If you have observed my ‘Current Reading List’, the autobiography of Conrad Hilton, “Be my Guest” is there for very long time. This is unusually long, coz I often complete reading a book at a stretch of 3-4 days. Very few books have tested my patience. I can give the example of “The monk who sold his Ferrari” which took months. That was the last “self-help” book I picked up and I developed hatredness towards that genre of ‘personality development books’ after reading it.
Unlike Robin Sharma's book, “Be my Guest” is superbly written, a rarity in the genre of ‘Autobiographies’. The Life of Conrad Hilton is so much adventurous and you get excited while reading every phase of his life. It also feels like, you can’t put down the book while reading. I can say, If I didn’t know about Conrad ‘Connie’ Hilton, someone could have passed it to me as a thrilling fiction. It has thrilling sequences, family emotions, Faith, Romance and a constant touch of humor throughout. Still, for some obscure reasons I am yet to complete it. (I can blame my busy schedule). Last 20-30 pages are still waiting to be read.
Last evening, I found a book of Tejaswi. My friend was reading it when I visited him. It was like finding a treasure. You don’t happen to see your favourite Kannada books in Tamil Land everyday. I almost snatched it from him and gave “Be my Guest” a rest . ‘Alemariya Andaman & Mahanadi Nile’ from Tejaswi. This particular book is not a very famous work of Tejaswi compared to ‘Karvalo’. ‘Parisarada Kathe’, ‘Annana Nenapu’ etc. Being the first Tejaswi book I read in my childhood, this denotes a remarkable phase in my life. After reading this I was hooked to ‘Travelogues’ . I read obsessively “Lakshadweepadalli Lekakaru”, “Americadalli Goruru” and many others. It was also the starting point of reading ‘Tejaswi’. Now I can proudly say, I have read most of the literary works of Tejaswi. Not once but repeatedly.
I have never visited Andaman in my lifetime. But I know each & every place there, the people there, the tribal society, their stories, the marine life there and hundreds of other stuff. Courtesy Tejaswi. Hence this is a repeat trip of Andaman now. This time “Alemariya….” marks my fourth reading of the book. Hopefully I will come up with a review of both the above-mentioned books sooner. Wait for them.
Seeji.
