39 Days, 13 Books

        Ramadan moves up the year every year – a change I had not previously noticed. Since this year it’s going to start in May, the University of Rajshahi decided to merge the summer vacation with the Ramadan vacation. And so we have a looooooooooooog vacation of 39 days! And it starts from this May 16!

        Almost every year, before any vacation, I plan to do a good number of things during the vacation. Losing Weight has been the eternal to-do in this case. It’s still on my list for this vacation, along with only one other thing – reading. READING.

        So, for the coming 39 days starting from this Wednesday, I’ll read, read and read. I like to believe that I can finish a book in 3 days. With that belief, I have made a list of 13 books that I’m going to read.

        (As a matter of fact, I made a new year’s resolution to read a total of 120 books – 10 books every month, based on this belief. But as it happens, I have been able to read only 16 books so far. That’s like 13% only.)

        I started making the list of the books and came up with the following:

i.        Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

ii.        গোরা – রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

iii.        4321 – Paul Auster

iv.        জোছনা ও জননীর গল্প – হুমায়ুন আহমেদ

v.        Jim Corbet – it’s a collection of stories by Jim Corbet

vi.        সেই সময় – সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়

vii.        His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman

viii.        শেষের কবিতা – রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

ix.        Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

x.        পথে প্রবাসে – অন্নদাশঙ্কর রায়

xi.        The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian – Nirad C. Chaudhuri

xii.        মা – আনিসুল হক

xiii.        Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi

        At first I thought I had 37 days of holiday, so I selected 12 books. Of those 12 books, there were 7 English books and 5 Bengali books. Then when I realized I am going to have 39 days of holiday, I added another English book (it was The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan). After adding it, I was like wow, now I should have a symmetric list (OCD ALERT) if I place a Bengali book after every English book. But it was not to happen, as then I had 8 English books and 5 Bengali books. So I took The Demon Haunted World off the list and added মা.

        Now you must be thinking “so, you are placing an English book before a Bengali book”. You see, I want to begin this holiday with a special book. You guessed it – Bridge to Terabithia. It holds a special place in my life. More so, because my bff Maesha got me the hardcover edition of the book for my birthday. <3

        That is why, and owing to my OCD, I am going to be reading an English book and a Bengali book alternatively.

        Now that I was done with the list, I thought about taking a picture (an aesthetic one, if possible) and posting it on Facebook and Instagram. I don’t have any good place to do that in our home, so I went to the terrace to do it. (I’ve been doing that a lot lately.)

        The previous times when I went to the terrace with a book and my mobile, maa thought I was going there to read. But well, when she later found out that I was going there for taking pictures she said something that meant that I must be going be mad, but she isn’t surprised.

        And this time, I was about to take 13 books to the terrace, so it would catch anybody’s attention. I knew that maa would ask if there was anything crazy left for me to do. But she wasn’t close by when I went to the terrace with the books.

        Earlier, I had thought of taking the “aesthetic” picture of the books with the setting sun in the background. But when I went up there I felt meh about the idea and thought of doing something else.

        On one side of the terrace, there were a lot of bricks stacked up. I used them like shelves, and put the books the way you are seeing them in the photo.

        The photo came out okay. I wish I could put some heavenly light on the books to make the photo feel just as heavenly. But this will have to do.

        You see, there was a downside of this endeavor. The bricks are all covered in moss and who knows what is living underneath them. Not that the books got dirty, but still putting them there made me cringe.

        When I was done, I brought the books back to my room and put them back where they were. I will bring them out when I will need to. They need their rest.

        Then I lied down on my bed and post-processed the picture (I sound phony using the term post-processing, because I know nothing about photography to begin with) and it felt a bit better than okay. Phew.

        I was almost about to post it on Facebook and Instagram, when an idea hit me from the side. Let’s make a blog!

        I had an idea about making one for posting my book reviews. Why not include this post in that blog? I already have a blog http://pseyncuhmera.blogspot.com where I post gibberish stuff.

        Anyway, I made that blog and then sat down (after 3 hours) to write this looong post (another gibberish).