Terry & BOOKS ……

Terry, he dislikes books but respects people .....

Terry is a good friend of mine. He lives in Mexico with his beloved Anna. He is a different guy though he was born in a different city. A good heart.  He enjoys doing different things but he does not like to read. There are things that he hates doing. He is very fond of making friends. I met him in Hambantota about five years back.  

He hates me when ever I start talking about books. 

‘Terry you should know that books helps you to be a complete man’….

‘Nonsense’ …. That is what he thinks …… people are different I should know that.

“Go meet a man in your village there are things you can learn from them” That is what he thinks. He admires and respects different things.   

‘Mexico is a very sexy city’ that is what he thinks. But for me that is a very scary city because of the things that I have heard & read about this city. Cities are different they teach you different things. Every city has its own demands, values, and the uniqueness of its people. Whether a city is scary or lovely you can learn things no doubt. I don’t think that we can ever find a city that governs by a mayor called ‘the silence’. It is not easy to understand the silences and businesses of a city at different times.  

Terry does not like books but I like books. There is no nonsense in ‘reading’ even if you think that there is nothing to get after reading a book but I believe even from this ‘nothingness’ and nonsense and even no sense things teach you totally different things and they are unimaginably important. 

You can’t meet people every time you want. To understand people you really don’t have to go and meet them personally. If you read a book you may find different characters with different qualities. I sometimes feel that it is not easy to differentiate books as ‘fictional’, the books written based on true stories or incidents. You create character using the experience you may have gathered over years, you have all of them in your mind storing to use for future purposes. You meet many people at your work place, school, at market, shopping mall. You don’t realize sometimes you unknowingly write sketches of such things you see, observe, and hear. Then you create a character for your book using those experiences you collated. You give them some aliveness afterwards.  So it is a bit difficult to differentiate books. You may meet those characters some where in this world.   

You can’t go to China to understand a Chinese that brought up in London. It is good to read a book 

Every book and every piece of writing has some value. Some have so much value and importance. Everything is comparative. 

‘LIU Hong’s ‘The Magpie Bridge’

I like the front page note ….. The few lines there

‘If the affections are mutual and everlasting, does it matter that they can not be together in everyday life?’

So this friend of mine takes me here and there in this world because of his thinking about ‘books’ and ‘people. 

I suggest that you should start reading, should learn to read.  

William Boyd’s ‘The Blue Afternoon’ I don’t understand the whole book because of my poor English knowledge but I like to understand things the way I like and the way I can. I don’t worry much even if I don’t understand the whole thing of a book.

  “We were sitting in my office room on Hollywood Boulevard. From my office window I could see the top three storeys of the Guaranty Building and the dusty fronds of a palm tree, I rented three rooms above a clothing wholesaler – Tex – style Imports Co. -   who specialized in blue jeans , dungarees and work boots that were sold to the ...... The room that faced Boulevard was my room’ .......

 

You can read these lines ….. These lines are written on the page 8 of ‘the blue afternoon’ ……

Books are a teacher that teaches us life and about our own lives, about our own beliefs and thinking, about our friends, and about the world, the whole universe is there. They remind us of many things that are attached to our personal lives.

Find some time to read a good book…..

Jane Eyre I have not read this as a kid. But as an adult I read it …. See whether you like these lines from Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte

‘A week before Christmas, I closed the school for the holidays. When it opened again there would be a new teacher. I was strangely sad on my last day there. I knew I was leaving some very good friends. But I had other happiness ahead of me. Diana and Mary were coming home at last. Now that they had money of their own, they did not need to work as governesses any more’   

 It is not good to miss your friends I know and it is too bad if you forget to write them. Terry is a very bad complainer he complains that I don’t write to him. No! It is not easy to maintain friendships. I am not feared I m sure that you understand me well. 

‘Friendships, the world’s best ships’ I believe that have made excellently for a good voyage of life.  I remember you once told me all these but that was long years back. I still remember them.  

The time differences my friend. You are in Mexico and I am here in Colombo that is a barrier I believe. No! That is not an excuse I know. 

Sometimes the books provide you false information and sometimes also they contain the very accurate information.  All these depend on the nature of the writer/author, their experiences, immaturity or maturity etc. some are very honest to what they say and write.

There is a role for a reader to play. You just can’t read something with out analyzing the things that you read. You sometimes have to debate within of the things you read. Then you get some fullness in your reading. 

Reading is sometimes ‘a battle of heart and minds’ you have to negotiate things with your own minds not only ‘negotiating peace’. Impartial ideas, the core value of the message that the author tries to convey to the society all these are so important.  

People die they don’t live forever. A life time of a book is higher than the life of a human. So thinking of the books the things that you write have so much life expectancy they may last than other things. They are guiders and historians.  Our children will read them in the future. They learn them as historical incidents because they are written before they are born. They will read them and follow them exactly like the way we followed the things that our sincere writers have written.

This note is a reminder to my dear, sincere friend Terry. I hope that you’ll change your mind and start reading.  We carry nothing in this passing of ours this destination to that destination but we may carry things unknowingly for the next souls of ours. 'inevitable'

There is life and it ends…. This is a tile of a little writing from a old book named‘BOSAT’

‘Life and it ends’ written by Bhikku Kassapa. ….. This is how the explanation begins.

 The king of truth tells us – (Iti Vuttaka 43)

“The born, the becoming, the produced.

The made, the compounded, the unstable-

Subject to decay and death,

A nest of diseases, fragile,

Its source a support of feeling,

Have done in delight in such.

“Deliverance from this is tranquility,

Beyond logic, permanent,

The not – born and not produced, -

A griefless, stainless position,

Annihilation of the conditions of misery,

Cessation of activities, Bliss”

You may don’t get a chance to learn just from a conversation with a friend, a villager, a shopkeeper, or from a doctor. The books sometimes teach you these things remind you things. The things like 'the importance of maintaining a balanced life' it depends on the type of book you have chosen to read .Not Easy at all I know. Thank you Terry for taking me this far you direct my mind towards ‘books’ this morning.