Memories #4 - Newspapers

 

Courtesy: Malayala Manorama website

 

Somewhere in the early 90’s I was introduced to “Malayala Manorama” the news paper that was subscribed in our home at that time.It has to be noted that this is one of the leading news dailies in Kerala. I used to observe the newspaper being closely read by each member of the household. At first I started checking out the paper out of curiosity. It was rather amusing to see that the men folk of the house were the most interested in the last page(sports page ). The magazine section that came along with the Sunday issue was eagerly awaited. There was a particular column in the Newspaper titled “Innathe Chinthavishayam”(Roughly translated to’ Today’s subject of thought’) which was religiously read everyone at home. It was a column on self-improvement, philosophy and the like. I never even bothered to look into that because it hardly made sense to me. But still it was interesting to see everyone asking each other if they had read it and they used to discuss its main points. This was my first initiation into the world of newspapers.

Gradually as I moved into adolescence The Indian Express was introduced to me with the intention of improving my English. At this stage of life there was competition for reading the newspaper now with my brother as we used to fight for the paper. We used to have fights with each other to get hold of the newspaper. My kid brother was interested mostly in the comic section of the newspaper. And yeah the TV guide section of the newspaper which detailed the programs of the Cartoon Network. It was the time when you started to read the newspaper from the last page. I still remember the Youth express titled “YES ” that was shared with the newspaper of Every Friday. It was here that I was introduced to the Page 3 news for the first time. This issue was half the size of the original paper and used to feature in its last page small posters of youth icons mostly Models and Sports stars. I remember vividly seeing such a picture of Trisha who had just started her career and was crowned Miss Chennai at that time. For the uninitiated Trisha is a leading Female Superstar of the Tamil movie industry who is still active. I remember there were also other columns in the issue that gave you the first taste of the tabloid culture. Another interesting thing I remember was the concept of Pen friend was introduced by this paper. I remember writing a couple of letters but never received any response. The language of the Indian Express was easy to understand and follow hence there was not much of an effort required to read it.

 

Courtesy: The Hindu website

Into the teens I was introduced to yet another newspaper “The Hindu” , to raise the bar of English vocabulary to another notch. I was in for a rude shock, this was totally different from the paper I was used to. For starters it was a very dry paper with only ‘news’. Young World was definitely a whiff of fresh air. For the first time you got to see the creations of the kids of your age who used to write from around the country. Even the language was very difficult to follow and not easy to comprehend. There were times when both of us used to get scolded for not spending time reading the newspaper. The major complaint was that the paper was as good as new even after a week, a testimony to the fact that no one had touched that. I even remember crumpling the paper intentionally to prevent such mishaps from happening. Thankfully my folks persisted. Slowly but steadily we started to get a hang of the newspaper. The Sunday Magazine was my favourite and I remember reading them cover to cover. For the record a good part of the Indian public first heard of Shashi Tharoor when he stood for election as the Secretary General of the UN. But long before that I was a regular reader of “The Shashi Tharoor Column” that was a part of the Hindu Sunday Magazine. He used to write on a varied list of subjects including his Alma mater St Stephen’s College Delhi. During that time when my friends at school were dreaming about joining IIT’s and AIMS I had this deep desire to study at St Stephen’s which never materialized. Years later while I was walking through the tree lined avenue of the North Campus of Delhi University I happened to pass through the gates of the college and immediately it sparked a string of memories. Over the years reading a newspaper turned out to be a leisure activity that I used to do when I took breaks from studying.

Moving to Delhi for the preparation of the UPSC Civil Services (IAS exam) it dawned on me that “The Hindu” was revered in this field of study.  Further it was extensively used for preparations and referred religiously .The editorials had to be read and analyzed in depth, this was the only thing new to me because I never used to pay much attention to the Editorials previously. Every day I used to spend considerable amount of time pouring through the paper and making notes on the daily happenings in a thick Spiral bound book. This came naturally to me since I was pretty comfortable with the newspaper right from my teens. It is in Delhi that I got the first taste of “Times of India” tabloid kind of masala newspaper. In my flat that I used to share with my fellow Civil Service aspirants we used to subscribe the paper for the glossy pictures in it. The colour section of the thick Delhi Times with news from Bollywood and the glamour world was the only source of entertainment for us at that time since our lives were devoid of Laptops and Cable Television.

After my stint in Delhi “The Hindu” became an integral part of my life. During my brief Tenure in an Engineering college in my home state of Kerala. I made it a point that I read through the Hindu to kill time in their Library since I was free after 6 PM and needed to go to the College Hostel only for dinner. As per the Library staff I was the only guy who used to go through the Hindu. They were even thinking of stopping the subscription of the newspaper since no one used to read it.

Then I landed up in Mumbai little did I know that I would have to bid goodbye to the habit called “The Hindu” in course of time. For starters there was no Mumbai edition back then. None of the newspaper stalls stocked it. I was in for a shock but luckily I found out a guy who was ready to provide me the previous day’s paper and that too at double its price. He said that these were specially flown in from Chennai. It was still fine for me because thanks to my work I was super busy and it didn’t matter which day you got the news. After sometime even this stopped because I started to get 2 days old newspapers and it was untenable. However,it was quite strange that I got the “Malayala Manorama”  in Mumbai. I made it a point that I would read the Malayalam dailies during the weekend and it made me reminiscent of my childhood.

I had great expectations when they started the Mumbai edition for my favourite newspaper. The series of ads that The Hindu and Times made spoofing each other was rather amusing to watch. The beauty of it was that I could relate to each of them because I had read both the papers. But still I couldn’t bring myself to take the Times seriously. Even today I read it feels just like I am reading some story not to be taken seriously. I was in for a huge disappointed when they brought out The Hindu Mumbai edition. It was an end to end colour print with double the price. It appeared to me that they were trying to mimic their rival in an effort to capture the market share. In the process they lost the readership of the serious readers like myself because I felt the newspaper lost its soul. However, the Trivandrum Edition which I used to read when I go to my hometown still maintains the high standards as before.

 In Mumbai I switched to The Indian Express which had a few stalwarts who had left the Hindu like Praveen Swami, Nirupama Subramanian, Praveen Swami, P Sainath etc. On Sundays when I go through the magazine section it is a sense of deja vu for me. I try to catch up during the weekends with Malayala Manorama which has started to loose its rustic charm, I strongly feel that I am slowly outgrowing it. That ladies and gentlemen is the story of the newspapers in my life, its like a cycle I started off with the Indian Express and ended up with Indian Express. If you ask me with the advent of technology Newspapers are dying a slow death. But believe me the feeling that you get with a hot cup of chai and the newspaper in your hand on a Sunday morning is irreplaceable.

I

Courtesy: Indian Express website