I do not remember when was the first time I read the newspaper I am addicted to. Quite early in my childhood, when it was delivered at my place one day late. Sure that I am that it was incomprehensible for me at that early age, I was, no doubt, enchanted by the photographs and presentation. I still remember flipping through the Sunday Times, just to look at pictures, only to find myself making an album of best of The Times of India 15 years later. A newspaper that shaped my thoughts, my conscience, my decisions on the issues of national importance and my emotions for various events and organizations. It elevated people to iconic status and also made me loathe few. I argued with people challenging its stand and I was sulky when someone criticized it. It was my newspaper as if I owned it, little did i know that it possessed me.
I was an avid supported of Indo-US nuclear deal and I scorned communists because Times did so. But this was the time I realized that something was missing from the panache of the newspaper. In the vehement upheaval created by the nuclear deal and the reports from other sources made me realize that The Times of India has made some mistakes. Though the deal looked good, there were drawbacks which were being ignored. I also found something very funny. People reading The times of India were all for the deal while the people reading The Hindu were all against it. I happened to read both on this issue and I was in a fix. Though deal looked good (as professed by the Times), it had limitations. So Times makes mistakes; but everyone makes mistakes, so i thought. Little did I realize at that time that The Times of India is the most blatant display of yellow journalism and it stupefies not only me but it caters to the delusion of a large chunk of the Indian population.
The Times of India is yellow journalism at its best. Though every newspaper devotes one or other of its columns to the catchy headlines and fancy gossips, The Times of India exhibits absolute yellow journalism, from the first page to the last, including supplements. Try to open Times of India on any not-so-fateful day, most of the deadlines are gonna be 'minor raped', 'boy murdered', 'girl ran away', 'China creating trouble' etc. Quite often, you will see captions having no relation with the article whatsoever. But since the title is so catchy, I read it and so do many others. I laughed about it but could never resist reading it.
When I was reading The Fountainhead (after that only I started despising newspapers), The Banner didn't quite registered into my mind. Every time I came across The Banner, I thought about The Times of India. The realization that my thoughts, conscience, decision and emotions have been trespassed continuously over 20 years brought about those agonizing moments when I cursed myself profusely to have acted like a lunatic and I ran, ran to salvage my persona, whatever remained of it; ran to avoid further mutilation of my mind and soul; ran to access my originality and my reflux to it; ran to lament the awkward solitariness i found myself in; and most important, I ran to savor the freedom, the freedom to think, to say and to listen, of what I ought to listen. I ran in the cognizance that in a democracy, no shame is above the impuissance to let someone enslave your soul and I ran faster reveling in the reality that I broke free.
The funniest part is, I still read the Times of India, all the news, no matter how grotesque! I am still addicted though as a critic not as a buff!
I was an avid supported of Indo-US nuclear deal and I scorned communists because Times did so. But this was the time I realized that something was missing from the panache of the newspaper. In the vehement upheaval created by the nuclear deal and the reports from other sources made me realize that The Times of India has made some mistakes. Though the deal looked good, there were drawbacks which were being ignored. I also found something very funny. People reading The times of India were all for the deal while the people reading The Hindu were all against it. I happened to read both on this issue and I was in a fix. Though deal looked good (as professed by the Times), it had limitations. So Times makes mistakes; but everyone makes mistakes, so i thought. Little did I realize at that time that The Times of India is the most blatant display of yellow journalism and it stupefies not only me but it caters to the delusion of a large chunk of the Indian population.
The Times of India is yellow journalism at its best. Though every newspaper devotes one or other of its columns to the catchy headlines and fancy gossips, The Times of India exhibits absolute yellow journalism, from the first page to the last, including supplements. Try to open Times of India on any not-so-fateful day, most of the deadlines are gonna be 'minor raped', 'boy murdered', 'girl ran away', 'China creating trouble' etc. Quite often, you will see captions having no relation with the article whatsoever. But since the title is so catchy, I read it and so do many others. I laughed about it but could never resist reading it.
When I was reading The Fountainhead (after that only I started despising newspapers), The Banner didn't quite registered into my mind. Every time I came across The Banner, I thought about The Times of India. The realization that my thoughts, conscience, decision and emotions have been trespassed continuously over 20 years brought about those agonizing moments when I cursed myself profusely to have acted like a lunatic and I ran, ran to salvage my persona, whatever remained of it; ran to avoid further mutilation of my mind and soul; ran to access my originality and my reflux to it; ran to lament the awkward solitariness i found myself in; and most important, I ran to savor the freedom, the freedom to think, to say and to listen, of what I ought to listen. I ran in the cognizance that in a democracy, no shame is above the impuissance to let someone enslave your soul and I ran faster reveling in the reality that I broke free.
The funniest part is, I still read the Times of India, all the news, no matter how grotesque! I am still addicted though as a critic not as a buff!
