Friday 3 April 2020

Sheets of wisdom in shreds...

Not so long ago, ok..how long is long? Tricky question right?

Anyways,when I was a kid I remember eagerly waiting for a Sunday just so I could get a hold of 'Young World' (obviously after fighting for it because we lived in a joint family and all of us were eager to get a hold of it, by all I mean even the elders.ok let's get to it..) to solve the 'Jumbled Words'. The satisfaction of solving it,oh I tell you it was amazing. Also I somehow always admired and envied the kids who used to send out their lovely drawings and paintings to be published in the newspaper. I couldn't even colour inside boxes properly.

Gradually over the years it was about reading small paragraphs in newspapers to improve vocabulary but sneakily we would end up cross checking if the timing of the broadcast of programmes on tv channels have changed because we wouldn't want to miss out on any episode of our favourite cartoons and have major fomo at school the next day. We wouldn't dare to. Oh, how the times have changed now,you just have to swipe up and down and you will get to know what show comes up and when even a day in advance. The element of surprise died with the 90's.

Ok,I am out of track as always.

Ah,newspapers! Are you someone who has never tried to solve a sudoku? Yes? I have no time for you! Kidding. Solving sudoku,no in fact learning how to solve sudoku was by itself an amazing experience. Having solved them,waiting for the next day to see if your answers were right were a nightmare. A sweet nightmare. This was a phase, grabbing the newspaper just to solve sudoku. It was always at the last page or somewhere tucked between some sports news and as always these headlines were catchy and it's never easy to miss. The sports headlines. Obviously related to cricket. I mean, come on that was an easy guess right?!

Learning was fun back then, to someone who had no idea about any sport but landing on the sports page in the intention of solving sudoku, but in turn getting to read and have some understanding about different sport was a blessing in disguise. Missing all the pages and diving directly into the sports page was a phase.

Obituary, we came to know about the death of a very old milk maid through the newspaper and I was shocked to learn that they put up these details on the newspaper. The curiosity grew to know if all dear ones were doing ok but the anxiety overpowered it every time I opened up this page. Slowly I started skipping it out of my routine because it was getting to me.

Before the sports page, short articles get published and I fancied them for a while. I still love short articles unlike this long neverending write up.

Ok don't stop do read on.

My happiest memory of newspapers was when I cut out pictures of my favourite celebrities and stuck them up in a notebook, which I still hold on to. There was a very short while where I read the newspaper to know about what was happening around but slowly it stopped. I was getting tired of reading about rapes, murders, corruption, politics, poverty, riots and what not.

Now we have stopped buying a newspaper at home, no one gives a damn because we were just laying down the paper sheets on shelves to keep things on top of it so that the things don't end up getting dirty.

Shelf sheets replaced the newspaper sheets.