ABSINRAW

I have loved stories since I was a kid. I’ve been reading stories as far back as I can remember. Maybe since Amar Chitra Katha was cool. Or when champak used to be a bimonthly magazine. I used to read everything everywhere. I am told my parents were fed up with this habit of mine, as I used to start reading the boards, hoardings, anything that came in front of my eyes, pretty loudly. Even today, sometimes I wish if I could get paid just to read, and I’ll keep doing it till the time my eyes fall off the sockets.

Figuring out your literary taste is like finding your taste in food. You will never know what you actually enjoy, till you are hungry. Only when your hunger is satiated, and are left to choose the last morsel, which will be the last taste you carry in your palate, you discover your taste. It was only when I read all that I can, from Prem Chand and Tagore to Rowling, Brown and Dickens; from poetry and essays to the winning competition entries in the newspaper; from Reader’s Digest to Sarita, that I was able to zero down my love for Comics and Mangas. How, is another story altogether.

All in all, approx. 300 titles of Manga, Manhwa, and Webnovels (Wuxia) combined, this is where my taste took me. There was a time when I was reading around 60-70 chapters each day, or reading 10-12 Mangas in parallel, and when someone asked me if I had read something new, I wasn’t able to answer, because I didn’t know if it counted. Even readers have hierarchy, and quite a complicated one. Purists and literary extremists have always looked down to these media as casual or not intellectually stimulating enough. Weebs/otakus/nerds are on top of the power structure now, we were simply lost causes.

So, looking at these confident li’l chipmunks in their knickers here and there, discussing about something that is older than their age, even ours in many cases, as if they own it, is pretty irritating, but is heartwarming too. Being able to see the passion for a story you have felt all your life being carried out by them, is satisfying. But it also feels like a loss at times, as if your personal treasure has been looted and distributed. My precious! But not for me alone.