Heard these rants and some other quite similar from a few friends recently. Some are not avid readers and hence not too privy to the world of spending time with books, but some are, surprisingly, book lovers themselves. Most common of the rants are to the tune of –
“He never listens to me. I call out his name, I give clear instructions and he just ignores. This is not acceptable.”
” She is right here in the room and I am loud enough, why do I have to call her out 6 times before she even acknowledges me?”
Valid questions and to some extent, valid frustration because, you are, truly, in that room. However, he (or she) is not. Unknown to you, he may be a thousand miles away, or millions or just somewhere deep down close to the earth’s core. It all depends on the current book in his hand!
Yes! A book makes us travel, far & beyond or deep and within. And both these distances are difficult to traverse when asked to return to the current physical world.
Difficult because one, people in the current physical world seldom realise that a reader, while in the room, is really on a journey. Two, as a reader, the person seldom wants to make that journey back to the current physical world, till his desire of that day’s journey is fulfilled. Its as simple as that.
So next time when you dote over your kid being a voracious reader but fail to give him time to come back and respond to your call out, treat him like he is far away & allow him the time needed to make that journey back.
readermommy 
Very well written Chandana!
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