The Little House Books

When my friend who was coming back from the US asked me for the umpteenth time what I wanted from there, my usual reply was “Nothing!”. But this time he really pestered me to ask for something, and almost did an emotional blackmail that I do not consider him a good enough friend, etc etc, and hung up!!! I was really confused now, not knowing what to ask him, if at all I should. I am not so crazy about getting things from abroad, and of late I have started feeling that we get almost anything in namma Bengaluru itself. Hmmm......

Suddenly I remembered my favorite book series, which I had been searching for in almost every other book store in Bangalore from many years, but in vain. Yes!! I could ask him to get me a couple of books from that series; I only had the Kannada translations of some of them with me. Anyway he would get me something or the other, though I do not ask him to. Instead, why not ask him to get me my favorite stuff? So the next time he called me, I told him about these books, and sent him the list of the books, in order of my liking, and asked him to get me a couple of them, preferably the ones on top of my list. He again called me up, sounding confused and said “These books look like kids’ books, are these the ones you actually asked for?” Eeeeeeeee, I grinned, yup, that’s what I want! And well, he got me 8 out of 9 books of the series!!
Ok ok, let me tell more about it. Laura Ingalls Wilder was an American author, who lived in the late 19th century and early 20th century. She has written a series of books for children called “The Little House Books” based on her childhood in a pioneer family. There was this old, worn off book at home, “Hullugavalinalli putta mane” by S. Anantha Narayana, a translation of her “Little House on the Prairie”. I remember growing up listening to and reading from this book. Chikki (my aunt) used to read out one chapter for me after in returned from my pre-school, and I would listen to her and imagine all of it, as if it were happening in front of me.

Later on, when I started reading myself, ma gave me the other three old books of the series she had at home. I was so deeply fascinated by them that I had started imagining myself as Laura, and my family as her family she has written about. At times, I’d hallucinate that I am the actually the rebirth of Laura herself!!! Ha ha… I used to enjoy imagining things like that!!!
And recently I did play a prank on Dee saying that I remember about my previous janma, that I was Laura in my last birth, blah blah. I sounded so serious that probably at one point he was kinda perplexed!!! However, I still have this dream of going to the US once, and visit the places that she has mentioned she lived at.

Ok, we hadn’t found the other 4-5 books anywhere, till my college days, when our library had got new re-prints of the entire series. Happily, I had read all of them again, and slowly started buying them one by one whenever I found one. But reading the original books in English had still been a dream. No book store in Bangalore had it, and I had left hope.
But when I googled for it a couple of years ago, found so many links and so much more info about her! And wow!!! The books are still sold in US!!! And now, I have them with me! Yayyyyy!!! I was so delighted last evening when I got them…… wanted to read them all at once!
I surely want my kids also to grow up reading them ;))
PS: my friend has missed the 7th book in the series – “A little town on the Prairie”, one of my favorites. Now, greedy Sum wants that too :D

Updated Later:

Ok! The seventh book, which i thought was missing was in the car itself :). Dee saw it and got it to me the next day. Yayyy!!! I am happy :)))