Experiencing the world of Audiobooks
Books have been a friend of mine for a long period of time. From the age of 5, I always remember carrying a tinkle digest or a chandamama for my daytime train journeys. As I grew so did the size of the books, Single volume of tinkle digest became a double volume and then it became kids' novels and young adult novels all in English.
I had never read in my mother tongue of Tamizh (Tamil), neither in school as a subject nor by myself. However, I was forced to learn the language at home by my parents and my grandfather. My level and speed of reading still remain to be equal to that of a kid in class 5. This is however true for Hindi as well. I can speak the language but reading in them as fast as English has been very difficult.
However, when I moved out of the country to a foreign land, I was ashamed that I didn’t know the literature of my own language and claimed to be well-read. The shortstop was that my reading speed in English was at the graduate level whereas Tamil lagged, I would always sleep when I read Tamil.
Classical Tamil works like Sivagamiyin Sabatham, Pathiban kanavu, Ponniyin selvan were out of my reach since they were written in the 1950s and spoken Tamil is very different from literature Tamil. But the world of audiobooks has brought them to my ears. It has broken down the barrier and helped me cherish and complete these books. I have completed the works of Parthiban Kanavu, Poiman Karadu, and One part of sivagamiyin sabatham in a month’s time. I mostly listened to these books from Kadhai osai
These books have been narrated in a very nice manner and I mostly listen to them in my commute and just before sleep. This has also ensured that I don't have a lot of gadgets usage before sleep.
I never thought I would but I do enjoy listening to these audiobooks. What has helped me is to consume content at a pace that I am used to and not lose the essence of the book itself. But I am not sure yet if I would jump on the storytel or audible bandwagon yet. It would take me a little more convincing to do so. But as for now when the books are being delivered on my podcast app I am really happy about it.
