Formerly people used to write on the leaves of certain trees. Palm leaves were then used for this purpose. Paper is a very useful thing now. It is used for writing letters, bills and legal documents. No office or school can do without paper. It is used in blotting ink, in wrapping up parcels and in decorating the walls of our rooms. Ancient people could not spread knowledge so easily because there was no paper or printing press.
Paper is a very useful thing. It is made of rags, old papers, grass etc. These things are reduced to dust in a paper mill. It is then boiled. It becomes something like a thick solution, called pulp. Pulp is then purified. Then it is made white by bleaching. Sometimes, some dye is mixed with pulp and it becomes coloured. Thus we get red, blue, green or yellow paper. Pulp is spread into a thin sheet and dried and cut into pieces of various sizes. This is how paper is made.
There are a few paper mills in India, such as in West Bengal, Assam and Mizoram. Paper has different varieties. Some of them are polished and fine, others are coarse. Paper is made for different purposes. Thus we have writing paper, note paper, drawing paper, printing paper, packing paper etc. There are different qualities of paper. Some are cheap and others are costly. The coarse paper is made entirely by hand.
