How do I say this without offending anyone? Well, I guess there is no other way than to just spit it out and go to the Devil for my sins.

 Where do the classics end and when does it become not blasphemous to call them by their real name- the name they deserve? By this I mean that when does the classical school of literature stop being something that must be read and be replaced by something you’d actually enjoy reading? Is this what a generation gap truly constitutes?

 I’ve come across many an elitist who maintained that if the book wasn’t written by a Russian, it wasn’t deemed good enough to read. Ironically, my paternal grandmother was of a different opinion and freely read Iva Ibbotson’s Dial a Ghost and enjoyed it tremendously. This led to a sort of translucent generation gap between me and my previous generation, whereupon someone walked into my room and said I was not interested in reading, when in fact at that very moment I was lost in a land of mystique where the white knight had just rescued the damsel in distress.

 The tragedy was yet to unfold, for although my mother never begrudged buying me the books I wanted and I didn’t have to fight for getting reading material, she remained firmly stuck to her “comfort” reads- Tolstoy and Hardy and Shakespeare and Chaucer to name just a few. It was like an embryo from which she never stepped out of. I won’t say she didn’t try to. On seeing me quote freely from The Lord of the Rings she tried to read that book, but she found it unappealing. Gandalf challenging the Balrog of Morgoth was lost on her, just as the words “Do not desert me, Gabriel!” were lost on me and I remember having a legendary fight and being told that my statement was blasphemous when I clearly pointed out that I hated Hardy and found precious little to warrant reading him ever.