Good book
Reading good habit
Book my best friend
Books are the best companions for everyone. Human companions may react indifferent ways on different occasions. But books can be never-failing friends. One can forget one’s mental worries when one is engrossed in one’s favorite author with whom one can spend many pleasant hours in solitude. The pleasures of reading can be enjoyed by a person only when he or she actually sits down with book and not merely by listening to an account of pleasures given by others. One of such books that have been giving me endless pleasure for a number of years is ``my experiments with truth’’ by Gandhi.
I have read it a number of times –I have lost count of the number of times I read it. Introduction to it was when I was studying the seventh standard. Our Guru was a hard task master in the matter of study of general books. He would insist on every student studying at least one general book every fortnight. This 1harshness’, as we thought of his action at that time, has proved to be a great blessing. I now realize that had it not been for his I would never have had the pleasure of being in the company of the great personalities of the past. It was he who first suggested to me to read Gandhi’s book.
The early part of the book deals with his younger days. Gandhi’s frankness in admitting some of the defects of his character some of his early failings impressed me most. His narration of how he realized the value of truth after seeing a play on Harichandra also made a deep impression on my mind. The book contains many instances of how he had experienced mental struggles on many occasions and how with the help of God he was able to overcome them. The book became my favorite also because of the simple style of narration. Every word seemed to be in a place. It may be that I did not understand this at the beginning but in the course of the years I was able to understand the charm of his style. This and the incidents make an indelible impression on my mind. I do not know how many times I am going to read it in future.