News, Views and Fuse

Dr. Ramvriksh Singh

Most of us have been in the habit of reading newspapers early in the morning, while sipping our tea or coffee or karele ka juice or neem ka juice. When there is no newspaper due to a national holiday or popular festival the day before, we are caught up in a fix as to how to kill our time.

What is so interesting in the newspapers? Have you ever wondered? I, as a curious reader, have my own observations on the issue.

English newspapers are brought out on a better quality paper, and cater to the so called middle and upper middle class of the society. They are not to be seen on the tea stalls and the barbers’ shops. I have never been to the celebrity hair dresser Habib Tanvir’s outfit and hence have no idea as to what the clients get to read there. It is however, quite likely that such barbers would be providing to their clients no newspaper at all and the barber turned entrepreneur would have installed more interesting means to amuse his clients. Its again a mere guess work, for I have had no first-hand experience with such high profile barbers.

 So the English newspapers’ production part is much-much better than the Hindi or Regional language papers. This can be attributed to the influx of advertisements that the English newspapers are able to generate. While in Ahmedabad, working in the recoveries department of my bank, I observed that the English paper used to charge around Rs. 35000 for a particular piece of advertisement, the Hindi paper (Rajasthan patrika there) would print it for just about Rs. 2000/-. Of course, the most popular and and the most widely circulated daily Gujarat Sandesh would charge about Rs. 1 lakh for the same space. I personally feel that Sandesh is an exceptional case. In most parts of the country, it is the English newspapers who charge the most for advertisements.

We have, since our childhood, seen English knowing people prospering and thriving faster than those who are not that good at the language. We have therefore, been reading English newspapers, not only to get a fair idea of the current news (and views) but also in order to polish our knowledge of English language. The primary purpose, however, served by any newspaper is to provide its readers a fairly complete picture of the happenings taking place in his vicinity, his state and country and the world around (i.e. the news) and then give a fair amount of opinions, commentaries etc. on such happenings (i.e. the views). Also a good amount of literature finds place in the print media, which is looked after by a separate wing called the features section. I have no concrete comment to offer on the quality of news that the papers serve to their readers. It becomes, however, umpteen clear after going through various dailies published on the same day, that their news content is by and large the same, as most of the news are picked up from the news agencies, or collected by the newspapers’ correspondents, all of whom rush to the same spots for sourcing their stories.

One peculiar observation I must make about the news contents of all the news papers is the element of negativity spread by them. If you don’t apply your brains and don’t exercise your power of reasoning, there is every likelihood of your perceiving the entire community, the entire state and the whole country as a highly criminalized one. Why don’t we report positive happenings, is something I have been wondering since I gained the capability to wonder and ponder. To be precise, the newspapers are interested more in telling their readers the incidents of dacoity, murder, rape, abduction, scams, financial bunglings, chain snatching, eve teaching, molestations, revelation of corruption etc. This is invariably the case with all languages, may it be English, Hindi or any regional language. Gossip about the celebrities is one more thing these papers thrive upon.

The news papers portray most of the politicians as villains. It is hard to believe that there is nothing admirable or perceivably good in our politicians and there is hardly anything good taking place in the society. And if at all something good is happening in the world (which I am sure is the case in reality) the newspapers should come forward to portray it. They should give up the habit of mudslinging in digging the filth, for it doesn’t help the society and the masses in any way. If at all it becomes necessary to report the darker aspects of the society, they should follow the brighter ones and should never form the cover page or the first page headlines.

What is more stunning, however, is the quality of advertisements, which happen to be the mainstay of every daily or periodical. Just today, I got to see a full page ad about a dotted, flavored, luxury condom, depicting the porn star Sunny Leone, semi-nude. Luckily for me, both my grown up sons, rise late and I get ample time to screen all the three papers subscribed by me, by the time its their turn to enhance their GK. Today, however, I had to hide that particular page somewhere in the stack of old news papers, just to ensure that my unmarried sons don’t get to see how a semi nude young female body looks like and how to make use of a flavored, dotted, luxury condom, while encountering the female depicted therein. There are occasions when the last page of Lucknow Times, comes out with the colored pictures of scantily clad foreign actresses and models in erotic postures. They too meet the same end at my place. I know fully well that my sons have all the privilege to access even more explosive material on the net, but for that they have to make that extra effort, while the newspaper is serving them with nudity without requiring them to even switch on the computer. I don’t know how many of us are comfortable dealing with such a kind of stuff in the popular English dailies. This stuff, I would prefer to term as fuse, which on being ignited, is very likely to result in a kind of sexual eruption or explosion.  I would also suggest the English dailies, hell bent upon serving such eye soothing erotica to term the pull-outs as- Bedroom Times. Some more stuff could also be inserted in such special pull-outs, which would go a long way in finding a solution of frigidity in our youth and the middle-aged couples.

