Book, My Friend! Poem by Bharati Nayak

Dear Book!
You are my friend since childhood
Even before I could speak
My Grandma was telling fairy tales from your pages
She told us stories of great epics like Mahabharat and Ramayan
Since then I fell in love with you and you became my constant companion.
I have seen you in different forms and colours
Many books full with pictures in glossy pages
Some are voluminous filled with small letters
carrying wisdom of sages
Story books, textbooks, novels, algebra or trigonometry
I have relished my reading pleasures in your company.
I have lost count how many books I have read
Nor do I have remembered their names
But I can recall some of them which interested me too high
Treasure Island, Gulliver Travels, Tom Sawyer,
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mayor of Casterbridge and Robinon Crusoe
Short stories by Rabindranath Tagore, novels by Sarat Chandra and Ashapurna Devi
Books by Manoj Das, Bibhuti Pattnaik, Prativa Ray and Kanhu Charan were my favourites.
Be it a short story, novel, poetry or a detective series
I was always engrossed in reading
Sometimes I forget to sleep if the book is thrilling
Books fire my imagination and take me to the wonderland in a joy ride
From the pages of books speaks Mahatma Gandhi, Dostoevsky and Maxim Gorky
I can interact with their thoughts and understand what these great people are saying
If I am asked, 'What books have given to us? '
I will say, 'All '
what I am today, what my children are today
Because of the knowledge stored in books.
Books inspire us through stories and sayings of noble people.
Books connect people to people
In a nutshell, had there been no books
There would have been no civilization.