Reading books is undoubtedly one of the best qualities one could ever possess. It is essential as it molds us into well-equipped individuals and enhances our creative ability thereby fostering imaginative skills. It also enables to understand the world around us better through different perspectives which we wouldn’t have dared to explore otherwise. Moreover, it teaches you the art of using language constructively and innovatively so as to entice your readers and to put them at ease.

A book that particularly moved and touched my heart from all that I can remember would be ‘The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank’. I remember borrowing it from a friend of mine before leaving for the summer break last year and it was in India that I made up my mind to do the bare minimum of flipping through the pages before I returned it though I had no clue that it would the one that I would relate to the most as a person. I was then very much intrigued by the fact that I would get a sneak peek into someone else’s diary and get to know their most vulnerable, raw and true self.

As I delved deep into the world of Anne Frank, I had realized that she was similar considering several aspects and also since she was a teenager that she seemed like an archaic version of me that lived during a totally different time period. Anne was a keen observant and a girl brimming with curiosity who was too mature for her age. She felt and thought about everyone and everything so deeply which is so evident in her diary. She was determined and always deep down knew what she wanted. She reveals that her aspiration was to become a writer when she was all grown up and her belief that paper has more patience than people was something I truly resonated with.

Though it is widely said that reading helps you to teleport on to different worlds and meet new people, sometimes you happen to come across yourself and to me ‘The Diary Of a Young Girl: Anne Frank’ stands as a testimony. Anne started off writing a diary because she felt the absence of a true companion in whom she could confide all her worries and secrets just the way it is. She could be herself and have someone to genuinely listen to her without being judgmental or too critical. She saw her diary as a close friend and called it by a name- ‘Kitty’. She was pragmatic and intelligent yet was a very sensitive young girl. Anne was apparently fond of her father, Otto Frank, though her relationships with her mother and sister were quite strained. Anne was moody and also a highly emotional individual. She was empathetic and felt sad for being safer and protected to some extent than her friends and the ones for whom she cared for. Anne was someone who chose to only see the goodness that she believed lingered in every individual. I have always remained in awe of her ability to pen down her thoughts and emotions so vividly alongside her remarkably unwavering optimism and perseverance even when times got tough and unpredictable for her as a Holocaust victim. Subsequently, when I got the opportunity to visit Amsterdam this year I had put it up on my bucket list to visit the Anne Frank house. I am now glad that I could check out the Secret Annex and spend some time where she had been in hiding during the Nazi occupation and had written her diary which is nothing short of a masterpiece. There is indeed a lot that one could embrace, connect with and learn from the very little yet witty Annelies Marie Frank. To put it in a nutshell, reading certainly is one of the most relishing experiences one could ever have and I am happy to have met myself in another through it.