It’s a general nature of mankind to get accustomed to any kind of habit. Habit refers to a thing that you often do and something that is extremely hard to discontinue. Habits are usually discontinued by family members continually reminding us about it or being humiliated by people for our habits. But what do we do if most people share a common but nasty habit?

One nasty habit that most people have is licking the tip of the fingers while flipping pages or counting notes and tickets. This habit affects us in many ways. By licking notes and tickets we are propagating thousands of germs into our body. Just think about the papers which have passed from one hand infected with germs such as eczema and maybe even some skin allergies in our mouth. Have you ever smelled new currency notes and used ones? Think about it perhaps this note has been licked and flipped by a person affected with a serious communicable disease and now it is being transmitted to us.

By flipping the pages of books with the help of saliva we are insulting goddess Saraswati. A person with such a habit is not only welcoming diseases but people who are watching him will automatically develop a feeling of disrespect for him, no matter how great a post he holds. There is also a possibility of children adopting this bad habit as they learn things observing their elders.

Instead of having such a habit one could use water instead of saliva and give a thought to how your personal hygiene and personality gets ruined once you adopt this nasty habit.

— Priyanka Gupta, Class X,

St Mary’s High School