I was six when I first read ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.’ It was the only book that I had then and I was mesmerized. I would wake up at the crack of dawn; the air heavy with sleep and dreams, and I would slowly crawl away from my mother’s sleepy embrace to stare at the words in my book.
I would spend hours feeling the crisp pages beneath my tiny fingertips, wide-eyed at the illustrated pictures of exotic dancers, golden deserts and words that made me momentarily forget the universe.
I grew up and with the passing years fell in love with words. I fell in love with everything that words represented. I fell in love with the way black ink would give rise to empires, fire breathing dragons with ruby studded throats and lovers who did not lie.
Words painted an entirely differently realm in which I could lose myself.
If you write, you are pouring yourself, breathing life with each stroke of dark hues on crisp blank pages.
The friction of the tip of pen and paper would give rise to heroes, villains and their beautiful stories. I sank in the realm of words, each year it drowned my heart and lungs heavy with words that I understood.
Life had always been transitory and monotonous. Death would drag me six feet under; senseless, as my brain and thoughts dissolved into the earth. But my heart would beat strong and consistent, stubborn even, against beautiful white and crisp yellow pages.
I write to breathe, I write to live, and I shall continue to be in love with the sheer, unadulterated reality of words until I die.
‘I can’t breathe’ is the cry of a Nepali-American too
Reya is high school student at St.Mary’s, Kathmandu
