I saw my first copy of "The Diary of Anne Frank" among the stack of books in the backroom cupboard which my aunt left behind. Strange mementoes of her single, hazy-crazy days when she used to live with us in 16 Jln Midah Tengah in the 70's. It had a black cover and a picture of the eternally youthful Anne Frank. After a decade, she had left, married and had children of her own, but her books were left behind in the small cupboard in the backroom. Being 10, young and curious and forbidden everything, I used to dig into that backroom cupboard for memories left behind and what I found were...books. I remember 'Jaws' ...or maybe "The Exorcist"...or was it "The Pirate"...which would have driven my parents nuts if they found out I read it. Nevertheless, the Anne Frank Diary was one of the curios of my aunt's which she left behind; yellowing and feeding silverfish in that mothball-smelling cupboard.
Fast forward twenty years and I'm standing in the very house young Anne hid in. I stand before the book case showing the different publications of her diary in all its multitude of languages, colours and bindings. But yet, I don't see the publication I read twenty years back. I wondered if it is still in that backroom cupboard somewhere - hiding like Anne in the house, behind a dusty cupboard.
It's amazing how one girl's story has travelled so far and so long up till this day.
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