Hearing it out.

“This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org . Recordings by Anne Coleman and Saint Louis Missery. <Date on which the book was read>, followed by <book name>, followed by <author> followed by <chapter number>” Well this is how each audio chapter, of the audio book I heard out, began and by the end of it, I would complete the lines before the readers would. (Why did I not fast-forward through? I did! But sometimes when the audio files were played in succession, I just let them say whatever they had to)

Before you get fancy ideas of me carrying around a nice sleek device etcetra, and before you ask me questions like a friend on twitter did -” Wait… kindle, or iPad, or something else? I need some reviews on anything appropriate. “

I’d want to know why can it not be just my plain old laptop?

Although, when I had heard past a few chapters I thought one of the things that would definitely be up my smart-phone would be an audio book, at the very least.  And if you want to know, why don’t I have a smart phone yet?

Then well, I would just say I haven’t all grown up for it, yet.

And if you ask, “whatever does that mean?!” Well I just have a tendency of knocking things over and getting them on the ground. Yes, seriously.

Anyhow, that is too much digression already.

How did it all begin? The listening thing?

I had an eye-condition. Conjunctivitis. It was too much of a strain to come back from work and then stare at the screen again. Neither would reading offline do the eye any good. In the midst of a desperation that arose after exhausting myself of over-sleep, I decided to download an audio book. Blind man’s paradise I say!

Why Pride and Prejudice? I remember wanting to read it since 9th grade, had gotten it issued from the college library as well, only to return it after a month. Also, I had seen both the English and Hindi (Bride and Prejudice) versions of movie made off the book, so if I would not feel like listening to all of it, I would not have to bother about not knowing ‘what-happened-in-the-end’.

So I set out to read listen.  This was sometime during November end.

But the eye got better, and visual media held greater appeal.

I must have heard out some 10 chapters. Rest were still there in the download directory. When I had to make a trip from Bengaluru to Delhi to Varanasi to Mumbai to Pune to Bengaluru I had a lot of time up my sleeves. I had to carry my Laptop around because the Pune trip was official. That’s when I heard out most of it.

Now in all of it, I must not undermine the contents of the book. There’s is something about good literature that keeps you engaged. The detail with which Jane Austen outlines each character, their philosophies, reflects the depth in her thinking. The minuteness of observation of human behavior and motivations and the inter-twines of misunderstandings, interpretations and circumstances makes the book worth a listen.

I heard out the last of it while I was coming back from Nagpur to Bengaluru. That would be 24th April. And when I finished I was wondering what would I do in the 1.5 hour long cab ride back home!

I know, you’d say – why not just carry a book! You can maintain your reading pace and it’s easier to carry around. To that I say, well think of it like you have nothing to do (except probably look out of the window and strain your neck, go check out a high-price duty free shop and find something you like and then wonder whether you should buy it, pick up a newspaper and read about a scam, watch people, listen to babies cry, listen to ghaati hindi songs which you absolutely detest, browse through the indigo magazine-the contents of which you have already checked out or sleep) and where you can sit back, relax and have a book read out to you. It works very well, if you like me, don’t mind listening and can pay most of your attention to what is being read out.

Oh and what about keeping all the story in your head not knowing when you’d have a chance to come back and listen to more of it. Well it does require a little patience. But we seem to have a way of remembering stories to be able to catch up on context, almost on the fly.

PS0: If you give it a shot, do let me know.

PS1: I had a period of a 2 hour drive on the Mumbai-Pune highway. The ambiance seemed perfectly set for a good story. The whole experience still lingers and somehow the outside seemed to have an effect on the story I was listening to.