From 3rd Grade to Now: Revisiting Gulliver’s Travels

By Devyani Rawat , BSC Mathematics Hons , 2nd Year

Edited and Designed by Mannat , BA Hons Psychology , 2nd Year

Sundays are funny, aren’t they?

Sometimes they feel painfully slow and boring, and other times they turn into the most interesting pockets of memory and reflection. Today feels like the latter, like one of those Sundays that nudges me to look back.

For me, that means going back to Gulliver’s Travels. I first read it in 3rd grade. I can still picture myself, tiny me with a book almost too big for my hands, turning page after page as if I’d discovered a secret world. Back then, I didn’t care about the satire or politics, I was just wide-eyed at the thought of little people tying down a giant, or a land where humans looked like toys in someone’s hand, or even imagining it like some alien or zombie attacking their enemy.

Now, when I revisit it, the same adventures speak differently. Lilliput isn’t just about tiny people anymore, it’s about how small our quarrels can be. Brobdingnag isn’t just about giants, it’s about how perspective shifts everything, how a small childhood story becomes a reflection of reality. And the way Jonathan Swift explains this reality, with such wit and imagination, feels so good, it’s like he wraps truth inside wonder. What was once fantasy is now wisdom.

That’s what I love about childhood books, they grow with you. They gift you wonder when you’re young, and lessons when you’re older.

When I see my old copy of Gulliver’s Travels now, the yellowed pages, the green cover with black borders, the story still alive inside, it feels like I’m holding my whole childhood in my hands. And maybe that’s why Sundays, even when they’re boring, sometimes surprise us by becoming so deeply nostalgic.