This summer is Enid Blyton rediscovery time. Who Enid Blyton?? EEEnid Blyeeeton... that's who! And if you don't know, wiki help you!! For the lazy, Enid Blyton is staple reading diet from ages 9 through 12 of "convent-types" in Indian cities. Others also maybe, I wouldn't know.

And I willingly, even fondly introduced my daughter to the flagship items - Secret Sevens, Famous Fives and the Malory Towers. It's amazing the books continue to enthrall. I mean, enthrall barely begins to describe it. The girl's addicted to them. She reads them cover to cover, her pace only limited by the number of books her library (or I) will allow her to borrow at a time. That's pretty much how I remember my romance with E Blyton.

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>Of course, you didnt think I'd buy the lot did you??! Famous fives have to be borrowed from a library and read on afternoons in the summer holidays. Hmm, that's not entirely true. She does own 4, no 5 different Enid Blyton books. That's one more than what I owned. And mine was a collection of stories not one of the mysteries - more baby stuff if you know what I mean. Wonder where I lost that book. Well, considering I have a fair number of other books bought when I was 6 years old, its not asking for too much!

There's one amazing phenomenon about Blyton Books that I am sure deserves some serious research. Its a documented fact. After reading a couple of books the young ladies begin to yearn for stuff such as ginger beer, potted meat sandwiches, hot buttery scones, cold meat pie, fresh lettuce and radish salad and the like. Yup, the same young things that have grown up on a diet of rice, avakkai and bendekai curry will salivate at the thought of cold meat pie. All in response to descriptions of picnic lunches in the books. Someone call Pavlov!!

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> Well, to tell the truth, I salivated too at age 9. And many years later, I recoiled from the rare-done meat and other gastronomically alien stuff in my travels to lands where they do eat the items described by Enid baby. It was only then I remembered my salivating self. Funny. Funny. And then I watch it happen all over again. Some burger ka baap will surely be interested in such a study... bring in the funds, let's research the Enid Enigma>>