POWER OF A NEWSPAPER

 

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

03/V/2025

 

In the morning it is my duty to get the newspaper, which our very sincere newspaper wala drops at our doorstep quite early. Much before the public opens their mobile phones & get busy watching reels which are an addiction.

 

Have you guys noticed how this piece of ‘Raddi’ is delivered? I am not going into the story of making of a newspaper. Pages have more advertisements than news but then lands with you.

 

Having followed newspaper vendor closely and observed his modus operandi, it is a herculean task. Today, people have shifted to e-newspapers and started consuming other form of news. Poor guys are having a tough time selling one and making a living from the commission.

 

Sorting the news papers is done as per clients before he starts from his home. With vast areas to cover, this man categorises the papers as per his route chart. He knows which house consumes which brand of the news paper. Some people take two or more also.

 

In our row, there are twenty houses, out of which seven are vacant. The first one is a politician’s house. Naturally, the thud of the newspaper bundle when it falls says it all. Ours is the fifth house. Then Paper R, D, B, T, TB, BD are thrown. R for Rajasthan Patrika, B for Bhaskar, D for Dainik Jagran, T for TOI and so on.

 

All these combinations are sorted out and kept in separate bags. Some homes subscribe but leave the papers to rot. Some people don’t inform the vendor and leave. Their cars where this newspaper lands read it instead.

 

Last year, one paper had gone missing. It was after almost a month we discovered it lying on our garage roof. This year too, another newspaper in April went untraceable. I searched at every unusual place but alas could not locate it. We kept thinking that our man forgot to deliver it.

 

What has happened is that we have very dainty plants kept at the mouth of our garage. The style of the newspaper boy’s ‘chuck’ has damaged quite a few of them. Sometimes, he rolls it up in a ‘cylindrical form’, that is the most dangerous type of delivery which has taken the maximum toll of plants. If he folds it in just two, the newspaper glides and lands smoothly.

 

One has to notice the manner, style, gait, and force used for the flick of his wrist, which is different for every home for throwing the newspaper. Boy, it is an art.

 

We have added an obstacle for him. Our car is placed across the garage for two reasons. One, is that the junior world cup football team practices in the lawn across. These kids have sent their ball flying and have destroyed so many pots. Second, it provides a little shade to the pots.

 

However, for the newspaper man it is a major hurdle. He has to ‘time his throw’, a little before the car, over the car or after the car. He finishes his job in the first two as the next house has a different kind of paper to be delivered. If he stops, it wastes his precious time. He keeps going in the same momentum non-stop, till he gets out of the colony collecting one newspaper which he left with a guard to read, while he went around doing his job.

 

With swimming season on, the kids have plunged into the pool. However, our plants were giving us hints of being unhappy. Initially, I thought it was over watering, then it turned out to be underwatering. Still, our coleus collection started losing lustre and colour. This was a cause of concern. The reason I found out today.

 

One missing newspaper hid itself and got tucked in under the foliage of the plants. Poor plants had been just reading the headlines earlier, before I picked the newspaper up. Now, they were reading the same newspaper over and over again and were bored to death.

 

I understood their condition. TV news channels are the same. They induce such venom in you day in and day out by repeating things. People get brainwashed or sick watching news.

 

Watching the Indo-Pak war hysteria on the TV even before it started suddenly finished when they found some other news to waste time on. I, being a military man, had got sucked in to see what would happen after Pahalgam, but got fed up listening to the diatribe of the news anchors and their panellists. TV news is out of the window again. Let peace prevail.

 

Imagine how plants reacted to the ‘rubbish in print’. The right place for that newspaper is the compost bin.

 

Don’t leave the newspaper outside please. Have you guessed the reason? I wonder!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND
©® NOEL ELLIS