NEWSPAPER OR TV NEWS
LT COL NOEL ELLIS
19/V/2022
Reading newspapers online is not my cup of tea. However, reading it with ‘spectacles’ is another pain. One keeps going in and out of focus. It is any day better than putting on a news channel. It is only “bow-bow-roar-screech-scream-yell-shout-call names-abuse-bak-bak & chic-chic”. Even the TV speakers close their ears.
In Bombay we would receive a fresh, crisp and neatly folded newspaper weighing almost a kilogramme. The coloured supplements, Mirror and Financial news made the newspaper worth its weight. Plus, selling ‘raddi’, at metro rates was paisa ‘vasool’. All those who got newspaper allowance could buy ‘sabzi-tarkari’ out of the ‘raddi returns’.
During monsoons one had to read ‘wet newspapers’. Rather it used to become ‘see through’, not what you are thinking of, but one could read the last page through the front one.
One had to find a Jugad to mitigate its wetness. The easiest way to turn a mushy paper into a fresh crisp one was to simply ‘iron’ it to recreate freshness of the fine print. Sometimes that soggy paper could not hold its printed words. Pages in between would catch the print of the previous pages. Words would fade or get jumbled up. However, there is no better feeling than holding a well ironed ‘refreshed’ newspaper.
Corona saw a bad phase for this reading material. Viruses could be transmitted through the newspaper, they said. The driver, distributor, vendor, paperboy who inserts fliers and even the delivery boy could have caught the flu. Once transferred to the paper, it could spell disaster.
What about the man who licked his finger to count newspapers? God forbid, if he had a runny nose. Instead of saliva, he could use the liquid from his nose. All sorts of rumours were alive. Slowly, the poor newspaper vendor of ours changed his profession to a ‘pakora maker’. His ‘Kanda Bhajia’ were sold in the same raddi which he bought back from us. Poor chap had just graduated to a ‘Luna’. Corona pushed him back to his bicycle again.
In the deserts, heat has really caught up. No one mentions the name of Jodhpur in the hottest place on earth list. Probably the met department here sits under a neem tree reading the papers to measure temperature. It went up to fifty plus. The only person who could do his job in this heat was the newspaper Wala. He starts early in the morning. By the time it was bed tea time for us he was back home.
Newspaper here is not at all interesting. Except for murders, theft, rapes and accidents there is nothing worthwhile that the print covers. ‘Masala’ & ‘Gupshup’ is news today. We buy it for a different reason, to check out where there is a ‘sale’ on. Any new eating joint which has come up etc. Those fliers have given us very good leads to ‘swiggy’ stuff. The two front pages are only ads. “Kothi by Kedia, sirf pitchatar lakh se shuru’. 75 lakhs, my foot! I better stay in a ‘jhonpari’.
Dry weather here makes the newspaper far too crisp to my liking, like deep fried ‘aloo-tikki’. If you let it lie in the sun too long, it would get shredded due to the intense heat. I am exaggerating. My issue is, the boy not only rolls up the paper but sticks one end inside to make it easier for him to chuck it. When the paper lands with a thud, it flattens out.
When you open it, it takes half an hour to straighten those umpteen creases. It looks like a roller coaster ride while reading. You ‘dip’ on the first turn, you climb up the second, twist on the third and then miss out on a complete line sometimes. Then interest in news gets lost. Sometimes one feels like sprinkling water and using an iron to straighten it out.
Luckily there are no ‘half vertical pages’ in our edition. Reading that page in a taxi was like reading the print on a fluttering flag. If one lowered the window of the taxi, a blast of wind would separate each page. If the wind hit a little hard, one could share a page or two with the neighbouring taxi. Newspapers were a boon in the heat. Hang the paper on window glass and roll it up. It made a perfect sunscreen.
Be that as it may, life is fun with a newspaper and without it too. The cacophony, rowdiness, noisiness, disorderliness, unruliness, loudness on TV news can ruin the whole day. At least the newspaper is fresh. It is better than watching the same anchors wearing tainted, polluted & biased clothes, contaminating the minds of people of this nation.
Should we pay any heed to them? I wonder!!!!!!!!!!
JAI HIND
© NOEL ELLIS
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