I Just Want Whatever Reopening Phase Lets Me Back in the Library

As a child, books helped me find myself; now, maybe they can help society find its way back to normalcy

I’m an unashamed and unequivocal book nerd. Give me a choice between a thousand dollar shopping spree and an evening curled up with a favorite author’s much-awaited new release, and I’ll choose the written word every time. Save your judgment and scorn for someone else — my Myers Briggs personality profile says they don’t bother me.

I pretty much came out of the womb reading. Not literally, but I think it was maybe a few days after I figured out phonics and could string a few sentences together that my family lost me to the world of Enid Blyton. I started with Noddy, progressed to the Famous Five, and gradually disappeared into the Enchanted Wood.

The next fifteen years were mostly a book-induced blur. I emerged now and then to participate in quotidian tasks like school, or mandated activities like violin practice and holiday gatherings. Sometimes, I even deigned to make conversation at the dinner table, but mostly I preferred my fictional friends to the company of real people.

In the ’80s and ’90s, the lending library phenomenon burgeoned across Indian cities. Maybe they still exist today…