World Book and Copyright Day 2023: Popular Indian authors on the joy of reading

World Book and Copyright Day, which is known as the International Day of the Book, is celebrated to promote publishing, reading, and protecting intellectual property rights. Each year, it is celebrated on April 23 in over 100 countries across the world with great enthusiasm by book lovers. On World Book and Copyright Day today, we asked some popular Indian authors to share their views on the joy of reading, the books that stayed with them and changed their life, their earliest reading memory, and more. Here's what they told us.

Photo: Canva

Legendary feminist writer, Shashi Deshpande was felicitated with a Lifetime Achievement AutHer Award 2023 for her timeless contributions to Indian writing in English. At the award ceremony, Deshpande spoke about her love for reading and how book enriched her life. "Reading and writing, and how they merged together, have lifted my life above the ordinary-- this has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I will speak of the friends I have made as a writer, giving me the companionship which I could never have had when I was-- as they say-- only a house wife," she said in her speech.

Speaking of the writers who have inspired her, Deshpande further said, "One of the greatest boons of literature is that you don't have to go out in search of a guru. They come to you between the covers of books. I have learnt much from these guru like Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf. I have learnt the elegance of simplicity in language, the power of words when used in the right place and the right context, the great value of the writing of women and so on..."

Popular Indian mytho-fiction writer, Anand Neelakantan believes that "nothing can trigger imagination like books". Talking about his love for books and reading, he told us, "Though there are many forms of story telling like films, television, stage play etc, there is nothing that beats books when it comes to evoking deep emotions. Other forms of story telling are passive in the sense someone else packages the story for us. When we watch a film we are getting the story through the glasses that the director, actor, editor, art director, cinematographer, music director and a slew of other people provide. When we read books, we are the director, art director, cinematographer, music director and all rolled into one. It is an active and participatory story reception, enhancing our imagination and touching us far more deeply."

He further shared some books which have stayed with him. "I am first a reader and then a writer. Books like the 'Ramayana', 'Mahabharata', folk tales of India, 'Kathasaritasagara', 'War and Peace', 'Game of Thrones', 'Lord of the Rings', etc have always inspired me," he added.

Recalling her earliest reading memory and love for books, Indian bestselling author Preeti Shenoy said, "My father had a transferable job and a large collection of books. I moved a lot as a child, and any place we went, the books went with us. My father would find a library in any new place we moved to and take a library membership. My grandfather too had a large collection of books and I was the only grandchild allowed to access them as I would be very careful with books, unlike other kids my age. My earliest memories are reading every single thing I could lay my hands on, including books like ‘I’m Okay, You’re Okay’ by Thomas A Harris, which I read (and understood) by age 9 or 10. I would then have discussions with my dad, and we would analyse the way people behaved and spoke."

Talking about the books she read and liked, and those which stayed with her, she further said, "The first books I read as a child were 'MAD' comics, 'Tintin', 'Asterix', 'Phantom' (Indarjal comics) and 'Amar Chitra Kathas'. Then I graduated to Enid Blytons (especially the 'Malory Towers' and 'St.Clares' series) . I disliked 'Nancy Drew' and 'Hardy Boys'. In my teens, I used to love 'Arthur Hailey', 'James Hadley Chase', 'Perry Mason'. The non-fiction books which made a difference in my life which I read in my teens are by Dale Carnegie ('How to Win Friends and Influence People') and Herbert Fensterheim ('Don’t Say Yes When You Want To Say No'). Even now, I read a LOT and have reviewed over a 200 books on my Instagram. You can find them in my highlights."

Sharing her earliest reading memory, author Kiran Manral said, "My father would 'read' to me every evening before bedtime from picture books, when I was very young. I didn't even know the alphabet back then, but him reading the books over and over made the words stick in my head and soon I was 'reading' the books with him. I remember a picture book of two children who lived in a seaside town, finding an injured dolphin, nursing it back to health and setting it back into the ocean. I don't remember the title of the book or further details, but even today, almost 50 years later, I remember the illustrations, the picture-perfect seaside town, the pony tails of the girl and the happy smile of the dolphin as it went back into the sea. Perhaps that was my first introduction towards ecological awareness and sensitivity towards all life on the planet."

Speaking of the stories that had stayed with her and probably initiated her love for dark, twisted tales, she said, "When I was a child my father bought me a big, hardcover illustrated version of 'Grimm's Fairy Tales'. It was gruesome, grim and really scary. The illustrations were exquisite and transported me to another world, a world that I could only further imagine using the illustrations as a touch point. There were so very many strange stories in that book, stories that aren't popular and known. 'Rumpelstiltskin', 'The Goose Girl', 'The Juniper Tree' and more. The tales were not something I would honestly recommend you give a child to read, given the gore, the horror, the witches, the amputations, the cannibalism. I think I got my love for horror and twisted tales from that book, and it is a love that has endured down the years."

"I read a lot as a child given that my home was filled with books. This included Enid Blyton, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffery Archer, Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare, as well as RK Narayan, Premchand, Tagore and Ruskin Bond, the typical fare that Indian children growing up in the 80’s and 90’s were given to read. 'Tom Sawyer', 'Huckelberry Finn', 'The Jungle Book', 'Little Women', 'The Little Prince', 'The Famous Five', 'The Secret Seven', 'Malory Towers' (with my favourite character Darell Rivers). When I grew up it was Jo March from 'Little Women' who was my doppleganger – tomboyish, hot-temempered, geeky, now my feminist icon. And then I wanted to grow up to be like Scarlett O’Hara from 'Gone With The Wind'. When you relate to a character, why you cry when they cry, love when they love, a little piece of you is lost and rediscovered. Those are the kind of characters I emulate," journalist-author Meghna Pant told us, speaking about her love for book and reading.