TEZU, 28 Oct: Eminent novelist and poet Vkram Seth, accompanied by renowned military historian Shiv Kunal Verma spent nearly two hours with book lovers, senior volunteers and readers at the Bamboosa Library here in Lohit district recently.
Speaking after witnessing poem recitations and a book reading by young readers, Seth lauded them for their enthusiastic association with books and reading. “As you grow up, you will need to make decisions about your lives yourselves and no more depend on your parents or teachers. And reading helps you to decide that you need not accept the views or advice near you but make friends with a large number of people who are nowhere near, or are even dead. Reading increases your circle of knowledge and circle of friends,” he said.
He advised them to not only read for pleasure but also write for pleasure.
Verma, a frequent visitor to Lohit Valley as a writer and photographer from the Northeast and the author of 1962: the War That Wasn’t, narrated his life-long association with Tezu and Lohit Valley, as his late father, Col Ashok Kalyan Verma, was a captain posted at Walong in 1962, just prior to the war.
“I had lived here as a three-month infant at Bathees Mile, off Tezu, then just a small settlement. My mother used to narrate how a tiger used to roam around the village at night, and even as our dog got terribly restless, I, as an infant, used to giggle hearing the roars outside.”
Earlier, senior volunteer Solina Kambrai presented a roundup of the library movement. She also read out a story titled ‘A friend from the sky’ by a young reader at APNE Library, Wakro, from the book Mishmi Land Musings, based on Kunal Verma’s visit ‘over their school’ in a helicopter.
The guests went round the library with Bamboosa Library administration Bapenlu Kri, and commended the how the library activities are wholly conducted by volunteers and mentors.
The two authors were on an extensive visit to the border areas of Arunachal for a series of literary productions.
