Words...

It is difficult to put down a book... any book! It's like you have made a pact, signed a contract or promised someone that you'll read their story, listen to it with patience; and you cannot betray your own words for that. How real is it!

A story unfolds as you turn the pages diffidently, not wanting to miss anything; to savour every word till the last stroke. People call you a fast reader, accuse you to insult the precious book because you haven't enjoyed it as much, you haven't taken three times the time it needed. But you cannot explain, why or how! You have savoured each alphabet, each word, dot by dot and it has meant so much more than it should have. You cannot explain, how you can live the words you read effortlessly without having to go through them twice, or thrice! You are living the words, it's a different world; this one, you enjoy, to your own surprise.

You close your eyes and there they are; people from that world, alive and breathing. Words metamorphose into reality as you converse with them, share the same space as they do. You try to understand them, their perspective about things, their story, their pain, their agony or merely the fact that they are real. You are in their world, you are them! An English man full of hatred and revenge is as real your reflection as an architect who's defying everything and everyone. You are the drunkard of Picaddily, you are the alien from the vicinity of Betelgeuse; you are the resilient comrade under a tyranny, you are the ex military doctor slash sidekick to a detective! You are so much, you are everyone and you are nothing! 

It is solace you find in the words written by  men unknown to you. You are trying to find a source of the reflections you have seen. You are looking for an identity, you are looking for reality in what they blatantly call fiction. Perhaps, someday you might. 

Someday you will!