Books I look forward to read again….

I was born with wonderful gifts of severe childhood asthma and a mild strain of polio.  

Once in  a while my mom tells me that how I was not able to walk like other kids when I was just 2 years old, and how they had to take me a famous Pediatrician in Coimbatore  to cure my inability to walk. I kept falling down as a 2 year old, it seems.  While I was able to stand up on my feet and walk quite well after the treatment by Dr. Manonmani, still running and playing like other children was big arduous task for me. Childhood asthma can cause bothersome daily symptoms that interfere with play, sports, school and sleep. I did attempt quite valiantly to be part of all the games that went around my home. Probably my underdeveloped lungs did not cooperate as it should have. Other kids and my own brother were less forgiving and accommodating.

 That quite explains, my love for books and how they became my best friends. In those days , we did not have even electricity in my village, leave alone a TV.  Though I was confined physically within 4 walls, those books gave me wings of freedom to my mind. My own father, first Sankara in my life, (EMS and Adi Sankara being the other 2!), was quite well read, though he was just a matriculate. Even though  his income was quite meager, he did try to inculcate a reading habit in his kids.  Ours was just one of the very few households in the village, who is to get magazines. (Mathrubhumi Weekly and other kids magazines.).  Then he made my brother a member of Sahrudaya Library in Mannarghat.  And most of my fights with my brother were over the choice of books.  The librarian (I still remember her face though I have forgotten her name) used to allow only one of house to go inside and select books.

 I did not have a chance to think much about my reading. I just used to read for the sake of reading. The first time someone asked me about my favorite book was by Murali, who was interviewing me and Thara, my spouse when we applied to Valley School for our son, Manas. Without a moment of hesitation I told him, it is “Kazakinte Ithihasam by O V Vijayan.”.  After that Dr. Satish Inamdar, who is the Director  of Valley School and a Trustee of  KFI, kept telling me that it is high time I stop reading books.  He is one person, whom I look forward to meet for his insightful and interesting perspectives.  I understood his advice as start reading  and understanding myself.  Over the last few years, I do that. And it has changed me and my life quite dramatically. But I have not stopped reading books yet.

This particular blog, if I may call so, is triggered by my good friend, Ashu.  We were part of  another 10 -12 folks who were attending a  Coaching workshop by Ram.  She herself had penned a wonderful book and it took me a bit by surprise,  when she asked me for  my reading. I have read a bit in my life though I don’t qualify the label of a scholar leave alone one that of a bibliophile.   I thought rather than listing down all the books I have read, it will be a good idea for me to list down the books I am looking forward to read again. .  Some of the books I  have a  read more than 2 times. 

As I started typing the names, it did come as torrent. There were a few best sellers, though I considered it as quite good, my heart did not want a reread. So it is off my list too.  May be it is easier to be part of NYT bestseller list than to pass the test of my own heart. Most wonderfully, as I was writing about the books, those words, sentences and characters came alive in mind.  I have forgotten almost all the lessons I have learnt in my classrooms.  Maybe my memory is limited and all of it is earmarked for those wonderful books.

 I wanted to pen a few more lines on  many of the books.  Then I though it is better to read than write..  So here we go.    Thanks Ashu.  Only the first five are my first list. Rest are in random order. 

Happy reading and Stay blessed.

  

1.       Legend of Kazak – O V Vijayan.  (He deserved a Nobel prize for Literature than M.K Gandhi for Peace!.)

2.       The Prophet - Khalil Gibran (This is one book more spiritual than many of the scriptures. Only an enlightened one can write those lines.

    3.     Siddhartha - Herman Hesse (Classic. I carried it with me when I went to visit, Gopalakrishnan, who was my father’s uncle and my teacher and mentor, when he was in his deathbed. He asked me the name of the book and asked me to read a paragraph. I read him from one of the last pages, where Vasudeva speaks to  Sidhartha before he passes away.  After a few minutes, he was sleeping and I came out of the smelly hospital room.  He passed away after  a few days later. And  I never went for his funeral.  I wanted to retain my last memory  of him as it is.)

4.    The Music of Light- Extraordinary story of  Hikari and Kenzaburo Oe  ( I borrowed this from my client in USA. Though I could read it only once,  the essence of  Hikari Oe stayed with me forever  like his music.)

5.       Yayati  V S Khandekar ( one of the best novel written based upon myths)

6.      Gurusagaram O V Vijayan (Again quite a spiritual book. Next two novels also can be termed as spiritual novels. I think it is just incidental that Radhakrishanan was a scientist.)

