You know that feeling when you start reading a story and you don’t know how it will end, the thousand ways it could go, a hundred ways the characters could develop. You feel hooked, like dropping all your responsibilities and just needing to know how it goes further. I feel that every time I pick up a book. And I’ve picked up a lot of books. My obsession to constantly have something in my reading list started in 2021. I had read books before but never really had the desire to continue. But in 2021, I started reading incessantly. I read different types of genres, from murder mysteries to literature to romance. I felt so invested in the books and fell in love with the stories. Enough that after reading Half the Night is Gone, I wanted to visit Delhi so badly, a city I didn’t like much before. The new story that unfolds before you, thats all yours and no one knows what you’re reading, what you’re learning; that feeling is so satisfying. I have never felt the need to discuss the contents of my book with anyone else. That story is all mine and only I know the highs and lows of it, well at least in my social circle. It can be an unhealthy obsession sometimes, due to the sleepless nights and the want to just be left alone and not talk to anybody. But reading is the greatest hobby of mine, and one which I’ll continue for at least the near future. It also gives way to wanting to know people on a deeper level. Wanting to know about their culture, their habits and the beautiful differences in their lifestyle and mine. Imagine getting to talk to someone who has lived in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, for most of their life. The stories that they could tell you, the plethora of mouth-watering dishes they could make for you. The stark contrast between their culture and yours. For me, that’s fascinating. That is one of the reasons I joined ILF, because even if I could not connect with people, while sitting at home during Covid, I could connect with places and their history. I could get to know about Colonel John Pennycuick and the dam he built in Tamil Nadu. And the overflowing culture inscribed into the walls of the Konark Sun temple.
I remember a few years ago, when I was sitting in a small poetry reading event on my birthday, when my sister’s friend had given me a book. It was covered with a newspaper page, like people who love books do sometimes. She told me to read it and my sister said that it was one of her favourite books of all time. I recall reading the first page of the first chapter and re-reading it a few times because I couldn’t imagine the vision that the author had set. But as I gradually read on, I loved it. I loved the twists and turns and the way I could relate to the characters a little. It was named Third Best by Arjun Rao and it was about a boarding school in Delhi in late 1990s and it was the best mixture of detachment from the outside world and the complex lives of young adults within the campus grounds. Though I’ve never had an attachment to any author and never judged them, even if I didn’t like their books, I specifically loved Arjun Rao’s way of writing and googled him various times, just to see if he’d ever write something else and who he was as an individual. You might be able to relate as I know you must have googled the cast of the show or a movie you really liked and waited patiently, and sometimes impatiently, for its sequel to come out. I’m the same way with books.
Lately, I have really started to like the books of a specific author named Penelope Douglas. They are an American author and writes book series about people in small towns and how their lives interact with each other. I like the sense of close proximity they create in their books, to help you relate to the characters better and also to create a sense of seclusion from the outside world. I highly recommend you to read their books, especially the Devil’s night series. While the base is romance, there is a sort of suspense in their books. You never know what the story actually is, what twists and turns there might be and you hang on to every word, because it might click into place later. And the thrill that runs through your body, when it’s 6 am and you have just got to know why she ratted her love interest out and sent him and his friends to jail.
I could recommend a lot of books and shows to someone. I have seen underrated shows from the 70s to mob documentaries to movies about a serial killer who liked to make perfumes from the natural scent of the bodies of the women he killed. Content is a major thing for me. I like getting to know new stories and how kindness and logic can be found even in the grey areas of life. One of the few perks of content is information. I’m aware of how someone can be killed only with the air in an empty syringe and also how people can recreate and map out the entire lives of an individual who lived millions of years ago, with the help of technology.
This desire to consume information and stories has also given way to my interest in the field of Anthropology. It is the study of the culture and societies and their evolution. The study includes the past and present. Some branches of Anthropology can be Socio-cultural Anthropology, Forensic Anthropology and Linguistic Anthropology. It is also connected to Archaeology. I aspire to study Anthropology and research how people lived in the past and their culture and how they used whatever tools they had for survival. My internship at ILF as a cultural researcher at first, and then a research authenticator has given me an insight into how our ancestors lived and what were their beliefs. ILF has been important for me because it has solidified my desire to pursue Anthropology.
Architecture gives us a peek not only at how our ancestors thought geometrically but also politically. From the availability of grain to the social structure of the then society can be determined from the ruins that are pulled out of ground and the structures still standing. Once done with this information is where anthropology begins. My agenda is to figure out what stories were written when, which cultures were matriarchal and to which tribe was the mango sweetest. Which king left his ways of violence and adopted the belief of Buddhism and how the practice of Sati started. All of this has been heavily fueled by the research that I was brought to do under the internship. Using various methods of research and aligning them in a particular format gave me a better sense of presenting the information. Further, being a research authenticator has helped me communicate better with people in a work environment. But the main thing that I took from it was that I learned about many more areas in India through the team of cultural researchers that I overlooked. Reading their articles on various places from an outsider’s point of view really gave me the opportunity to learn new facts.
Being an individual who is interested in culture and stories, I was very fascinated by National Geographic. I recall watching various programmes on the television on the National Geographic channel. Later, it escalated to me looking up their monthly magazines and searching their websites for their publications. One of the things that I really liked was their Overheard at National Geographic podcast. It is a wonderful podcast following different photographers, field researchers, scientists, archaeologists and anthropologists on their missions. They talk about their theories and what the explorers found on their journeys and shocking and controversial subjects. Through this, we can learn about the major discoveries, like I learned that scientists had been wrong about the date of the destruction of the city of Pompeii. Recently, scientists figured out that Pompeii had been buried by volcanic ash much later than they assumed, which only came to light because of the graffiti the citizens did on the plaster walls of Pompeii. So originally, people thought that Mount Vesuvius erupted on August 24, 79 CE because the eruption had an eyewitness, a small child from the neighbouring town. But an inscription on a wall in charcoal, which is much easier to erase than graffiti, mentioned a date. The date on the inscription was October 17th, no year. But archaeologists believe that it was the same year. This has led to the uncovering of more evidence and this fits like a puzzle piece, and leads us to believe that Pompeii was destroyed much later than we originally thought. So, it is instances like these that make me so interested in the stories and discoveries of various people and facts. And makes me keep on reading!
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Hi, I’m Aastha Banga….
Hi, I’m Aastha Banga….