Coming to the views part of the newspapers, I get to see that the authors and feature writers of the English news papers are more open than their counterparts in the Indian languages. Bachchi karkaria, for instance has written several times on the issue of her eating habits and developing a problem in passing stool and eventually getting operated on her large intestine. Probably none of the Hindi writers would like to discuss these matters so openly. Very recently I came to read in Economic Times, of an interesting piece on various forms of English language. Strangely enough for me, a financial daily, had come out with a story on an issue concerning the linguists. I have been reading Hindi papers for so many long years, and surprisingly, I have never come across any serious article on linguistic issues facing the Indian society. Incidentally, the story in Economic Times, proposes that the Indian-English should simply be re-christened as Indian.  I perceive the move as an attempt to deprive the Indian languages (22 of which have been enumerated in the eighth schedule of the constitution) of their rightful place and a conspiracy to brand an alien language as the principal language of the country. The Hindi wallas, however, have never thought of branding and rechristening Hindi, which has a pan-Indian presence, as the Indian or Bharati, or Bharatiya.

I have a very interesting observation with regard to the relatively smaller, three- four line insertions under the classified ads columns, especially in the Hindi papers. Quite a few of such advertisements I shall like to quote for the benefit of all of you-

“गुरु अर्जुन बंगाली 7 घंटे में घर बैठे समाधान. मोहिनी, वशीकरण, गृहक्लेश, कारोबार, लव मैरिज, पतिपत्नी अनबन, सौतन दुश्मन छुटकारा, मुठकरनी, मनचाहा प्यार, प्यार में धोखा, तलाक- 00909090900”

“काम करो, दुआएँ पाओ, ऐसा करके दिखाओ, गुरु गुणीखान स्पैशलिस्ट, महावशीकरण, प्रेमविवाह, कारोबार, गृहक्लेश, सौतन छुटकारा, ...गुप्तरोग, नामरदी, बेऔलाद-9090909090”

“सरकारी बैंकों द्वारा सभी प्रकार के लोन करती है- म... फायनेंस. मात्र 24 घंटों में 2% ब्याज 40% छूट -9090909090”

“जापानी आटोमेटिक इंद्रीवर्धक यंत्र....समय 30-60 मिनट तक बढ़ाएँ.. उत्तेजना कैपसूल,”

(while the contents are quoted from a lead Hindi daily's today's edition, the mobile numbers are fake, please don’t try them).

These ads speak volumes of the socio-cultural level of the Hindi readers, who are just literate enough to comprehend such stuff and fall prey to the scrupulous elements. The Hindi dailies wash their hands of their responsibility by publish a statutory notice, advising the readers to check for themselves the authenticity of such advertisements. These ads are a regular source of income for the Hindi dailies. I can compare these ads with the printers undertaking the jobs of blue films’ wrapper printing, which is done in late nights, behind the closed doors of the presses.  I have not come across such ads in the English papers, however.

Matrimonial ads too present a wide range of variety and material for a full-fledged research project. Hence I abstain from taking up the issue. Then there are ads on petty jobs, setting up dhaga and dona-pattal udyog, to let service, real estate etc. which very often have a tag-line- brokers excuse. I wonder if any deal can be struck without a broker in today’s world. All matrimony sites, all Jodi-milaoo panditjis and var-khojoo nayees, all job providing agencies are, to me, none but brokers. And newspaper ads help them find their prospective clients.

Next time, when you pick up your favorite daily, from your balcony, please look for these details and you would certainly find it more engrossing, more interesting and more value for money. And of course, when there is nothing else to clean that dirty railway berth, or to sleep on the three-tier coach flooring, when your waitlisted ticket doesn’t get confirmed owing to diwali, Christmas or holi rush, you can always fall back on the 1 rupee a copy stuff. For this situation I wrote once-

दिलों के दर्द अगर संभाले नहीं होते।

घरों से पाँव कभी निकाले नहीं होते।

मैं सोचता हूँ कि क्या ओढ़ता-बिछाता मैं

अगर शहर में मेरे रिसाले नहीं होते।

-----0----