I don't remember the first book I ever read. It is almost as if books were always there in my life, a solid, tactile presence that exuded comfort and assurance. Yet, I know it was not so. When I was growing up, I lived in a small town in southern India-Rameswaram. It did not have a library, and of course no book- shops. We studied the holy book, the Koran, diligently and pored over our schoolbooks. For anything more there were the newspapers. For a while I worked as a newspaper delivery boy, during the days of World War II, and the feel of crisp, fresh paper on my fingers is a sensation that still gives me pleasure.
My introduction into the world of books and reading happened through my friend, brother-in-law and first mentor, Jallaluddin. He was, at the time, when I was about ten years old, the only fully literate adult inhabitant of the town. He had studied up to the Intermediate level and then gave up as he needed to start working and earning. But he had an expansive, curious mind. His interests lay beyond the con- cerns of the island and there were evenings when he read reports from the newspapers and told us of a world beyond the one we inhabited. It was he who told us about the current political situation, news of the War, prices of precious metals, and all other such information. I spent a lot of time with him, watch- ing him read or writing letters for the people of the town which they dictated to him. Somewhere, the power of the written word imprinted on my mind. I understood that to know and love reading meant the freedom to travel to any kind of world I wanted to. It could be the world of religion or philosophy-what I learnt in my Koran class. Or it could be poetry and imagination. Or it could be understanding the words of famous people and their lives.
Once I was older, I started reading more voraciously. I was still rather penniless since most of the lit- tle money I got was used to pay my bills while I studied at the Madras Institute of Technology. However, I discovered a tiny bookshop at Moore Market in Madras (now Chennai) whose owner was happy to lend me books for a small deposit. I started reading in earnest, quickly making my way through the classics, translations, collections of poetry and essays. I found works explaining concepts from different religions interesting and I studied the holy books and texts of Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, the works of Confucius. The seeds for this were perhaps laid by my father, who was a deeply religious man and knew the texts of Islam closely. By now my mind was getting ever more thirsty and I needed to know many answers.
Once I started working and got deeper into the world of science, the questions about connections between the worldly and the spiritual intrigued me. How are we all connected? Does science negate spirituality? How can we keep our beliefs while delving into matters that require theorems and proofs to establish their existence? I read the works of great scientists and philosophers who have studied these matters. Questions of morality and codes to live one's life by were also playing on my mind and the works of thinkers like J. Krishnamurthi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sri Aurobindo helped me to under- stand not only myself but the rapidly unfolding world around me. These essays and books helped me analyse situations better and understand my fellow workers and their motivations clearly.
One work that has been almost like a code for living for me is the Thirukural. It was written by saint poet Thiruvalluvar over 2,000 years ago in the great age of Tamil Sangam literature and consists of couplets or kurals. Each of these contains a profound truth or moral code, expressed in a few words but enfolding astonishing wisdom within it. There has been hardly any moment of conflict or despair in my life that the Thirukural has not helped to resolve.
The other literary form that has intrigued and captivated me from my school days is poetry. I can still recall a few poems that appeared in our literature textbooks. Later, I read the works of Shakespeare and Milton and Donne. Milton's Paradise Lost has been a particular favourite for decades and I have read and reread those lines over and over again. The works of Indian masters like Tagore and Bharatiar and Aurobindo too have deeply touched me with their visions for humankind and deep nationalistic strain. The immediate passion that a poem can capture is perhaps unparalleled in any other form. I myself have written a number of poems and each time I try to distil the essence of what I want to say into the lines, I think of the great poems I have loved and admired.
As I grew older, I started thinking more and more about this nation of ours and where we are all headed. What is the role of each citizen? What does the youth want? What are they entitled to? What are their responsibilities? What is the vision that we need to keep before us as we traverse the path to- wards a better and brighter future for each one of us? At this time in my life, I also became a writer my- self. I published my first book successfully and before I knew it I had authored quite a number of titles. With each one not only did I get to understand the requirements of a writer better, I started thinking more deeply on issues of development and vision. My reading became more oriented towards this as I had to understand large amounts of data, look critically at reports and draw inferences that would help lay out a vision document, one we called Vision 2020. Along with these, reading the works of Gandhi, Lincoln, and the histories of nations kept me inspired to keep working on the mission of finding ways to make India a developed nation in the near future and within our lifetimes.
