Rediscovering the Joy of Reading

A friend of mine and I went on a trip to Munnar earlier this year. I had ‘Anxious People’ by Fredrik Backman in my hands, completely lost in its pages. At some point, our conversation drifted, as it always does, to books, our love for them, our reading habits, and how life has slowly stolen time from this once-effortless joy. Was it work? The constant rush of adulthood? We couldn’t tell for sure.

We laughed, remembering school days when the library had its rules: just three books at a time. Yet somehow, within a week or two, we’d devour them all and eagerly return for more. Now, we can’t even remember the last time we finished a single book without stretching it over months. It’s strange, how time moves and how we move with it.

So this year, I made a quiet promise to myself: to read at least one or two books a month. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d even manage one. But here I am, with 16 books behind me already. Not too bad, right?

Maybe my habit of walking out of bookstores with a bag full of new books is my inner child tugging at my sleeve, reminding me of who I used to be. Maybe this is how we find our way back, through small, deliberate choices to revive what we once loved. It’s funny how the simplest things, like turning pages, can feel like reclaiming a part of yourself you didn’t realize you’d lost.