I was born an avid reader. As far back my mind goes, I remember I never forced myself to read. It just came naturally to me, and it is something I still love doing.
One Sunday, my grandpa took the first-grader me to the Sunday Bazaar (also known as Gujari Bazaar). “Buy anything you like,” he said. Strolling in the market, I came across a vendor selling books. I had made up my mind.
“I want to buy a book,” I said excitedly.
He pulled out a book titled Chacha Chaudhary, which did not really intrigue me. However, another book that read The Jungle Book did manage to catch my attention. After all, a monkey hanging on a tree and a boy riding a bear’s back made for a unique and interesting cover! Well, that was the first book I read to kick-start my journey as a reader, but that is not to say that its beginning was a smooth one.
My English was not really good enough back then. Demotivated after reading a few pages, I kept the book aside for a while.
Those days, our class teacher would hand out a book to every student during our ‘reading’ period. I would desperately wait for this period every week so I could get a new book to read. We would mostly get Gujarati-language books, which included Raja Harishchandra, Mansaina Diva by Zaverchand Meghani, Pruthivivallabh by Kanaiyalal Munshi, and Moticharo and a few other books by Dr. I. K. Vijaliwala.
By the time I got to high school, I had started writing poetry. Of course, that was down to my reading habits. Moreover, as an introvert, writing helped me vent my thoughts. Before I knew it, I had become passionate about it. My teachers’ admiration only stoked up this passion. I began reading more to improve my writing skills. I also gave tuition to some tenth and twelfth graders to be able to buy books on my own.
College life taught me to appreciate other great English authors. I read some of the best works of Rabindranath Tagore, Ray Bradbury, Anton Chekhov, R. K. Narayan and W. S. Maugham, among others. In my sophomore year, I could not look beyond Twilight. Well, even so, I learned about the writing styles of different authors from different eras. I realized that an author’s historical and socio-cultural settings had a great bearing on their life and writing.
Over time, my taste underwent a paradigm shift. I was absolutely smitten with Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. I gradually started exploring the historical fiction genre as well. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were the authors that impressed me the most. In fact, it was from this genre that I got my all-time favorite – Victor Hugo’s Les Misèrables. I also grew to appreciate Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems besides the ghazals by Mirza Ghalib and Nida Fazli.
Not short on motivation, I decided to pursue my master’s in English literature. This introduced me to a variety of hitherto unknown genres. I got to read Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Jeanette Winterson, Harold Pinter, Joseph Conrad, and Sylvia Path. Every book I read broadened my horizons.
I began freelance writing to earn from whatever I had learned. I kept improving my skills, even doing a couple of professional writing courses along the way. In fact, I recently contributed to an online travel anthology – my first published work – and I could not thank books enough for it.
A NOTE TO OUR READERS
Follow Zenia on Instagram to know more about her reading adventures and writing prowess.
If you too are an Indian reader with a story to tell, we are all ears. Getting your story published on Ameya is pretty straightforward, actually. Just click on the button below, fill in the applicable fields and start typing. Once you are done, hit ‘submit’. If you don’t quite fancy the idea of filling random contact forms on the Internet, relax – we’ve got all bases covered! You can simply email your story to us at support@booksameya.in. Once we’ve received your story, our team will get in touch with you and apprise you of its publishing status. Yes, it’s that simple!