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It's been a while. For a while my Challenge was left to fend for itself like a little scared child that gets lost in the supermarket. But don't worry little kid, I got you.
The thing with Gujarati reading material is that us Gujarati's with your God fearing Gujarati mother's just keep religious books in the language. I didn't really want to read anything religious. I wanted to try the literary variety of the language.
So I went to the local club where I play Table Tennis everyday. It is called Kandivali Recreation Club. This club has a decent library of Gujarati books.
I asked my friend, Deepak Sanghvi (who, by the way, ALWAYS kicks my ass in table tennis, grrrrr) to recommend a book. He said, only if I become a member of his library for a nominal Rs. 200 (phrsht! These Gujarati's I tell you! wink wink). So I shelled out 2 blue Gandhi bapu's. He then gave me my very first Gujarati novel. Called 'Paralysis' by Chandrakant Bakshi. Ha Ha Ha. Talk about ironic. You know what is more ironic, a lot of the dialogues in the book are in english (written in gujarati of course). I mean, for God's sake. I'm reading something like "You are torturing me" in gujarati...literally! :-)
Anyways, I am consuming around 2 pages per day. I read aloud like a little child and after I have muscled through an entire sentence, I have to re read coz I was so busy forming the words from the letters, I didn't pay attention to the meaning. But patience is the key. I hope to get faster by the end.
I realize, a month is enough to at least kick start the literary campaign for Gujarati for me. But it is not enough if I want to become at least passable fluent in reading this language. So I am planning my next month's challenge along similar lines.
I will, obviously, talk about my new challenge next month. So stay tuned, or logged in, or connected, or whatever man. I gotta go read Gujarati like a 10 year old.
Front and Back cover of the book I am reading:
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