Fall In Love With A Man Who Reads. And Hold On To Him

Like a man. Fall in love with a man. And hold on to man who reads. 


Because the way he looks at life is different! He is a man who dares to dream, and is a man who has remnants of idealism left in him which the world has not been able to rob him of. His thoughts revolve not just around the stock market, the corporate ladder and the rate of the dollar. Rather, he dares to think also of ideas, philosophy, art and history. He has sensitivity. 


Sensitivity! Love a man who reads, and hold on to him, because he is sensitive. The hundreds of characters that he has witnessed in books have made him understand the black and the white and the grey of human nature. He has emoted with those characters, and lived with them through works of fiction. Thus, he has lived many lives in this one life of his. He will understand the millions of shades in you because he has experienced many a woman and many an emotion through the books he has read. He uses his imagination.


Imagination! Love a man who reads, and hold on to him, because he is imaginative. Because he knows of million ways to love and does not get stuck in mundanities, but rather knows how to re-invent the mundane. Thus, everyday you may visit a new parallel universe with him. You can travel to medieval times with him or visit the life of a courtesan in the Mughal era with him. Or you may catapult into the future with him. And you both make conversation about your voyages together.


Conversation! Love a man who reads, and hold on to him, because then your conversation would be about more than facile chitchat and your life with him will be more than a superficial soiree. You will talk about more than dinner menu, the grocery list, the payment of bills and politics and the plight of the property market. Because you will have so much more to talk about. And even when you do talk about the mundane, you will link it to a dialogue, a quote, a stimulating part of a book.


Read a book to him while his head is in your lap. Read to each other in the park or on the beach or at a hilly resort. Read out together to your children. Or read your own books, the two of you, while you sit side by side on a couch snuggling under a single quilt, sharing excitedly every now and then what your book is saying to you......a thought.....a feel.....or a single word that the author has used so beautifully that it fills your senses and you want to share it with each other, knowing the other will understand your joy. And in moments you read together, you find moments of union.


But watch out! Do not fall for a man who fakes the love of reading, and impresses you with forcibly memorized couplets of Faiz or lines of Shakespeare. Rather, gauge by the way his fingers touch a book. And look into his eyes and see whether they sparkle or stay listless when you read out something from a book to him.


Hold on to a man whose bedside has books, some finished and others scanned through. A man who highlights or circles words in a book. A man who likes to sit in the open air on a Sunday morning and read. A man about whom you know that if he disappears for hours at a stretch, it is in the sanctuary of a library.


Hold on to him because life will never be boring with such a man, even though it may be challenging. For such a man will continue to evolve, and grow, and will help you grow in the process. Such a man may be a challenge, so do not go for him if you want a life that is complacent and predictable. But go for him if you have ever asked God for a life less ordinary.


Love a man and hold on to man who looks at you with admiring eyes and longing love not just when you are looking hot, but also when you have a James Joyce book in your hands, and when you animatedly discuss Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" with him. Who gifts you a faded book a 100 years old of Keats' Odes, and who reads a poem of Neruda to you in moments that are tender. Who loves your beautiful mind and knows your value because you are a reader too. Don't let him go, for such a man is a gift and a joy.