"How can reading be a hobby!"

In a public place, among the seated men and women, I am the only one with a book in my hands, reading. The woman next to me asks me if I am a teacher. "I used to teach," I reply. She nods. "So this is coursework?" I laugh. "No, it's my hobby." She looks at me incredulously and goes back to watching reels on her phone. 😂 #reading #passions #hobby #books #bookoholic

20 Books that Changed My Life

1. 40 Rules of Love by Elif Shafak (It changed the way I thought about love and life)

2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini (Khalid Hosseini's introduced me to the women in Afghanistan and that kind of led me to working on an education program there for seven years)

3. Open by Andre Agassi (Open by Andre Agassi was one of the first books I reviewed professionally and that kind of opened the door to a 'career' of reviewing books)

4. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice garnered me a fabulous score in English literature in ICSE board exam way back in 1998)

5. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs changed the way I thought about design and opened a career in designing for me)

6. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter (It made me understand about investments when I was in my early 20s)

7. On the trail of Genghis Khan by Tim Cope (It's about an Australian man riding a horse through much of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe. It inspired me to get back on a horse after decades.)

8. Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (It's my conversation-starter with every Chinese-origin-but-living-elsewhere person)

9. Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi (It was the first book by an African I had read and I realised Africans are different from the African-Americans I had watched on TV)

10. Princess by Jean Sasson (It led me to reading everything about royal/influential family women in the Middle East for years)

11. Blasphemy by Tehmina Durrani (20 years since I read this book and it fills me with pain and horror)

12. The Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (It gave me a better understanding of my family's place in history)

13. Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino (It paints Japan very differently from what I had imagined it to be)

14. The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia (I cannot look at a beehive the way I did before)

15. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (It was one of the first fiction books I had read and it led me to reading more from South American authors than from others around the world)

16. 100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda (It was introduced to me by a friend when poetry was still not a part of my life.)

17. Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson (It has a paragraph on geese and I didn't think football managers talked birds until then.)

18. Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano (It changed the way I looked at high fashion)

19. In Xanadu by William Dalrymple (It induced a wanderlust in me that never quit)

20. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Bannerjee Devkaruni (It changed my idea of lords and heroes that I grew up with watching on TV)