I carry warm memories of the books I have read so far. For me, books were more than companions; they were wise counsel I returned to often. “You can connect the dots only by looking back, not forward,” Steve Jobs once said in his commencement speech, offering three stories and three lessons, nothing more. In that spirit, I now look back slowly, taking time to notice what I learnt and when my choices began to shift.
Of late, I find myself drawn to books through an inner calling rather than conscious planning. I am especially moved by translations—by the way ethics and artistry come together to form a single, resonant whole.
Let me begin earlier. I was a happy child; it was school that made me morose. I struggled to understand what was taught unless I taught myself. I had difficulties with learning that went unnoticed, and I was expected to move through the same pedagogy as everyone else. Yet when I encountered books—especially mysteries and detective sleuthing—I was fascinated beyond imagination.
Books led me gently into a world of words where my unhurried mental voice finally made sense. If I wished to linger longer, a book would wait patiently for my understanding, unlike school, where there was always a rush to complete the semester’s learning.
Even today, my preferences lean toward mystery, law, court cases, and the quiet satisfaction of problem-solving. These were my chocolates. More than brawn, I loved the brain.
I repeated third grade with no friends and a lingering sense of being mocked, but I sailed past those years. After my secondary-level public examination, confidence returned, along with a clear realisation: school rewarded rote learning, not deep understanding. That discovery disappointed me deeply. For a brief period in early junior college, I felt repelled by school altogether.
Yet my school library became my refuge. When it expanded in the eleventh grade into three classrooms joined together, I felt as though I had entered heaven. During lunch breaks and library hours in advanced English classes, I borrowed, returned, and borrowed again—reading voraciously from 1990 to almost 2000.
During my undergraduate years, access to British and American libraries expanded my reading world further. Until then, my exposure had largely been to bestsellers and British literary works. Now the range widened, and with it, my sense of intellectual freedom.
Romance entered my life early, beginning with Nancy Drew’s Case Files. Nancy’s relationship with Ned Nickerson was unthinkable within a conservative Tam-Bram upbringing, yet it amused me precisely because it never interfered with the sleuthing. Ned existed as quiet support, not emotional centre stage.
My formal introduction to romance novels came in twelfth grade through the Silhouette Desire series. I limited myself to two authors, rereading their books multiple times because I loved the way the stories were told. That was when the writing bug first bit me. Until then, I had been a poet, rhyming with joyful abandon.
Over time, I began to notice a pattern in the romances that moved me most—stories where the heroine is falsely accused, misunderstood, and hurt by harsh words. As a reader, I knew her innocence, and that knowledge stayed with me. These atypical plots taught me that relationships are shaped by the effort invested in steering them back to their intended path. Misunderstandings are inevitable, but strong relationships keep communication open and grounded in empathy.
In recent years, my engagement with romance has shifted toward drama viewing. Yet the underlying reason remains the same. Some of my reading today is intellectually demanding and inward-facing, requiring deep concentration and practical application. Romance, on the other hand, forms a lighter vein of my blogging—more easily shared, more openly human. Its value lies not in instruction but in emotional resonance and recognisable feeling.
A Chinese drama I recently watched, Shine on Me, reflects my ideal understanding of love: wishing well for another even without reciprocity. This mirrors my devotion to my ishta devatha, Sri Sathyanarayana Perumal. I have spent countless nights—despite my aversion to the cold—resting in thought of the Lord. That peace felt like an old friend offering silent companionship, a space where I could speak freely without fear of judgment. Conversation would eventually give way to silence, and in that silence, I found the purest calm.
Much of my growth has come through reading rather than lived experience. In real situations, I often freeze and fail to speak my mind, but while reading I do not judge characters for their choices. I notice instead whether they accept the consequences of those choices. My life experiences run parallel to my reading life, each informing the other. Even now, I sometimes feel guilty for reading too much romance—but I will not be judgmental about my natural choices, because they make me more human.
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Itinerant Storyteller 