Are you a book sniffer?

Have you ever smelled a book? By smelling a book I don't refer to a moist one that smells bad, but to a fresh one. Any book that's in your collection or one that lies waiting on the stands onlooking to a faithful literate owner. In case you haven't smelled one, smell now!

Perhaps I am using the wrong phrase. One never smells a book, one inhales the purity and enjoys the tranquility as it ascends upwards the nostrils startling the smell glands and then expanding in the lungs. The result is, immense freshness and an utter calm state of mind.

It is believed that comprehension is not an easy task, true indeed. Sometimes we read with a diverted mind, sometimes regressing over and over again, only to realize later that we haven't progressed anywhere. That's exactly where you need to close the book, sit back and sniff through its pages. Sniff deep and smile to the pleasant smell.

Comparing reading from PDFs to Kindle, paperback is a multi dollar thing. The feel of holding a book in your hands, leaning back on a couch and turning page by page as you navigate your eyeballs over the last word of every page and the rough feel of rubbing your fingertips on the pages is something that is always desired in times of e-reading. Moreover, buying a book also adds up to the charms of ones' collection.

Considering a paperback's servings during a one-sit reading, it acts as a pillow when your eyes are tired and you opt for a power nap. When you're lying back on a couch with your legs stretched over a table, the feel of tapping a book on your laps with closed eyes is no less than adoring a child, only 200 grams though. When you finish a novel at 3 in the morning, the pain of ending is unbearable, a paperback stays up to its reputation even then by allowing you to cuddle it on your chest and sleep tight, sometimes split across your nose and engulfing your tiredness in its magnificent aroma. The feel of paper is unexplainable, it's relishing, captivating and addictive, and that is what keeps the readers hooked up with reading. Keep sniffing! Keep reading!

Kiss of Love and the Indian Society

There are three kinds of people in our nation- The Rich, The Middle Class, and The Poor. By 'Rich' I mean the ones who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. 'The Middle Class' on looks the rich and hope that their future generations will be born with a silver spoon too. However, 'The Poor' even lack a spoon to eat their meals. People divided in these categories reside together in the society, making India a land of diversity in true means.

When compared together, ironically the rich and the poor show similar attributes- they are the ones who aren't tied up and held back by the strings of culture and heritage. The middlemen are. You might probably spot a poor woman smoking by the gate of a metro station or even a pretty young lady puffing out rings of smoke on a highway through the window of a Benz. In both the cases you pass away with a grin of ignorance, and so does everyone else. But you might rarely spot a salwar-suit girl puffing out in the open street, for the simple fact that she is held back by ignominy and her cultural values.

Recently out nation witnessed an uproar of protest and questioning over the Kiss of Love eve scheduled in various places across the capital. Of course it would have stroked controversies, it was after all an event of the middle class, from the planners to the participants. And even more, it's always a middle class man who is free enough to protest against something.

They (the saviours of the society) say that our culture and society doesn't allow holding on to the partner's head and kissing openly, but ironically what's allowed openly here is to take up any corner across the street and hold your penis until it drains off the last drop. Sadly, we're part of a society that has its kids influenced deeply with the western culture, who themselves never let go an opportunity to rape someone. Or let me rephrase in case its not true this way, who would never protest for a girl being raped in threat of being beaten down by the rapist or even killed. But, they were free in flocks to protest against lips meeting lips. Just in case people are so free to volunteer there are a lot many things to protest against, from heaping garbage dumps in public places to issues of never ending rapes or women going out in the open for defecation. Surely, these too are not true attributes of our society and culture.

If only the Middle Class changes their observance, a lot many things can change in this nation, a lot many objectives can be reached together. We've been taught unity is strength, but we've always practiced criticism as our strength. For a matter of fact, no matter how hard the middle class protested, the ones born with a silver spoon won't stop greeting their friends with a kiss even on the busy market streets, the ones who lack a spoon to eat will continue mating on the footpaths and producing more children overnight. To the rest of us, it started with a middle class man and ended on a middle class man. All others are spectators, who'll clap, cheer, shout and later return to their own respective business.

**This article bagged 1st prize in Book Review India's essay competition, read here:
https://bookreviewindia.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/the-winning-article-kiss-of-love-and-the-indian-society-by-bisht-udai-narayan-singh/

One last time

It is true when people say that life has many shades. Indeed, it has. Once we were all small kids, so innocent and charming that everyone wanted to cuddle their arms around us. People entertained us for hours in a stretch to just spot a momentary smile radiate out from our face, and we took all the privilege of their love. Ironically, in return of immense love we even literally pissed over their costly silk saris or reputed army uniforms. And they only smiled. Then there was a school life, the first memories of making friends, of sharpening pencils and littering the neighbour's compound. Eating tiffins together and running across the field, chasing balls and seldom friends. The post-lunch lecture, at times of a power-cut was the most unbearable moment of the day as the entire body exhausted heat fumes and every bottle in the classroom soon drained out of its last drop. The moment when everyone smiled as the last ally too walked out of the class to join the punishment. Memories of growing up from lower school to middle school and finally getting promoted to higher school now seems as if it all happened so quickly.

