THE FRONT-PAGE NEWS






Pic.: Ashok Ahuja


For many of us, the morning newspaper is as important as the morning cup of tea. Likewise, the prime-time night-news is as badly a need as the supper on our table!


But, honestly, it is no more so for me. The morning newspapers lie there for days sometimes, yes, un-touched… And, the nights are noiseless, for days together, while the supper is on…


Is my curiosity, the urge, the desperation to know what’s happening around me is just induced by my weak, gullible mind? What if I go about my life without knowing who wins elections and who loses, who is sent to jail and who is sent to Mars? Am I just addicted, just as to my cup of tea or to someone to his puff or peg?


I seriously think, life will go on beautifully – in fact, more peacefully, without newspapers and noisy TV news…


So addicted we all are, so desperate that we do not realize how we end-up watching more advertisements than news on the newspapers as well as TV…


Today’s TOI has prompted me to write what I am now doing…


Out of usual curiosity, I wanted to  have a  look at some headlines on the’ front-page’… One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… and, behold, there came the ‘front-page’… on the tenth… Imagine, that is the inside… The eleventh page went half for news and half for ad... The twelfth, fully went for ad!

“Is it a newspaper or a ‘fund-raising souvenir’?  I grumbled in disgust. Without wasting a single second more, I stopped counting how many more pages were devoted for ads… 
That’s the end of my today’s news-curiosity…


Who is going to marry whom and who is going to divorce whom in Maharashtra? No sir, just not interested… It is okay if someone thinks I am bad in my ‘G.K.’…  Let the seven-crore question for tonight’s KBC be this:

“Which page was the ‘front-page’ of today’s edition of TOI?”… Your options are…”


Let someone, more deserving and more intelligent, take away the ‘booty’…


This day – and my life – will go one brilliantly, I know…



GERALD D’CUNHA






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