Delight

My school library had a somewhat strange policy, there were these green and gray shelves filled with books, but we were not allowed to touch them. Instead, there used to be this moderate sized pile of books on the librarian's table from which we were to select. Predictably, the pile replacement period was measured in years, so if you liked to read, you ended up reading the same book many times over. I have cherished memories from this time, Edison's biography has etched itself on my mind (coincidently, it's his birthday today. Thanks VR), similarly a book about fishes with color plates. But like every other schoolboy, adventure stories were my favorite.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was strolling through Crossword when a book caught my eye, King Solomon's Mines. The name Solomon is there in so much fiction that it was bound to seem familiar. It looked intersting and I ended up buying it. Later at home, I was browsing through it when a came across these words: 'evil witch gagool'. And then it suddenly came to me. It is the same book (well, a translation, to be precise) I had devoured in school, so much so that I can still recall phrases from it. I can still recall the sketch of the map where the action took place. Apparently the name 'gagool' had left its mark deeper than others. It was like meeting an old friend. Delight, pure and simple.