There was little sense of responsibility then and life was lived with utter joy and immense zeal. The present mattered and future was of little importance, until one day we walked in through that college gate. Things changed all of a sudden, just overnight. The first day's orientation marked the culmination of freestyle living and the beginning of an era of responsibility and future planning. We were expected and trained to grow up. We were warned to control over getting addicted to a few habits termed 'bad,' what friends termed 'cool,' 'necessary,' 'stress-relievers' and so forth. It was an all new world, just identical to the feeling of getting introduced to puberty in the past.

They say good times are short lived. Burdened under the workload of submitting assignments after due date, preparing and appearing in numerous exams per semester and commuting to and fro from college ended the college life time before it even started. Yet, we clinch tight a few memories- going out at lunch and late night to have parantahs with coke, tucking the shirts under the belt, bunking classes together, buying new sim-cards from the stalls outside the college gate almost every month, and walking down the aisle kicking everything that came in the way. Time ended just like the path ended every morning from college gate to the classroom.

An year has past and we are all scattered in different directions like marbles after a toss. Groups that were once united are all apart and busy with their lives now. Some have got on the wagon that takes them to the journey called 'life after college,' while some are still on the stands, trying their luck to get inside every one that comes their way, already overstuffed from the last station.

As I sit on the stands, waiting for the next wagon with hopes of getting a seat, memories of college life embraces me. There were days when we were unconcerned of such a day, days when we slept under a blanket of a million stars and gazed back at them dreaming of such a shiny and lustrous future to come our way. There were friends, best friends, who ate, drunk and slept together until dawn cracked and today they're all scattered away. Too far to schedule a meet, to far to reunite and too busy to borrow a moment. New people have taken their place and things have changed, thus proving again that time waits for none.

As almost a quarter of this life span marks its completion, life starts playing its cards. From days of togetherness and close friendship to loneliness again. There are twists and turns all the way up and what lies on the other end can not be foreseen. It might be a busy routine job waiting to handcuff us for the next many years or perhaps in the next turn, we'll all meet again to sleep for one last time under the open sky, overstuffed on one single blanket, struggling to stay on it, gazing at the million stars and laughing our hearts out on old memories.

A river of national importance

Ganga, the river, in true means is a mother. She gives the love and resource to sustain, and yet in the end men turn their backs at it and leave back with plastics, flowers, ashes, candles and discarded clothes on the bank, to flow away with the currents of the river. Yet again they come back to pay their homage when someone dies, and end up putting in a few more dead flowers.

Imagine the fate of the river that commutes over 2500kms, almost through a hundred cities, across four states into a vast ocean; and what does it take along except liter? Throughout the year, everyday millions of Indians pay homage to the river on its banks, and undoubtedly contribute towards curbing its beauty. The waters of the Ganga that is considered so sacred that no change is observed in its form even after years of storage, has actually started stinking and rotting at many places near industrial sites and dense populations.

The Ganga pollution and ways to overcome it is one of the biggest challenge that our nation faces at the present time. In a 2007 survey, Ganga was termed the fifth most polluted river in the world, which followed with no signs of recovery. The pollution of the river is a serious threat to more than a hundred species of aquatic species and the Ganga dolphins have also been termed endangered in the recent past. Considering humans, the threat is even bitter and consequences more fatal.

The amount of garbage dumped actively, passively and sacredly in the Ganga annually, can form a huge mountain chain across several kilometers. Though Ganga is a river of the living, but it is treated like that of the dead. The purest soul contribute to the most irreversible deeds, leaving a big black spot and later wondering how to erase it.

Imagine the pleasure of seeing transparent blue waters in the entire river until it exits into the Bay of Bengal. Imagine people sitting by the banks of Ganga, hands folded and lips murmuring mantras while the breeze sways away the hair. Families taking a stroll by the river in the evening as sacred music plays soft beats to the ears. Temples on the bank light up with dias and candles as people gather in the temple compound to take an aarti of the river, without approaching its waters. The rituals don't change, only the medium does.

A pollution free river awaits its dawn on the farther end, only we need to realise the importance of the objective.