Online newspapers just don’t feel right to me. Call me a technophobe (which I agree I am!) but I love the feeling of paper. I love the smell of newsprint, coupled with the steam rising off a cuppa with the steady drone of the TV in the background. Shift the entire scene to India and I can hear Mummy bustling in the kitchen, Daddy whistling and the temple bells echoing outside my house. Aromas of hot idlis and sambar waft towards me as I stretch luxuriantly on the carpet with Sunday Mid-Day before me. But I digress….:-)
Pinch has been trying since some weeks, to get me hooked onto online newspapers. He reads NY Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of India regularly online. Unfortunately, I can’t get used to the online news experience. For me, news equates to the daily newspaper, chai and …. nothing.
Finally, my hubby, in an effort to get rid of my supposed TV addiction got a 13 week subscription to WSJ. Am I happy or what! Loads and loads to read… wonder how I can complete it in a day! I can’t ever imagine moving to online news….
An acquaintance wanted to dispose off old copies of National Geographic. I pounced at the offer. The gentleman was sweet enough to give us the entire carton free of charge. When I checked the carton, I found old issues dating back to 1967. Quite a treat… Add to it, the latest Nat Geo subscription that we got a month back…. lots of Nat Geo at home!
Lastly, the library visit saw ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ (Somerset Maugham), ‘Slowness’ (Milan Kundera), ‘Kingdom’s End and other short stories’ (Saadat Hasan Manto) and ‘Doctor Faustus’ (Thomas Mann).
Phew! Lots of reading lined up…
parag says:
It is also hard to take a laptop to the ‘THRONE’ and keep it balanced on one’s knees through all the activities. 😉 Believe me, I have tried that.
July 20, 2004 — 7:11 am
manyou says:
ROTFL……
July 20, 2004 — 9:24 am
Lakshmi says:
Took me some time to figure out what the ‘THRONE’ was… now I get it. Must be tough, I can imagine…
July 20, 2004 — 10:00 am
deelight says:
Hahahha! That’s quite a balancing act!
July 20, 2004 — 10:02 am
radhika74 says:
‘the moon and sixpence’ is what i’d go for first!:)
July 20, 2004 — 9:50 am
Lakshmi says:
Nearly completed it. The style of writing is different from ‘Of Human Bondage’. What do you think?
July 20, 2004 — 10:01 am
Lakshmi says:
Wish I could get a subscription for the channel too…!
July 20, 2004 — 10:02 am
rileen says:
For me, news equates to the daily newspaper, chai and …. nothing.
Plenty of such nice little touches 🙂
I agree, nothing beats hard copy, be it books or newspapers, perhaps even more so for books.
July 20, 2004 — 11:34 am
Lakshmi says:
I agree, 500%.
July 20, 2004 — 11:37 am
shri says:
I agree, nothing beats hard copy, be it books or newspapers, perhaps even more so for books.
Ditto. 🙂
July 21, 2004 — 2:28 am
rameshs says:
Of newspapers and nostalgia
This post strikes a chord so distinct,
I feel compelled to write something.
Hope you dont mind 🙂
In the eighties, when i was a schoolboy, the only
sections of the paper(TimesOfIndia) that interested me
were the comics and sports sections (and r.k.laxman).
My dad used to mumble disapproval even as I &
my brother used to cut b/w pics of cricketers
and Phantom & Mandrake leaving gaping holes in
old newspys.
In the 90’s i started developing an interest in
crosswords and some financial news. The editorials
(by dileep padgaonkar or george menezes ) were very
good and i slowly morphed into a cover-to-cover reader
of the ToI. On weekends, the Sunday review came
(with Entertainment news !) and Mindsport which used
to keep me engrossed for a good 3-4 hours.
The weekend picture which you’ve painted – a faint whiff
of freshly brewed coffee, t.v running in the background
(in the whole neighbourhood, I must add), the maidservant
flitting in and out and me lying sprawled on the couch with
the newspaper spread out – is so real for me – i can almost
go back in time and live it . (My dad never whistled
🙂 but he would issue regular warnings to me not to take
the paper to the ‘conference room’ 🙂
## rant begins ##
I was a ToI regular (my entire household was)
until a couple of years back. But the last 2-3
years the paper has been hurtling down the
path of decadence. The quality of newsprint
has really degraded (you get ink stains on your
hand if the paper is wet) and the good
editors/sub-editors seem to have retired in a
hurry. The TimesOfIndia today just consists of
a spate of juvenile puns ad nauseum (sorry.!:-).
But even at this level, there is one thing worse
than the printed version of the ToI ; that is
the online version of it. It has got to be the
cheapest tabloid around, relying heavily on
mallika sherawat to prop up sales daily. Just
recently i read a totally fictitious(?) dialogue
in the online TimesOfIndia
between 2 americans about indian tech guys . It
was so phoney, it would make the nigerian email
scammers look real ! And they had the temerity
to add a footnote, saying it was a real conversn.
I stick to google news and traverse the links
off samachar.com these days.
## rant ends ##
This post has turned out rather long.
Ideally i would have posted it in my journal
and provided a link here , but i dont
know how to do that. Sorry about that.
regards
ramesh
July 20, 2004 — 11:24 pm
kookygoblin says:
Re: Of newspapers and nostalgia
I totally agree with you! I’ve been a staunch defender of the TOI but now I’m thinking of switching.
July 21, 2004 — 4:24 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: Of newspapers and nostalgia
No probs, Ramesh… That made good reading! I agree with you; the web edition of TOI seems to bear no relation to the paper edition. Know what, if you spot a tiny link called ‘e-paper’, click on it and you’ll reach the scanned paper version…
July 21, 2004 — 5:46 am
jayasankarvs says:
Doesn’t a ‘cuppa’ mean ‘cup of tea’?
July 20, 2004 — 11:32 pm
Lakshmi says:
Coffee doesn’t qualify? I am sorry I dunno…
July 21, 2004 — 6:03 am
Lakshmi says:
Re: bagho bagho grammar puleece
‘Right bit of naughty’? Am I missing something here?
July 21, 2004 — 7:52 pm