmita Biswas,
Truth be told, I have been reading for as long as I can remember. My mother introduced me to the fascinating world of books when I was about 5 years old and since then there's been no turning back. Time travelling to the future may be a distant dream, but books are the perpetual little time machines we all have access to.
I believe books hold the power of transporting you to a world, to a different place and time where you actually want to stay and see the magic unfold. There has been no better way to escape reality than to lose myself in a book. Whenever it feels like I am drowning in my own thoughts overcome by unavoidable rushes of confusion, reading is the activity that has more often than not kept my head held high enough for me to find solace and happiness. With every page, I turn and seconds that pass by the problems of this world do not feel so intimidating and momentous, it's just me and my book and my imagination.
If you take a peek into my room, you would find shelves filled with books to the extent that it bows some of them down, although that has never been a reason for me to stop stacking up on books and maintaining lengthy To-Be-Read lists.
The greater half of my book collection is from the iconic College Street or as Bengalis would quintessentially call the' Boi Para', and rest from the annually held Kolkata Book Fair.
When I am not spending my time in a constructive way, I take the moment to close my eyes and envision my life in 5 to 10 years from now. The first major change I can see on its way would certainly be the change of city and scenario. My intuition tells me that I would be the person, who would inevitably miss her city at every chance she gets to do so. Known and unknown faces would keep saying that my love for Kolkata is a phase and that it shall soon pass but I would know in my heart, it never will. I have felt nostalgia about the places I have never visited and things I have never seen, these plethora of emotions rushing inside me would be unlike all of those times. I believe Kolkata, is the city of soul and once you leave, you inevitably leave a little part of your soul here too.
In my time away from the city of joy,there would be no place that I would not yearn to be back in the presence of, if asked to face the dilemma of choosing a favorite,College Street has to be the undeclared winner with credit to my love for books and literature.
The College Street Book Market,the world's largest second-hand book market and India's largest book market is a bibliophile's heaven. As they say, if you do not find a book at College Street, it probably never existed. Boi Para is not just a place where you find books, it's a resilient symbol of the old world charm that we have so less left of in the world.
Boi Para is much like the people who you don't click with at first chance, but with each successive time you meet them, their existence as a whole gradually grows upon you and then there are bonds formed for a lifetime.
I would not say that my first visit to College Street made me aware of all it had to offer. It wasn't actually until a few visits later, that I knew I had been moved so deeply by the place.
The Indian Coffee House is just around the corner and we all must agree on how a good book and a cup of coffee is a combination that works wonders on the mind. Something warm to sip on sets the right mood that one requires whilst reading.
The number of trips, I have made to College Street is something I have fairly lost the count of by this time. The joy of life truly comes from new experiences and the primary desire to expand our horizons; this is exactly what I kept in mind while going book shopping and the reason I came back with crime mysteries, romance novellas, mythological fantasies and science fiction all at once, without burning a hole in my student life pocket.
Asmita Biswas,
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