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‘Santiago’ is the name I remember very well. I knew this guy. I don’t know if it can be considered as my childhood memories, among all the memories related to the best book I’ve read. Every time I tried to think, it comes up with the name ‘Santiago’, from the book ‘The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Well, among many of the books and stories I remembered, this book was my glimpses of the past. My cousin gifted me this book on my 11th Birthday when I was in class 6. It was a translated book in the Bengali language. It was easy for me to read but understanding the story, was like giving the first layer to a water painting.
This book was first published in 1988 in the Portuguese language by a Brazilian writer name, Paulo Coelho. It has been translated into many languages and became a bestseller worldwide. The story is all about the journey of a shepherd ‘Santiago’ toward his dream to discover the treasure in the Egyptian pyramid. Though it is an allegorical novel or a fantasy fiction, it has deep insight into philosophy, life lessons, and experiences including, love, struggling, frustrations, and patience but still the determination to follow the route of dreamt desire throughout the difficulties. The book can be seen with the following sentence described as it is the core motif and philosophy of the story “And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Coincidently, I found this book again as a gift in my farewell, from a Brazilian friend of mine. I was leaving Portugal for Greece. He gave me this book intending to help me with learning the Portuguese language and maybe a motivation for my future journey. And then, I remembered, when I first read the book in Bengali. The memory from my childhood.
Santiago is a boy from the Andalusian region who always wanted to explore the world, but his parents wanted him to be a priest. So that, this poor family could have a respectful life with enough financial support. As Santiago can be seen in the story, as a determined, smart, curious boy, who is more into traveling than religious study and the GOD. Once he urged his parents about his wish. His father tries to convince him and aware him of the outside world. As he already understood that Santiago cannot be forced, he agreed to let him explore the world. He wished Santiago and gave him some Spanish gold coins and said "I found these one day in the fields. I wanted them to be a part of your inheritance. But use them to buy your flock. Take to the fields, and someday you'll learn that our countryside is the best, and our women the most beautiful."
And that’s how the boy started his journey. But there is a dream he saw several times. He saw the dream in an old broken church, while he was stopped by for a night with his flock of sheep. In his long journey, he tried to understand the meaning of the dream. He went for a gypsy seer, a woman who helped him to understand that the dream is an indication of hidden treasure in Egyptian pyramids.
From then, he started to think, about how he can go to Egypt. Then, Santiago met with an old king. The king of ‘Salem’ suggested to the boy, to sell his flock and use the money for his travel to Egypt. After arriving in Africa, Santiago falls into a trap and loses all his money. Afterward, he started to work in a shop that sells beautiful crystal showpieces. He used his potentiality and smartness to earn enough money to travel to Egypt.
He was improving and he found a man who was searching for the Alchemist. He became the accompany of that man and meet the Alchemist who could make irons into gold. Here, at this point his journey found a different way while he falls in love with a beautiful Arabian girl ‘Fatima’ also wanted to marry her only after he finish his journey, but slowly he found comfort in this place and get more attached to the people. But at some point, he left his comfort and started traveling again for his targeted journey and get closer to the pyramids with wise indications of the Alchemist. He learned and gathered experience from the Alchemist. Again he found difficulties, he got robbed, though that became an advantage to find out the hidden treasure. And finally, he found the treasure where he saw the dream first time, in the old broken church.
In this story, the motivation, the life lessons, and experiences were nicely embedded by lining them as a metaphoric phenomenon of our life within this storyline. No matter, how many times we fail, or how many difficulties stood up we need to keep our aim fixed with determination. It is all about the journey more than the hidden treasure or the aim.
This post is a participation in the contest announced by @BDCommunity, titled “CONTEST: YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK(S) FROM CHILDHOOD”. I like this idea; I really would like to thank @BDcommunity for such an arrangement. However, I would like to invite my friend @linco to participate in this contest.
Thank you. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
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