CONFESSIONS OF A BIBLIOMANIAC

Almost all mortals amongst us complain of being able to inherit only one lifetime.....they complain that there are too many
wonderfull things to experience ,too many unseen and unheard mysteries waiting to be unsolved but there's only one life?This

is simply not fair.....
Yes we do have one lifetime,and indeed a very short one but unfortunate are those that measure life through months and years

,life infact consists of moments ,life consists of experiences that we behold.It's working through this philosophy that I

fell in love with books a long time ago.....and as I invaded those unheard territories one by one,step by step and page by

page ,I realised that a whole world of humanity lay before me to understand and to comprehend.
Newton once told..."I have been able to see farther than most people,only because I have stood on shoulders of gaints",and

very truly he referred the books as shoulders of gaints.
A book is perhaps the only friend who will not complain even if you forget it in shelves,and leave it to tatters after using

it...it's the only friend that gives you a thought for lifetime and wants nothing in return.That kind of unconditional love

is extinct in a world where we dwell presently.


A man who doesnot read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them ~ Mark Twain


I believe presently there's a strong necessity to revive the habit of "reading books",it's higly necessary in a society where

children and adolescents grow up under shadows of false idols ,a society where younglings have their creativity crushed under
peer as well as parental pressure.....and most necessarily for the so-called-youngistan who are brought up on heavy doses
so-called-cool reality shows on TV nowadays.It's high time we nourish the aesthetic values of our generation and those

growing up in this MTV atmosphere,an atmosphere where pretention is likened to coolness and aggression is mistaken as

attitude....an atmosphere where everybody wants to be like someone else,nobody wants to be him/hershelf anymore,because

sticking to your individuality is not COOL enough.I ask Why do we need a alter personality to stick to?
Knowledge is the base on which our civilization was founded and nowhere else our stakes for future are higher than the

knowledge pool of our society.Keeping this in view there is an immediate need to encourage Public Libraries amongst us.In a

city like Bhubaneswar which is almost a million-strong now ,there are only handfull of public libraries catering to our

needs.It's certainly time we address these issues......because as I said never have been our stakes so higher.
Yes i'll sound archaic,uncool and "boring" but I do confess that I love books,I love them from the time they smell as fresh

as bamboo till the time they turn yellow and dog-eared in my shelves,in anticipation of a second read from me.I must admit I

disappoint them because I have new mystic worlds and creatures waiting for me to espy.
And as regard to cool generation-y ,there are two sets of people in this world....trend-setters and trend-followers ,decide

what you wanna be,and decide fast because time isn't very generous after all.



"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." ~quote on wall of LIBRARY OF CONGRESS(US)


SOUMYA DARSHAN JENA