Newspaper Mornings
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The routine drama of daily
life is mostly structured like this:
Getting up in the morning,
morning chores,
breakfast,
getting the daily bus to work,
forgetting to put the signature in the attendance
column,
screeching at the maximum voice to students who hardly
believe in the prospect of listening to another young person who boast of being
a teacher,
having the same tiffin for lunch,
dozing off in the afternoon light-hours,
taking the same bus back home,
thinking about the benefits of exercise and regretting
over not getting enough time for workouts.
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In an attempt to make a
difference, I started a new habit lately: buying news papers every morning at
the news stand, where I get the bus to college too, inside the old bus stand.
I always held the argument
that news papers in Kerala never learnt how to balance news from different areas.
Most of them have a surplus political content. In one of the conferences
conducted by one of the leading Malayalam dailies, with a literary bend, a
speaker said “politics is sold here like hot chocolate”. I don’t know how fast
the sales of hot chocolate are, since I never tasted one. You know, it’s not a
very popular drink in Kerala. Perhaps, too much of chocolate could burn you to
ashes under the sun flames turned full swing. He also mentioned sports and said
the reason why most of the news papers spend more space for sports is the
salability of sports. I wonder again how true that statement could be in a
state where sports is not even an optional subject in schools and where
stadiums bring only corruption money into the wallets of politicians and no
sportsmen.
There is a very evident
paradox here. But isn’t a paradox the marking feature of this state, Kerala? Just
think…Kerala is the first state in India
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The paradox the news papers
follow is in no way surprising. This is precisely the reason why I do not get
much closer to news papers. However, there is one change I noticed in recent
months. Perhaps this situation is just the microcosm of the world’s semi-civilized-hypocrisies.
There are many national
dailies that have recently spread out their branches in Kerala. And some of
them are in English language. A few of them show the real balancing act,
cancelling out the caustic political news smokes with their art, books, and
international pages. It’s true; there are some news papers that give pages to
art, books, films, fashion, etc. I am more than happy to find such a news
paper. Still, I may not mention its name here, as it might cause a case of
libel for using their name without their permission.
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| Image Courtesy: Google |
The news paper I am talking
about is South India ’s largest selling newspaper.
So I have something to do these days, off the track, out of the routine—buying
the paper in a hurry from the news stand and running for the bus with the paper
still in hand. The crispy feel of the paper in my hand and the smell of ink are
delicious. Then the feeling of keeping the pages steady inside the bus—that too
is remarkable, although I do not generally attempt to read from inside the bus.
This particular news paper, I found, do not boast of a high-class language. It
has just simple sentences and may be even repeated statements of the same news.
I would call it ‘bus-simple’. I mean, the language doesn’t demand a continued
and focused attention for more than a few seconds. So it is highly apt for
reading while traveling, especially in Kerala (pathetic story—it’s for another
time). That is why it is ‘bus-simple’.
But when I think about
routine, I am a bit concerned. What if this new habit of buying newspapers
became a routine?
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