7.     Of Leopards and  Silvery Stars  by  C Radhakrishnan

8.      Bhujangayyana Dashavatharagalu  by Srikrishna Alanahalli

9.     Tao Te Ching  and Iching  ( I keep reading them from my ipad, every day.)

10.    Zen and art of motor cycle maintenance – Robert Pirsig  ( It took me the second reading for me to get a grasp of it. )

11.     Zen and art of archery-  Eugen Herrigel ( the best and short book on Zen. I wonder why it did not outsell the Pirsig book)

12.    Man’s search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl  ( I got it just before I travelled to  Germany for the first time some 15 years back. The first part I have  read a few times. And the second part about Logotherapy I chose to skip for reasons not known.)

13.    Adventures of  a bystander -  Peter Drucker. ( The best management book, imhv!)

14.     The Tibetan book of the dead – (Which I read after my father’s demise on the advise of  Brij Sethi, my friend and mentor.)

15.     Old Path White clouds - Thich nhat hanh –(  I bought this from Strand, Mumbai fort after a 10 day Vipassana Session in Global Pagoda.  As I travelled to Pune by evening train of Deccan Queen, I started reading it.  It was magical.)

16.     My Experiments with Truth – M K Gandhi. ( I like the audio versioin of Excerpts – Shekar Kapur and Nandita Das with Bhajans)

17.    The Flight of the Eagle –  K

18.    The light in oneself - K

19.     Freedom from the known – K

20.     Commentaries on Living – K

21.     Krishnamurthi Note book

22.    Mind is a myth – U G

23.    Thought is your enemy – U G Krishnamurti

24.    The Way of Zen – Alan Watts

25.     The way of Tao – Alan Watts

26.    Zen Mind , Beginners Mind

27.    The Book of Five Rings – Miyamoto Musahi

28.    The Tao of Physics – Capra

29.    Light within us – Schweitzer

30.    Meditations – Cicero

31.    The Soul of Rumi

32.    Language in thought and action – Hayakawa

33.    A personal matter -  Kenzaburo Oe

34.    Eknath Easwaran books – Climbing the blue mountain and  many others

35.    The Cry of Kalahari

36.    Christian the lion who lived in my living room

37.    The Mind game – Adam Smith  (George Goodman)

38.    The Money Game – Adam Smith (George Goodman)

39.    Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger

40.    My Pride and Joy – George Adamson

41.    Born Free- Joy Adamson

42.    Elephant Whisperer- Lawrence Anthony

43.    Mondi Christo – Dumas

44.    Gone with the wind – Margaret Mitchel

45.    Frogs into Princes – Richard Bandler and John Grinder

46.    Monsters and Magical sticks, there is nothing called hypnosis – Steven Heller

47.    How to argue and win every time – Gerry Spence

48.    Flow – Csikszentmihalyi

49.    Alchemist – Paul Coelho

50.    Golf in the Kingdom – Michael Murphy

51.    Sacred Hoops -  Phil Jackson

52.    The Hero of a thousand faces – Joseph Campbell

53.    The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell

54.    Richard Feynman books – Surely You are joking, Mr. Feynman

55.    Mind with a heart -  Dr. Richard Mchugh

56.    Tao of Jeet Kune Do – Bruce Lee

57.    A bridge across forever – Richard Bach

58.    Jonathan Livingston Seagull – Richard Bach

59.    Kamala Das -  Balyakala smarangal,

60.    Kamala Das- Neermathalam pootha kalam. ( Her childhood memoirs in Malayalam. )

61.    On Becoming a person – Carl Rogers

62.    Avadhuta Gita

63.    Ashtavkara gita – I like the one by  Osho than  the short translation of  Bart Marshal.

64.    Osho’s book on  Budha and  Ashtravkra Gita

65.    Many books of  Sherlek  Holmes, Hercule Poirot, P G Wodehouse .

66.    Into thin air – Jon Krakauner

67.    Anatomy of an illness -  Norman Cousins

68.    Ithihyamala – Kottrathil Sankunni (This is one of the books I and my brother kept reading  in our childhood.)

69.    Arabian Nights  - And this is the other one.

70.    Memories of a Father- Prof. Echarawarrier

71.    Presence -  Just the passage where Otto Schramer describes the destruction of his ancestoral home.

72.    Shifting sands – A guidebook for crossing the deserts of change – Steve Donahue. 

73.    Chiriku Pinnil – Innocent

74.    Kadamanitta KAvithakal -  Kadamanitta

75.    No Boundaries – Ken Wilber

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