Just a whiff...

Have you ever smelled a book ? Well if you’ve not, then you haven’t really read one. You could’ve seen, touched, examined, studied or even memorized a book; but you haven’t read it until you’ve smelled it. I myself started smelling with Enid Blyton when I was seven and then realized that everything else had only been taught to me.

Every book has its own smell. There’s nothing like a new book smell. Brand new paperbacks, cheap and light, smell so inviting. There are the ones that you’ve been waiting for, which make you restless. And then there are the promising ones which you just couldn’t leave. The first edition hardbacks, they smell so proud, to be treasured and displayed. Coffee-table books, hard and heavy, smell expensive, waiting to be lifted and admired. Children’s books, with lots of pictures smell like christmas and always cheer you up. Teenage books smell of adventures and fantasies. Comic books and graphic novels, smell of colours, with each colour adding its own essence. Bengali books usually smell cheap. Newspapers smell fresh in the morning and stale the very next day. Magazines smell of seasons. Sharadiya editions of Bengali magazines smell of the pujo. School books stink of exams and the exercise books reek of teachers. Erotica smells exotic and forbidden.

Books take up the smells around them. Books smell of the shops they were bought from. Books by your bed smell loved and cared. Books on shelves smell somewhat lonely. Books in the attic smell abandoned. And that one book lost, lying in a corner, smells forgotten. Books from travels smell of faraway lands. Books also smell of trains and airplanes. Books from Howrah Station smell like the holidays. Library books smell of their libraries.

Books also lend their smell to some places. College Street smells of books. The Calcutta Book Fair smells of books and joy. But it used to smell so much better when it was in Maidan. Then there were the bookshops in the old New Market, they used to smell fascinating. Now they smell dead. There are a few other places which still smell wonderful. One is the Oxford Bookstore Gallery at 17, Park Street and the other is Chuckerverty, Chatterjee & Sons at 15, College Street.

Older books smell better. Here, books are like wine. The finest also happens to be the oldest. But they must be aged properly. The finest fragrances come from wooden cabinets, with rusty hinges and cracked windows. And a hint of dust, of the finest kind, that is just waiting to be blown off. All enclosed in stone walls. What remains then is candle light, leather couches, wooden floors and a crackling fireplace.

Some books always smell special. My absolute favourites are my oldest Famous Fives and Secret Sevens. You cannot possibly compare them with the ones that you get nowadays, printed right here. These just don’t smell right. They’re like the Mona Lisa on a calendar. Then there are those books which just keep smelling better. Some of you may feel the same for your Harry Potter or Twilight books. I myself, have my Artemis Fowl books.

Some books don’t smell at all. These things are called electronic books. You can’t hold them, you can’t smell them, you can only stare at them. You wouldn’t want one for your birthday. They are never really owned, just saved. They are not kept in libraries. They can never be shared, only copied. They can never get old. They are not books at all.