The more I read these days, the more I feel I inhabit the stories and scenes I read about. It is hard to explain: at times I feel I’m one character and at other times I’m another. I’m constantly trying to find parallels between the story I read and the story of my life (if there is any such thing). I’m part of the narrative and I’m outside it. It is a surreal feeling and quite inexplicable. I’m not sure if I’ve always done this with everything I’ve read. But recently I’ve been more conscious of doing it. I not only draw parallels, I also compare and contrast my life with the lives of those in the story. Sometimes this is an absurd exercise simply because I might be reading a fantasy story or a story which is set in someplace far removed from my life is every manner possible, in terms of character and occurrences and yet I find a way to relate it to me or my thoughts.
I don’t know why I do this. I am not aware of any logical rational explanation. I’m sure every person who reads a story may in some shape or form try to relate that story to her life or perhaps just read it with the lens of experience that her life has given her or better still just read it as a piece of fiction, be entertained and that’s that. For me, the last option is never there. Any novel that I read is just not a piece of fiction or the figment of someone’s imagination: it is a living breathing world that I inhabit as long as I’m in the process of reading it. Only recently though I’ve been projecting myself into these stories as a character in the novel. And I’m not one character throughout. I am Vernon sometimes or I’m Red or Peter...it is not constant and finite. I can be more than one character in a particular novel. And when I say I am the character, it’s not that I’m literally that character but more like I project some aspect of me in the characters I read about. I agree or disagree with them or I think how I would act differently or even wonder if I was like them what would I do.
It is a very interesting phenomenon and I have to watch myself to see how often I do this.
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I still remember the day.
I have been wondering hard on a crossword when the lights went out. It was imminent and to speak frankly one would hardly expect to have power when half of the city was waterlogged. It was preposterous; imagine if there was a leakage and people getting electrocuted. It happens in Kolkata and everyday you read such stories in the newspaper. speaking of which i realised once again with dismay that i have been on a crossword published on a newspaper that was more than 24 hours old.
The weather hardly seemed to improve and the constant slurr of raindrops on the windowsill was the only sound that could be heard over the clatter of utensils from the kitchen.
"shokal theke porashona chere khali bostapocha crossword niye boshe thaklei hobe"
"jalio na to" i replied sarcastically over the thought for a word that would fit the four across.
"deshlai kathi naki jalabo?" replied a even more amused voice that happened to be of my father.
I gave up
:-)
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