“Freshly shaved, wearing much faded jeans and a thin white shirt, he seemed bigger and more muscular than ever. His black hair was waving and curling about his ears as it dried, and against the teak colours of his tan, his eyes looked very blue.

His dark eyebrows tilted and his smile flashed giving his face a wicked yet breath taking charm. Estella caught her breath and felt her knees wobble. Never before in her life had she reached like that to a man’s smile. His big hand grasped her’s and.....”

The above extract is from a certain book published by Mills & Boon. Mills & Boon books as we all know are an all time favourite among the teenage girls around the world and the average Pakistani girl reads it to rid herself from the usual stuffy atmosphere that prevails in every middle class home. Now, the questions that come to one’s mind are, “Are these books a healthy way to deal with one’s inner thoughts? Are these books corrupting and giving false hopes to our teenagers? Will they be taken as another piece of reading material or will they  become a base for unethical fantasies?”

A first year student, having read the above mentioned book, said that it was rather fantastic and the “hero” would be a real hunk had he been a real person. When asked as to what made her buy this book, she said that she always buys the ones with the most attractive cover illustrations. 

The rather life like illustration shows a damnably handsome man and a very attractive young girl, which by the way got quite a different reaction from a mother who has a daughter in the same college. She remarked: "The book is absolutely vulgar and I think it’s story is disgusting”.

How could a book, which a college student called rather fantastic and appealing, create such a variance in views? Individual literary taste is not the point here, although it does seem clear that parents don’t always share their children’s sense of humour and imagination. There seems to be no doubt that some parents are genuinely disturbed by some books that their children read and what their children learn by reading these books. Parents have a perfect right to monitor books that their children read and it is also within their rights to question any material that concerns them. Parents and ethnic groups also attack popular authors who use explicit language. Some people go as far as to say that such reading material should be censored before being put up for sale.

On the other hand some people say that by forbidding teenagers from reading these books, we will only cause them to rebel and create an even stuffier atmosphere in our homes, not only this but we may even force teenagers to develop other forms of entertainment which might be even more harmful. As far as censorship of reading material is concerned, these people say that censorship shows a basic disrespect for the authors and the readers. It has also been stated that censorship grows out of fear of ideas.

Now, sitting in a comfortable office or home and making these comments is very easy but no one seems to be taking any practical steps. What we as responsible citizens, need to do is to give up talking  and do something about this issue that is causing such a conflict of opinion. We can for one provide proper guidance to children who choose such books as their staple reading material.  We could also take care of the fact that our children don’t start reading such material before they have matured to a certain extent. We should also accept the fact that children nowadays are a lot more informed than we were at their age. Instead of restricting children and their choices  and turning them into robotic  prusians, we should give them a certain breathing space so that they may learn from experience and be able to face the challenges of life. 

Let us hope that our new generation is a lot better than the previous lot and a lot more open minded as well....