The thrill of the morning paper

-
For almost a month now, and perhaps for 13 months in 2012-13 and 12 months 1989-90, I have had a blissful experience of the morning paper, literally in my hands.

When I shifted to Bhilai in 1990, it would be The Times of India, Delhi edition being delivered in the evening. The newspaper would come by air to Raipur and would be delivered in the evening. So the year long luxury of fresh newsprint while I was in Delhi, came to an end. Logistics issues meant there would be no regularity of the TOI being delivered on time. Though it scares me now, but I must confess that for almost two years I had no morning newspaper to read. Gradually I shifted to Teh Hitavada and The Indian Express - Nagpur editions. When The Hindustan Times was launched from Raipur, I shifted to that as well. But my discomfort continued, so to speak. Even prior to 1990, I missed the morning 'national' newspaper having lived in smaller towns like Ranchi, Obra, and Muzaffarpur.

It was only in 2007, during a visit to Chennai that I came across The Hindu again after a gap of 17 years, having last read it while in Delhi. On my return to Bhilai, I immediately asked the newspaper vendor to start delivering The Hindu. First it was the Delhi edition, then Kolkata and finally Vizag or Hyderabad. But each time it would be a day or two late. But that chain was broken in December 2017 when I latched on to the 10-year special subscription offer and decided to subscribe to the digital edition.

So now I open my laptop at anytime I get up, which is usually around 4.00-4.30 am, which in a way coincides with the availability of the digital edition online, and sift through the 'pages', a cup of coffee or tea in hand. Till say around 6.00 am this liaison continues which gets extended if there s more material to read on Sundays and specific days, often at the cost of my morning walk. The smell from the newsprint is missing but the thrill of the morning news is fresh. And shall remain for another 10 years, at least.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flawed Managers that Flourish

-
In 1990, psychologists Robert Hogan, Robert Raskin, and Dan Fazzini wrote a brilliant essay called “The Dark Side of Charisma.” It argued that flawed managers fall into three types: the High Likability Floater , who rises effortlessly in an organization because he never takes any difficult decisions or makes any enemies. the Homme de Ressentiment , who seethes below the surface and plots against his enemies. the Narcissist , the most interesting of the three, whose energy and self-confidence and charm lead him inexorably up the corporate ladder. Narcissists are terrible managers. They resist accepting suggestions, thinking it will make them appear weak, and they don’t believe that others have anything useful to tell them. “Narcissists are biased to take more credit for success than is legitimate,” Hogan et al. write, and “biased to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their failures and shortcomings for the same reasons that they claim more success than is their due.” Mo...
Read more

We are what we are - the Lake Wobegon Effect

-
The Lake Wobegon effect(1) is the human tendency to overestimate one's achievements and capabilities in relation to others. It is named after the fictional town of Lake Wobegon from the radio series A Prairie Home Companion , where, according to Garrison Keillor, "all the women are beautiful, all the men strong, and all the children intelligent"(2). Keillor’s 1985 novel Lake Wobegon Days describes life in the fictional town situated in the US state of Minnesota. According to Keillor, Lake Wobegon is the seat of Mist County, Minnesota(3), a tiny county near the geographic center of Minnesota that supposedly does not appear on maps because of the "incompetence of surveyors who mapped out the state in the 19th century". The town's slogan is Gateway to Central Minnesota(4). The town’s motto is mentioned on its crest – sumos quud sumos – we are what we are(5). In a similar way, a large majority of people claim to be above average; this phenomenon has been obse...
Read more

Back to the Drawing Board or Square One

-
After coming a cropper against spinners who normally struggle to find a regular place in the New Zealand Test squad, the media-hyped Indian batting line-up flopped against pace barring a few exceptions in Australia. The abrupt retirement and return home mid-tour by Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma getting dropped (or whatever you may like to call it) from the playing XI in the last Test, rounds up the story. To sum it up in two lines - you cannot entrust to a failed politician the reins of India's cricket team, and the star system has to give way to actually deserving players if Test cricket in India has to survive, or shall we be kinder - go forward. Not only was not Rohit firing, but also others like Kohli and Gill were struggling, when Rohit chose to 'stand down', why no opportunity was given to Sarfaraz or Easwaran? The batting returns of Rohit and Kohli are diminishing, more so in the last few months. They cannot play spin at home or pace abroad. That should be eno...
Read more