The Importance Of Being A Bibliophile

So I am sitting in a local train travelling from Vadodara to Surat and I feel like I am sitting in a hot sauna. But this hot sauna is surrounded by sweaty people all around, touching arm to arm and by beggars who come once in a while demanding us to pity them and give them money. But this isn’t all. There are random hawkers who come around to sell cheap stuff that frankly, prove to be a distraction from the constant cauldron of sticky, clammy and garish surroundings. But then I open up a book, Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and I am instantly transported back to the green gardens by which Heathcliff walks. I can feel the tumultuous emotions that are running through his mind. I can now dive into a fictional world and forget about the all-consuming present. I do not feel the grim present day situation to be as bad now. I am far too busy contemplating what Heathcliff’s next move will be. And hence I am free. Why am I taking up so much of your time telling you about a train journey I took? Because that gave me a chance to show you why being a bibliophile is a good thing.

I will not stress on the fact that reading books improves your vocabulary or that people will swoon over your English skills but I would like to convey that books can come in handy. To beat the crap out of someone, to get out of awkward situations and to immerse yourself into another world of your choice, books can haul and lug you into a rhapsody. You can visit a 19^th century England and you can survive a plane crash and come back to tell your survival saga. You can fall in love with a handsome, broody stranger who will turn out to be a vampire and go on whirlwind trips to cover the world in 80 days. You can live vicariously through each character, feel the emotions and realize that imagination is infinite. It doesn’t matter if you’re holed up in your room right now; you are already travelling at cosmic speed in a parallel universe. You have slayed dragons and gone on an adventure with the hobbit.

A bibliophile is defined to be a lover of books. Yes, precisely. But he is also someone who prefers to go on adventures, of the literary kind!

CONTRIBUTED BY:

Chandana Rao

Idler, bibliophile, side-spectator, day dreamer and an engineering student trying to find something she is good at. An average girl with high hopes and even bigger ambitions.