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Ban ‘n’ books
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Demand for a book spikes with controversy
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Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
Censored Books are banned for different reasons
A book worth banning is worth reading. This is almost a norm religiously followed by book-lovers across the globe. Disturbing footages of Taslima Nasreen being persecuted and chased out of Kolkata are fresh in the public mind. The incident brings int
o sharp focus all literary greats who have been either banned or bullied around for one reason or the other. Sasi Sutrala, a member of Bookwormz Club could not stop himself from procuring the writer’s banned book “Lajja.” The forbidden fruit has always been tempting and sweeter and so has been the case with banned books down the ages. Books were banned as far back as 450 B.C. when Anaxagoras’ writings were deemed derogatory were burnt publicly.
More recently in 2003, the Harry Potter series were also burnt down in Michigan.
“The moment word is out about a banned book, the sale of that book shoots up within no time,” points out Janaki, a voracious reader herself. Classics in English literature like “Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer or “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” have been included on the banned list. Strangely even “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Black Beauty” have been condemned.
Talk of banned books and not to mention Salman Rushdie’s fourth novel “The Satanic Verses” (1988) is almost impossible. Faced with death threats and a fatwa, the writer spent nearly a decade largely underground.Supriya, a teenager, and a die-hard Potter fan protests against the call for a ban on the Harry Potter series. “Potter mania is worldwide and it is ridiculous to seek its ban. If fiction is taken for reality, then the censors need to rethink what is right or wrong.”
HARJEET KAUR ALLAGH
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