About fairy tales

Before i start off with my rambling, i just want to say something about my previous post. It was just something i bumped into while reading the latest Calvin n Hobbes that a friend of mine got for me. I do feel sometimes like i'm in a fishbowl with god being the kid pressing his nose against the glass, but i really never wish for jobless, crazy, caring friends since i like to believe i already have them.Thats it.

My exams are due next week, and like most people i'm sure, the train of thought goes to the strangest places when exams are approaching. Today morning while studying the difference between bailable and cognizable offences, i started wondering what to get my lil cousin sister when i meet her in March. She's the smartest 5 years old i know. More than smart she just has such a sense of right and wrong. She'll never leave the room without making sure the lights are switched off. So i really wanna give her something great and sensible, basically something that'll get me to the top of her 'Favourite cousins list'. I remember when we were little, the hot gifts on b'days were popeye lunch boxes or those pencil boxes with button operated compartments or monopoly. There was this one friend of mine who always gave me story books. Big, colourful with large and beautiful pictures. Almost all my childhood fairy tales were a gift from her. I dont have the pencil boxes, the tiffin boxes or the monopoly boards, but i still have every single of those books. I cant even count the number of times i must have read those books. To cut a long story short, i decided that I'm going to get my sis some really beautiful story books.

Now i dont want to give her Cinderella or Sleeping beauty or Rapunzel. A 'happily ever after' story is all nice and sweet, especially since she's a long way from turning into a cynical pragmatic adult, but i just dont like the idea of her wondering about a prince, about that life-saving kiss or the fairy god mother. When we're little we really take things literally. When i was in class 2, i had my first crush. Being a victim to the bollywood movies and the fairy tales i believed with all my heart that it was love and was going to be forever and all that jazz. Obviously, after a little while i moved on to a second crush. I was so damn confused. How could i fall in love again? What about the fact that zindagi mein pyaar bas ek baar hota hai? I started thinking that i was probably a bad person since noone really talked about the concept of crushes and how one is bound to move from one crush to another. I just dont ever want my baby sister to feel she's a bad person. I want her to read books and be affected by them, learn from them and become a better person because of them.

Various books have impacted me at different points. In class 5 or 6, i read Heidi. I got it as a prize for some competition in school. It is the most incredible story for a person of that age. It taught me to pray and to have a conversation with god. It taught me about compassion and so much more. I still read some passages from it from time to time. Later was the phase of the Famous fives and the Secret 7's. Then came the classics of Jane Austen. But what affected me the strongest was what came after. AYN RAND. The first one i read was 'The Fountainhead'. It was very very strongly recommended to me by a friend who had totally lost it after reading this book. This book just cannot be described. It changed me as a person , though i'm not sure if it was in a good way.

About a year back came Shantaram. There can never be a book like Shantaram. The story, the characters, the way its written moves you in a way like no other book can. I've mourned the death of Prabu, one of the characters in the book, for days. A person who hasn't read this book will think of me as a freak, but the one who has read it will know what i mean.

As a result of this post i have a full list of books i'm supposed to get my lil sister from the age of 5 till 18. I'm so going to rock her 'Favourite cousins list'!