Me and Literature Parm Hothi
Although I have been reading books from a very early age, the first book
I really liked was a kid's story book that was printed in India. We lived in a small
town near Los Angles called "Riverside". Since we had no South Asian grocery
store or even a little shop in the town, my dad would especially ask my uncle in
Vancouver to send us Indian books because he liked reading. This one time with
some of my dads novels came a wonderful little color filled book with strange
pictures within . My dad handed it to me said "don't lose it" (not his exact
I went to an elementary school called Cameno Real elementary
and I was the only Indian in the entire school. None of the kids even understood
who I was so they just assumed that I was a weird Mexican. Everyday I would
come home and read that same book. I had other books but I didn't find the
warmth and friendliness in those books that I found in this particular one.
This book gave me a sense belonging and it evoked and showed a lot of
sentiments. The book was about a boy who couldn't go to school because he had
to go work in the fields with his dad. Later I realized that the books was to teach
us not to take the privileges we have for granted. Even though the story was too
complex for me at that age, the illustrations in the book were the ones that
attracted me. I use to imagine my self in the field and all the kids in the pictures
that looked like me was an astounding thought. I believe because of my dads
efforts I have started a serious interest in India generally and modern Indian
novels specifically. Since I started watching a lot of Indian movie it has become
easier for me to make sense of the allusions in the novels.
I have read several modern Indian fiction first editions. My interest coincided
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