As love affairs go, the one I’ve conducted with words has outlasted all the others. But if I think back to the beginning, we had a rocky start.By the time I was six years old, I’d spent three years watching my sister curled up in a chair, reading books. When she had a book in hand, she couldn’t hear the doorbell ring. She couldn’t hear my dad calling when he came home from work. She couldn’t hear my mother yelling that dinner was ready. Heck, she couldn’t even smell the fragrant kidney beans or the eggplant curry that had been set down on the table.She’d look annoyed when she was separated from her book. She couldn’t wait to get back to it. It was like some sort of magical, invisible friend, an endless source of delight.And of course, I coveted this friend. I too wanted to be spellbound, enthralled, lost in a fantasy world. So, I got down to business. With Mum’s help, I learned how to read.And finally, I was ready for my first book. It was Grimms’ Fairy Tales. My dad placed it in my scrawny arms. My sister turned a page and said, “This is where you start.”I began to read. To my shock and dismay, it was dull. Boring beyond belief. Big tears welled up in my eyes. If this was a magical world, I could tell, it would never be one that captivated me.“I can’t read this,” I cried, putting down the book. “It’s not a story.”My sister laughed, full of glee. Her eyes danced with mischief.My mum walked over and looked at the page I was on. Foreword, it said at the top.“No wonder you think it’s boring,” she said. “This is not where you start.” She glared at my sister. Then she turned the pages forward till the title read, “The Frog Prince.” “Try again,” she said to me, smiling.The rest, as they say, is history. I officially became a single-minded bookworm. I wouldn’t go anywhere, not even to a party, without a novel in hand. I took one to school, I took one to the dentist’s chair. Readers make writers; I’ve got to give this lifelong obsession the credit it’s due.But one thing hasn’t changed. I always skip the foreword.