Reading is one habit that has stayed longest with me. I have been reading books for as long as I remember. Cricket, playing and watching, was the another thing that I liked.
But after retirement of my childhood sports persons, I do not watch it as much as I used to. Playing a game of cricket is also a rare affair these days. I was not particularly good at playing cricket or for that matter any sports. But cricket was the cheapest one to play due to low investment required in the equipments (you do not need stumps even, you can just draw it with a piece of chalk on a wall). I was never better than a gully cricketer.
Once I tried for selection during trials for the school cricket team. I was probably in class-VIII or IX.
"Play along the ground". Every time I hit the ball in air, the coach shouted.
Someone who has played in uneven grounds/paddy fields knows that hitting in the air is the path of least resistance and highest reward. Old habits die hard. I did not hit along the ground and excused myself from the selection trials from the next day.
In the year 2007, I was selected for Mathura Refinery's cricket team for Inter Divisional Cricket Tournament which was held in Vadodara. The reason for my selection is still a mystery, most likely it was on sympathetic grounds since I was injured during the selection trials. Surprisingly, on the first match I was the leading wicket taker with 3 dismissals to my name.
Later on, I have played in the departmental cricket tournaments, where my selection was more on the basis of seniority and respect rather than my cricketing skills.
I have been reading since as long as I remember. One of my earliest photograph of me from childhood is with my elder sister, both of us reading (our respective class books, not story books). Books were omnipresent in our house. When I grew up, two monthly magazines were regularly bought in our home. One was "Chandamama" and the other was an English monthly named "Wisdom". They were very small magazines and were finished with in a day or two. Later on another Odia magazine was a regularly bought named "Sachitra Bijaya". It had a little longer stories and sometimes boring ones. Hence it lasted more than 2 days to finish. The old editions of these magazines were bound together to make it one big volume for the 12 months. During summer months, I used to re read the magazines, since I had nothing else to read.
I started reading novels and other forms of long fiction when I moved to Rourkela. Many of my friends had the habit of reading and books were readily available from friends and seniors. The library also had a good collections of books. But we hardly used it to read books, both academic and non academic.
Buying books became a frequent affair after I started to earn. The first book I bought from my own money is probably a book written by Mr Ruskin Bond named "Roads to Mussoorrie" incidentally bought in Mussoorie's Cambridge Book Depot in Oct'2006, where I got is signed by Mr Ruskin Bond. Till date it is the only autograph I have of a famous person. The most number of books in my library from a single writer is by Mr Ruskin Bond.
The stories by Mr Bond are simple to read and enjoyed by young as well as old folks. Some of the stories are real life incidents from his own life, but fictionalised. The character Rusty from the story "The Room on the Roof" is based on the life of young Ruskin. But the fictionalised characters are also like real people. After you read "The Blue Umbrella", you expect to meet Binya (the main protagonist) in a village nearby Dehradun. Mr Bond's writing style is simple and often inspired by nature and what he observes through his windows and during his leisurely walk around the hills. His essays are autobiographical in nature and evokes nostalgia.
The next book I probably bought was "Jonathon Livingston Seagull" written by Richard Bach. I had bought it in March 2007 from Sadar Bazar, Agra during one of my earliest visits to the city. The book is the story from the perspective of a seagull and how he overcomes his mental blockages and his struggles to find a deeper purpose in life.
Before the e-commerce era most of the books I bought were at Airports or Railway Stations. Post e commerce most of the books have been bought online. Few books have been gifted to me. On my first birthday after marriage, my wife had gifted me "The Theory of Everything". The book is about the mysteries of the Universe, written by the scientist Stephen Hawkings. Another book, "The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse" A Horse, has been gifted to me twice in the year 2024. Once by a junior in office after my transfer and then again by a friend on my birthday. The book is written in the form of a conversation among the boy, mole, fox and the horse and is deeply philosophical.
Gifted by Jolly on my birthday
Another friend had gifted me a wonderful book, "Life's Amazing Secret" by Gour Gopal Das, the monk.
Some other books which I have deeply liked to read are Man's Search for Meaning, Out of My Comfort Zone (Steve Waugh's autobiography), The Difficulty of Being Good, India Unbound, Science: A History, Thinking: Fast and Slow by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahenman and many more. Some books I might have liked but not able to recollect might have missed the list. 
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Gifted by a Office Junior and a friend
Does reading changed you as person?
Any activity we do constantly changes us. Activity becomes habits and habits shapes us, for good or bad.
Reading for me has been therapeutic experience as well as a safety cocoon for me.
Being shy and introverted, I have always found it difficult to strike a conversation. Among strangers (in trains and flights), I find it easier to be lost in a book, rather than to talk to an unknown person. Introverts, most of the time have fertile imaginations. Reading provides thoughts as seeds and then nurtures them. It has also given me topics to talk about with like minded introverts. Sometimes it has taken me to imaginary places where I have turned into a person without my limitations and insecurities.
But sometimes I feel, I have used reading as an excuse to stay inside my mental and emotional comfort zone.
May be I have used it as an excuse to avoid my surroundings and situations.
May be I have used this as a tool for procastination to avoid take actions on certain things.
May be it has turned me into an incorrigible over thinker.
I do not know, if reading less and spending time overcoming my insecurities would have been better or not. But I have never been unhappy by reading.
And that is what matters the most.
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