Hobby: Reading

 







Part 1 : Circulating Library Days

Summer vacations approaching. Motivation to sail through the final exams…then, six weeks free.

The biggest motivator: (re)joining ‘Rajesh Circulating Library’ in the station area, and get comics and books to read. There were three libraries, run by the same family, we usually went to the first one.

The favourites in comics would be the Archies, the Richie Riches, Tarzan, Tintin, Asterix, Enid Blyton … each one would have a USD or UKP price written.. the library guy would charge the equivalent in Rs/Ps. For e.g. a 25 C Richie Rich, would mean 25  Paise reading charge(A 25 Paise coin doesn’t get anything now, hence, it was demonetized along with all other lower value coins in 2011)

We were allowed to keep the comics for a week, I think.. so, we would pick 7-8 at least, and, read, re-read, re-read, re-read them to make sure we got the full ‘Paisa Vasool’.

Around 7th-8th Std, there were also the Hardy Boys, the Three Investigators, Nancy Drew…all got added to the reading list.

Indrajal Comics were priced at just 50 Ps, and, later, max 1.5 Rs .. so we would buy them most of the time and have still preserved them , nicely bound, at Baroda. The excitement we used to feel when going to check for the latest issue..but that’s a separate tale. Part 2 coming up soon.

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