I can’t follow Rushdie’s barrage of ideas

I don’t read as much as I wish I could, but I collect books and music. I’m currently researching on women saints and poets of India, so that’s keeping me busy.
I don’t remember being introduced to reading by any particular person, but I always had a voracious appetite for books. I remember spending summer vacations at my grandmother’s home in a village called Sarankul in Orissa. I would finish all the books I had taken with me within the first week and then I’d turn the whole house upside down looking for something new to read. I used to be particularly keen to find books that were considered ‘unsuitable’ for children’s consumption.
My main interest lies in non-fiction. Books about travel, history, culture, music and food are my preferred choice, but of course, there’s always room for literature. Pearl S. Buck’s books were a childhood obsession of mine and I’m still planning my dream trip to China. My interest with travel writing began with Pankaj Mishra and Bill Bryson and then moved on to Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin. I’m currently re-reading The Songlines. My favourite book is The Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer and my favourite authors are R.K. Narayan, Kiran Nagarkar, Pankaj Mishra, Italo Calvino, Murakami and many others.
If I have ever left a book incomplete, it is almost everything by Salman Rushdie. I appreciate his style, but I’m too distracted to follow his barrage of ideas. But I do love Step Across This Line.
I connect with the books I read, any book that one connects to, has been time well spent. All the good books I’ve read have affected me deeply as a person. They have helped shape my perspective on life and the world we live in. I don’t see how it’s possible to be unaffected by a good book, so in that sense, all the books I’ve loved have changed my life.
The funniest book I’ve read is The Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby and there is The Music Room by Namita Devidayal which I’m currently reading and don’t want it to come to an end. Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar is one book I can read time and again. This is a book that constantly feeds my music. It speaks of love in so many ways that every time I go back to it, I draw something different from it. It gives me great interpretative insight as a singer.
As told to saumya bhatia