A treasure worth craving for!

This time the writer’s prompt was treasure…and what a treasure of a prompt…it firstly evoked in me an image of pirates and then of course, Johnny Depp…sigh…...double sigh!!!


I had to delve deep into my mind to unearth something treasure worthy…As i opened my my treasure chest of memories…lovely little images flew past. Isn't it wonderful to remember the pictures you conjure up when you see that letter, that strand of hair, a photo, a first footprint, a birthday card, a love note, shells, postcards, mementoes - all bound by the common thread of nostalgia. Various jigsaw pieced memories joined together to form a beautiful collage of nostalgic moments… This was a treasure worth writing about but there were so many, what would I choose?

I then thought about my kids and a treasure I would like them to discover, a treasure they would keep!


What greater treasure can I write about than the one I carry around every time I move house. In the numerous occasions I have set up home in new cities, one thing never changes, that little reading space I create. BOOKS, they indeed are a treasure worth collecting.

From the Enid Blyton phase, to Shakespeare, to Charles dickens; I’ve read, and read and reread most of them. I fell in love with reading at a very young age and it’s an on going love affair!
Only a lover of books would understand the pleasure you get from curling with a good book in hand. The excitement of feeling that book in your hand waiting for the moment you can open the pages and immerse yourself in it. That feeling of being taken to places you may never visit and being pulled through a gamut of emotions, is something to be experienced and never to be forgotten! Some books have brought a lump to my throat and made me cry. Many have made me laugh and still others have made me ponder. What power the writer has, to use his words to manipulate our emotions so well!

As the old Chinese saying goes “To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one. “ I’ve re-read a few only to be surprised by the novelty of the experience, each time!

Here in Singapore, we have beautiful public libraries,in every nook and corner, huge and inviting! It is our favorite haunt and we make the optimum use of the facilities available. My son and I share a common bond which strengthens every time we add a book to our collection. He’s a voracious reader, all of 10, and has graduated long back from the Hardy Boys stage to a wider range of writers including Cornelia Funke, Angie Sage, Mark Twain, Roald Dahl and Satyajit Ray. A Harry Potter fan, he intends to write a note to J.K Rowling about some loose ends that he ‘thought’ she had left open!! I think he's well on his way to collecting his treasure.

What greater treasure can I leave them than this, my bookcase full of books, their value not measured in monetary terms but from what we have managed to take from it?

It is rightly said that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body…Go ahead and read all you can…Find that treasure and build on it…I promise you , you won’t regret it!...