Culture Talk

Reading Tagore again after 20 years, on night shift breaks

I work nights in a hospital in Pune. In the 3am break there is not much to do except tea and the phone. A few weeks ago I took my school copy of Tagore's short stories from my parents' house and started reading them in the break room instead.

At 15 I found them slow. Now, after years of nursing, the stories about loss and small family quarrels hit very differently. 'Kabuliwala' especially. I read it and needed a few minutes before I went back to the ward.

I think some books are not meant for the age at which school gives them to us. Has anyone had this, a book you hated as a teenager and loved later?