Agonies of a Die Hard Reader!

Preface: For those who have not read the third part of Shiva Triology, stop right here! A bit of the suspense might be revealed!

It was a pleasant evening with a little breeze in the other wise hot weather in the Sunshine State. Sujoy comes home in the evening after office and is bewildered to see me crying, with big tear droplets rolling through my cheek. He is shocked and comes near me and asks me what is the matter with me. I look into his big eyes, hug him tightly, sob and in miffed voice say, "Sati died."

Sujoy is baffled, tries to remember who is Sati...some relative or ex-colleague of mine...but he fails to nail who this Sati is. He asks me timidly, "Who died exactly?" 

I reply sullenly, "Sati, Shiva's wife." And then it dawns on him. Sati is a fictional character in some moron book my wife is reading!!!! And he gives me a very ugly look and walks off. He thinks I am a mad woman, and how come someone be carried away so much by a book.

So this is the life of a die hard reader, who falls in love with the souls of the characters in the book and thinks these folks are an inseparable part of life. The other world, never understands this sentiment and finds it very difficult to digest. But nevertheless, we die hard readers cannot help but agonize in our book characters' pain and rejoice in their happiness. Such is our life!

Sometimes a book gives us such a kick that we forget everything around us. I remember, I was hooked to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand and finished this humongous book in a week by bunking college. That awestruck I was with that book. The way Ayn Rand has knitted this story to put forth her philosophy is just plain awesome. You fall in love with Howard Roark, his struggles, his ideology and his 'arrogance'. The simplicity of the words intertwined with the deep meaning just mesmerizes you! 

We are tormented to see movies doing so much injustice to the so elaborate book. Not a single movie or series have I come across which might be 70% as beautiful as the book. It is evident that 2 hours cannot sum up all those sentiments and beautiful moments wrapped up in a 700 pages book.
Elizabeth Bennet created by Jane Austen in 'Pride and Prejudice' has so much more to her than what is shown on the screen. The movie could not do justice to her beauty, her witty nature, her sharp tongue and her tendency to take hasty decisions. The movie did not create the magic in the moment where Elizabeth and Darcy are finally together. Sadly enough, the goosebumps which I felt while reading the classic, were lost while watching the movie.

I wake up on days and start reading a book trying hard to search Lin, Karla, Prabaker and the likes in the book. I vehemently search them till I realize, this is not 'Shantaram' and that I have moved on to a new book. The stories involve you so deeply that you want them to go forever. It takes a while to adjust myself to the new scenario and the new book!!

Ends of books gone astray hurts us really hard! I remember reading a story in a blog and the end of which was not really a pleasant one. I controlled myself for 3 days but the 4th day, I sent a message to the blog writer demanding him why did he end it so tragically when he could have had a happier ending.
These unconvincing ends make me taunt, I have anger bursts and keep on snapping on small issues. That is the bad time for Sujoy ;) God save Sujoy from unconvincing book ends!!!

Right now I am captivated by 'Game of Thrones' series. When I started reading this series, I was mind blown so much that I told Sujoy that I can marry the author of this series right away. But then I checked out the author and he seems to be an old chap. So I cancelled my plan of marrying him and am going to ask him to adopt me instead ;)
His imagination and story telling ability is breathtaking. The series which has been created based on this book has picked up even dialogues verbatim from the book.  The story has parallel stories woven around so many characters which some how are interlinked. Each character's story is unique and stunning. The characters etched in the book are so descriptive and so enchanting. You fall in love with all of them. I have been struggling to love just one character but have failed till now. One day I hopelessly fall in love with John Snow, the next day I love Arya, sometimes Brian and other times Robb. 

The bottom line is life is good for die hard readers when they are amongst good books! Or should I rather say, a good book makes your and indirectly your spouse's life interesting ;)

PS: Sujoy ignores my crying now, even if this for a 'real' reason !!!!!