Biblio

Lest memory fades: Kagaz Ke Phool

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“Moments make memories, and memories make men”, said somebody, and clearly after a lot of thought. All of us are quite fond of capturing happy moments spent with friends, family and colleagues. Some of us click pictures and make videos to capture a memory as it is, while others pen down their thoughts in a diary. However, not everyone can pen down those memories and feelings as well.

With the view of recording such precious moments on paper and preserving them for eternity, Namit Maheshwari, a second year Economic Honors student of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce has come up with a unique business start-up named ‘Kaagaz ke Phool’. The start-up works to provide to its clients their story in print, a biography of their own.

kkp

“The idea took concrete shape in January 2014 when I put together a team of young writers and decided to give life to ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ or KKP. The venture quickly gained popularity as people liked the idea of a gift of memories that were more precious and longer-lasting than diamonds and yet cost much less. KKP gives one a complete story of one’s life; the bigger picture at which you can gaze each day and be proud of.” says Namit, the brain behind KKP.

The team working at KKP consists of students working as interviewers, editors and writers. As a client approaches the team for a book about his orher life’s story or a particular event, the interviewers assume charge and interview the client, record the story, thereby capturing the essence of the subject’s thoughts and emotions.

Once the interview is done, the recordings are forwarded to the writer, who listens to them, delves deep into the story and puts it into words in order to extract a meaningful narrative structure out of it. In order to prevent the story from being adulterated by prejudice, emotions or imagination, there is absolutely no contact between the writer and the client. The team thus, does not exaggerate or romanticize; for memories should be remembered as they are.

The story is published in the form of a tailor-made book preserved in rosewood casing (baksa), put together with a bottle of red wine. The craze for such a unique thing is growing amongst all people, young and old alike. The book so published could be gifted to someone on a special day, kept for leisure reading or could be used to preserve and cherish your story for generations to come.

For a young venture, KKP has received a very tremendous response. Since February 2014, they have done 6 publications one of which is an order of 100 copies which they will be bringing out next month. The previously published books have titles like ‘My Daddy, My Hero’, ‘De Mon Coure’, ‘Not Without My Sister’ to name a few.

“We are a team of six members all of whom are students in different colleges: Geetika Ahuja who is an undergraduate student of Sociology at LSR, Gauria Bhatia who studies Economics (H) at IP College for Women and Renu Singh who is an undergraduate student at DRC. The editing is handled by Baldeep Grewal who is a final year English Honors student at IP College for Women and Vrinda Rathi who manages foreign clients.” says Sanchit Garg from DCAC, who himself handles job of interviewing.

In a world where documented emotions and memories are slowly losing their importance (except on the online world), ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’ has brought in a new way of immortalizing the things that make life memorable, and not just letting them be mere ‘things’.

You can follow their work and know more about KKP through their Facebook page Kagaz ke Phool . You can also contact Namit Maheshwari via e-mail, at [email protected].

 

 

Mridul Sharma is a final year B.Com (Honors) aspirant from DCAC, a patron of meaningful cinema and good soft music and has deep love for writing. He is more of a poet, feels whatever he writes and writes to understand what he feels, a little better. Currently, the Associate Web Editor at DU Beat, he is looking forward to his final year and can be contacted at [email protected]

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