Treasure hunt

It was love at first sight. I instantly fell in love with my college, the moment I walked in. I felt that the Goddess Saraswathi at the entrance and the surrounding lushful gardens were welcoming me. The huge structure itself gave me a feeling as if I am in some historic place. I was glad that I got admission in the college.My happiness only increased when my dearest friends from intermediate college, Prashanti, Sujatha and Sri vidya also joined in the same class as mine.

I was awe struck by the huge library of the college. The library is some 500 mtrs(or is it nearly a kilometer- I am not sure) away from the main building, which is connected by a kachcha road within the campus. But if you were to take a detour from the road into the foliage and keep proceeding, you find the ruins of temple like structures. These structures are completely covered by foliage and this part of college campus does not come under the "well maintained" bracket. Prashanti and I, being avid mystery book readers, share the same wave length in imagining mysteries. And thats how the expedition started.

We had a whole afternoon free. The classes were canceled due to low attendance of the students. We could go home if we wished. Prashanti, Sri and I had planned to utilise the time to prepare ourselves for the upcoming examinations, by staying back and studying in the college campus. We settled down in the shade of a tree near the way to the library. After some tiring effort to study, we realised that none of us was in a mood for studies. And since, it was very hot and sunny, we voted against the idea of cycling home. That was when we noticed the ruins. Prashanti and I had the same thought. Why not explore them. We grinned on realising both of had the same thought. Who knows,we might stumble upon some hidden treasure. The idea itself excited us. We deposited our bags in the library. We started weaving the way through foliage towards the ruins. when we were about half way,I heard something slither past and I screamed which started the chain reaction of sri screaming and Prashanti following. Since this part seemed not to be in the to do list of the gardeners since ages, there was every possibility that this was the home of snakes and other dangerous insects.

We had two options - turnback and reach the safety of the road, or dare and go ahead with exploration.Brave hearts that we were, we chose to go ahead with the expedition. We reached the temple structure. The roof had partially collapsed and the ground within the structure was completely covered by ant hills, bushes and shrubs. Prashanti found a long dry stick, which she broke into two. She gave me one half. Sri had carried a long ruler. Holding them as if they were swords, we pushed aside the bushes to make our way inside the temple. Till then we were continuously chattering. Only when we reached inside the temple, after tearing the spider web at the entrance, we stopped talking; only to realise - the whole area was so silent that it was so eerie. I could almost hear my heart doing a heavy duty beating inside me. I could also see fear in both of my friends eyes. But none of us wanted to admit that we were scared. In fear, we started talking animatedly. I could feel the fear slippling and curiosity taking its place.

Prashanti found the broken head of a goddess statue. We also found some some carved pillars. We discovered a hidden well next to the temple ruins. It did not have a safety parapet wall surrounding it. The bushes were so thick that if we had not been careful with our steps, we would have ended up at the bottom of the well. When we looked inside the well, we noticed that long chains made of thick iron had been fixed to the sides of the well and they seemed to go all the way to the bottom of the well. Prashanti guessed, may be it was used to punish criminals. I felt may be the chains were used to pull up the treasure sunk in the well.The well seemed so dark and so scary and the sky seemed to have darkened by clouds so suddenly - we feared if we had accidentally triggered any of the curse surrounding the well. We decided it was best to leave the expedition further for another day and vacate the place. And thats what we did!

The another day did not come at all. We graduated and left college, but never again we finished the half explored expedition. Who knows - if we had completed the search, may be we would have landed up with hidden treasure. It is said that what you think of any given situation actually makes you happy or sad. And I think we would have found treasure, which makes me happy.

With that thought, for now adios amigos.

My first book

It was one of the regular days at School-except that, since we had successfully made it to sixth standard, we were provided with a library card each which entitled us to borrow a book for one week from the library. Till then( that is till we were in fifth standard) all we did in the library period was either to read tinkle, if we are lucky enough to lay our hands on an unread one or play in the play ground provided our librarian permitted it. My favourite comic used to be "Kalia the crow", the second place going to "Tantri the mantri". Most of the time I would not be so lucky as to get a tinkle and I would look for a magazine called "Misha" - which used to have short stories from around the globe, and would settle down with it.

It was not like I was new to the reading habit. I got my first "Gokulam" when I was in second standard. We were living in our village then. I used to go to a School in the neighbouring village. I remember how I showed off by reading the magazine sitting at the platform(thinnai) at the entrance of the house.After that there was change of schools  - my third and fourth standard was in a school in kancheepuram. It was only in 5th standard that I was exposed to the library. And since all my friends used to read only comics - I ended up following them sincerely.

All of us were excited in getting a library card. The moment the bell rang for the Library period, I rushed and grabbed the most recent copy of tinkle, much to the envy of my friends and got it issued. I was very much pleased to have grabbed the new book. I was so excited that I started reading it in the time gap between each period and during lunch break. It so happened that I completed reading and re-reading the book before the school hours that day. All the excitement which I had that morning was gone. None of my friends were willing to exchange that for the book that they had got issued. I was disappointed.

Those days I used to attend tuition classes after school. Some of my classmates were my tuition mates too. There were two boys - Satish and Chaitanya and a girl called Gayatri. Since we attended the same tuition classes, I was friends with Satish and Chaitanya. Gayatri had taken a comic which I had already read. So I could not exchange my book with hers. Chaitanya had taken a book on astronomy, and he was already feeling awful for taking it. Satish had taken a book whose cover had a few kids with an aeroplane. He was fascinated by the picture of aeroplane, and  had got the book issued. He was regretting his decison. Both Chaitanya and Satish were interested in exchanging their book with mine. I was not at all interested to read about the different moons of jupiter or to know how much distant is pluto from the earth. So I was not interested in getting the book from Chaitanya. And I was equally dicey about taking the book from Satish - it was a 200 pages book and I was doubtful about my capability of reading so many pages. Since I did not much choice, I gave my book to Satish and asked him to keep his book with himself. But he insisted that I take it. I took the book without much interest.

On reaching home from the tuition classes and after fininshing my home work for the day. I had no choice except to glance at the book. I too liked the picture on the cover. Slowly, I started reading. I was about the story of a bunch of kids and one of them has a toy plane as a a gift. I was so absorbed that I read the book to completion through the night. It was my first complete book and I had finished it in a day. I could not describe the satisfaction I felt then.

That book was Enid Blyton's "Three Cheers Secret Seven"And the journey of devouring books started then. I started looking up all the Enid Blyton's books in the library and read them. I got my friends who were not interested using their library cards to take books of my choice, so that I could read them after I completed mine.

Thanks to Satish - I had stumbled upon the discovery that I am a voracious reader.