I am not among the lucky lot who enjoy a siesta, the afternoon catnap. Maybe because I jumped into my career overseas quite early and also started managing a family, such kind of relaxation still remains a luxury for me.

But, the other day, while on a weekend off, I had the strong urge to fall asleep and be blank, after reading the short story, ‘Tuesday Siesta’, by Gabriel García Márquez. The woman who travelled all the distance in the summer with her daughter, to visit the grave of her son, pained me.

“Which grave are you going to visit?” he asked.

“Carlos Centeno’s,” said the woman.

“Who?”

“Carlos Centeno,” the woman repeated.

The priest still did not understand.

“He’s the thief who was killed here last week,” said the woman in the same tone of voice. “I am his mother.”

I felt a weight in my heart after reading this. There are certain feelings that are unfathomable. This story takes you to such emotional turbulence that makes you fall in love with reading.

As a kid, I was not a voracious reader, but I loved books. As I grew up, my reading habits changed, and it helped shape my vision as well.

Apart from the books in my mother tongue Malayalam, slowly I started reading English books. During my teens, I read a book that was originally intended for young kids – ‘The Little Prince’. I simply enjoyed reading it, without bothering about its philosophy, and never had any idea who the writer was. Many years later, I reread that book, and it changed my outlook. “All grown-ups were once children… but only a few of them remember it…” wrote the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who was a pilot by profession and writer by passion. Those words changed me. No, I can better understand my kid, and all those kids around. “Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies…” he wrote elsewhere.

My reading progressed from literature to science. We did not have access to the internet or cellphone that is the phenomenon of the 1990s. If you want to learn something, you cannot ‘Google’ it. The library was the ‘search engine’! At times, a termite eaten book might take you to a new realisation.

Times have changed. Now even kindergarten students have ‘tablets’, and they are more comfortable with the gadget than with their slate. For us, the biggest ‘tablet’ was the slate. Even as an Aviation graduate, even a desktop was a luxury for me till I began my career. Now there is no generation gap in the use of the laptop, cellphone or the internet and even the elderly are conversant with the new-age lingo and jargon. 

It was when I started getting acquainted with the new-age technology in the world of reading and communication that one book appeared before me; first as a quote. “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

That was like enlightenment. His name was Paulo Coelho, and the book, ‘The Alchemist’. It was almost like a parabolic trajectory – from ‘The Little Prince’ to ‘The Alchemist’. I started reading it, of course, many years after its publication. Slowly, the protagonist of the novel, Santiago, gained root in me. The Spanish shepherd who was able to travel across the Sahara, become an alchemist and achieve everything in life because he was not willing to give up hope in his Personal Legend blossomed in me like a desert flower. 

Whenever I see the glass utensils shining in the rack, I remember Santiago. I love watching those utensils because they shine like anything with their head held high. Whenever time permits, I clean them with soft cotton, and then brew my favourite tea and enjoy a sip. As I recline, I travel to the world of Santiago, which fills me with the fragrance of travels… the power to achieve what we dream. 

The philosophy, “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting…” still reverberates in me and takes me to new heights. 

Determination… that’s the word. It was the same determination that made the hapless mother wait outside the cemetery in the hope that the priest would open the gate for her to see the grave of her son.

Reading, it takes you through the unknown passages of life; you can fly and float. You will start exploring the meaning of your dream. You start loving yourself and the world around you. Now, when I see the glass utensil on my shelves, I can experience the see crystal shop in Africa, and I can wander with Santiago. In that travel, my mind crosses the desert and reaches the mighty ocean. 

There I come face to face with yet another Santiago –the elderly Cuban fisherman in Ernest Hemmingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. The one who loves the sea for everything it has given him.

Yes, that is the alchemy of reading that nothing else can provide you. Beyond the social media and the electronic reading platforms, there are certain experiences that you will get only through physical reading. That tactility you cannot experience on the touch screen. The feeling of flipping through…. That is why the Santiagos have made an indelible mark in me, which you cannot express in one ping or a smiley for that matter!