This is just a thank you note.
Thanks to the parents for funding impulsive book buys, and for purchasing my first books – spending hours with me at Magrudy’s and BooksPlus when I didn’t know whether to buy a new Secret Seven or a Famous Five.
To my aunt & uncle, for purchasing me a Kindle, which reduced the economic strain I put on my parents with my reading.
To my grandparents, for weaving me a set of stories each night as I fell asleep on your cots during summer vacations. To my maternal grandfather in specific, for teaching me that storytelling was an art of holding your audience’s imagination in captivity, before setting it free to a faraway land of dreams. To my father, for printing out every story.
To my old school friends, who teased me for having round-framed spectacles and keeping my nose firmly between the pages of a book.
To my University friends, for allowing me to embrace this identity.
To acquaintances, for making it easier to start up any conversation by bringing in a specific frame of reference – a story.
To authors, bloggers, writers, storytellers, and creative personnel worldwide: for breaking the shackles of society to articulate your right to speech and to express in its purest, most enjoyable form.
To librarians, for doing a thankless, selfless task.
To Math: because without a numerically defined goal, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the beauty of a sequence of letters.
To 3000, Prememe, #1 Dost, MovieMaker, and everyone who recommended titles and loaned me copies for me to ravage.
To that one week in February that drove me crazy enough to come to my room daily after classes and not get up from my bed till I was done with an entire novel.
To 52. A uniquely imperfect challenge.
A list of books I read is available upon request. Additionally, I’ll only be writing a reflective piece about this at the end of the year. There’s much that’s happened that’s shaped the books I’ve read, and the books I’ve read have shaped me greatly.
Ciao.
Tejas Rao 