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Diving Deep



When you take a dive into the new worlds that books create in your mind, the dancing and singing characters in them, somehow, percolate into you. Some part of them, hires a place in you, and start living in you. You may forget the plot, important details, but you'll never let go of the part of their character that has percolated inside you.

I mean when you read Sherlock Holmes you start deducing and analyzing stuff around you. Though you are not blessed with those gifted mental faculties, you want to draw big conclusions from scanty available information. The things around you suddenly become very interesting. At least in your mind. 

When you read God of Small Things, the quietness of the brokenhearted Estha gets into your personality. And at the end you get confused whether to be happy about the wild night of Ammu and Velutha's love making, so beautifully depicted, or get disgusted by the societal rules that destroyed not only the lives of lovers but also the twins. Also your insecure, fearful and childish self resurfaces.

When you read Shantaram, you feel like life is a collection of beautiful experiences, each of which is worth experiencing and sharing. You  get to feel the many experiences of Gregory David Roberts, just by reading the book. And you wish to go to the Leopold someday just to discuss philosophy with the beautiful Karla or the mafia king Khaderbhai

When you read The Alchemist, your conviction towards your dreams becomes stronger. Your heart starts speaking the language of the universe and you want to listen to it. You start believing in your dreams and start following them. This itself changes the way we see things. We start connecting the occurrence of some small event with our huge dreams, and in a strange way, it aligns us even more to that dream and its realization.  Even a small event like getting a ride to somewhere and reaching there safely makes you believe that it is all Maktub, that these things are happening to you, everything is written.
 
Tuesdays with Morrie helps you get wise. You start understanding what things matter and what do not. The book says that you won’t remember the presentations that you make but the smiles that you bring on the faces of your family and friends. And how to make peace with yourself just by forgiving yourself first and then the people around you.

When you read The Fountainhead, you become least bothered about what others may think about your actions. You start focusing on yourself. You do what you want to and not what you are supposed to. That is the real freedom that one can experience.


When you read about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, you become comfortable with your small awkwardness and start cherishing the small brain you have unlike the ingenious Lisbeth. It’s lovely to know about such interesting people, who just by sitting at their laptops can control computers and servers across the continents.

It is altogether a new experience to read Harry Potter. In the fantasy world, you get into an adventure to fight against he-who-cannot-be-named. The ways and the means, the helps and the betrayals, the friends and the foes. You can connect with almost everything. You start thinking that the person you are talking to might be considering you a Muggle. And believe, someday, you might have found a Platform Nine and Three-Quarters but were fired with the Obliviate charm and so you don't remember anything about it. A sentence I believe in, from an author I admire sums it all up:

“I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” 
 J.K. Rowling

PS:- Please do me a favour by posting about books, that you dived in, or should I say the character that dived deep into your character.