Reading Expands Imagination

 

Reading Expands Imagination

I come from a traditional family where reading was never seen as a habit worth cultivating. Books were considered either academic necessities or indulgences with little value. Growing up, we had barely any access to books at home, and even in school, whether middle or high school, the library was limited. The few books available were closely guarded, and strict rules made it difficult to borrow them freely. Reading for pleasure wasn’t encouraged; it was something to be controlled.

Living in a joint family, however, offered its own secret windows to the world. Some of my older cousins would sneak in forbidden literature—detective novels, cheap romance books, thriller magazines—the kind of content adults whispered about disapprovingly. As a child, I was strictly forbidden from even glancing at them. But curiosity has its own stubborn nature. I would quietly peek into these pages when no one was watching, my eyes wide with excitement at the unfamiliar stories and wild characters.

Those secret moments felt like rebellion, but more than that, they sparked something in me. They stretched my imagination beyond the four walls of my house and beyond the expectations of what I was "supposed" to read or think.

I was fortunate, though, to have one steady influence, my mother. She was a schoolteacher, and she understood the quiet power of books. I still remember, vividly, the day she gave me a set of comic books and illustrated storybooks for my sixth or seventh birthday. That gift changed something in me. I read those books again and again, until I had nearly memorized every word. They weren’t just stories; they were portals. To other worlds, other voices, other possibilities.

Looking back, I believe it was these early, scattered, sometimes forbidden experiences with reading that expanded my imagination and planted the seeds of a lifelong love for books. I didn’t have the luxury of a rich library or literary mentors, but I read whatever I could get my hands on—textbooks, pamphlets, old magazines, school books, even the back of cereal boxes.

That hunger has never left me.

Years later, when my daughter was born, one of the first things I did was fill her world with books. Picture books, storybooks, and poems, we read together, laughed together, and imagined together. Through her eyes, I rediscovered the joy of reading. It became a shared ritual of learning, relearning, and unlearning—a constant process that continues to shape both of us.

Reading didn’t just entertain me; it transformed me. It taught me to think beyond what I was told, to question the world around me, and to dream of what could be. It taught me that imagination is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Today, my curiosity has only grown. I find myself drawn not just to fiction, but to philosophy, history, political theory, science, and gender studies, across disciplines, across perspectives. I feel an insatiable desire to read not just books, but entire libraries. Because I know that every book holds a new lens through which to see the world—and every lens expands who I am.