Through Newspapers

I remember going through the pages of ‘Aryavarta’ every morning delivered by an old man. It was reserved for father, who would go through it. It had a characteristic feature which I still remember is the way the letter A was written I could never understand that because it was not the way it was taught to us. It was having pa letter and appendages added below it. Later father told that it is old way of writing. There was another feature of the newspaper that was about typesetting. Letter would be above and below the line and sometimes we had to face a missing word. In such case we had to imagine what the word would have been. That was not a big problem as those were not the days of sensitization and reading between the lines. Media was not very powerful, many of them toeing the line of government and few trying to stick their neck out. My going through newspaper was merely to improve my reading capability. I remember reading it to mother while she was busy with house hold chorus. The pages were having some patches of padded printing. I did not notice but someday it was stopped. I did not see that news paper on the stand even longer.
I think it was replaced by Navabharat for sometime but soon it was replaced by an English daily The Times of India. It was mainly to inculcate English reading among children. It was changed for reason very funny. Neighbors could not share English daily and there was a Vaidyaji (Ayurvedic practitioner) could not enjoy read it. So we changed back to Hindi. Father was still getting TOI and was very found of cutting some important pieces. He would bring and show to us to inspire. By the time I was in Navodya, I regularly used to read news paper which was clamped on the wooden plank. Then the interest was in keeping the general knowledge updated. I should not forget mention of Praveen Kumar Jha who had photographic memory and was one of the stars in GK quizzes. His company drove me pick up the bits and pieces of news paper. That time we had craze of accumulation those information because we had a paper called general knowledge. I can concentrate on that in some other post.
Then I came to JNV Adilabad. For the first time I was introduced to The Hindu. Its style attracted me a lot. I became a regular visitor to reading room where newspaper would be there. I read it mainly to improve my English I remember keenly going through the section of Open Page supplement which came on every Tuesday which had some new words defined. The interest was kept alive due to interaction with Padmanabhan sir.
Then I landed in Puttaparthi. Here only The Hindu was allowed because it was only descent newspaper which could cross the censor the censor board unharmed. Times of India always carried some obscenity. There I became critical reader of Science and technology supplement which came on Thursday. I started keeping cutting of those pages. I don’t know if I again went through them. But I used those cutting to while I made some project. I remember I dumped them in dustbin when I left school. During that period or may be later I got interested in a seris of article which appeared on Harappa civilization. It was nice debate which I always looked forward. It had two sides one represented by Dr Rajaram and David Frawly and there was professor of Sanskrit on other side.
I must mention a little about it because it shaped my thinking and even sharpened my analyzing power. Rajaram and Frawly were of opinion that Indian culture is a continuous and self evolving. They supported the rich tradition of India. They did not fail to mention that the history which is being taught is flawed and needs to be based on scientific facts and non contradicting logic. The other was by Michael Witzel who was of opinion similar to the Aryan invasanists. While I saw the logic going in the article of formers I saw personal attack going in the one of later. I learnt to see through the words. With my opinion I would fall under so called hindutvaaavadis.
Most of the student would take the words of The Hindu for granted but I could feel the bias in articles and its regular columnists. Most of them hailing from JNU and congress stable. Extraordinary proportion of space was provided to leftist ideologues. It was confirmed when I grew up further.
In graduation day I saw another paper coming that was Deccan Herald published from Bangalore but I felt it did not have much weight. It was during my third year that my elder brother subscribed to Outlook magazine. There too I felt bias o editorial to wards congress policies. There I read article of Balbir Punj. It was not that he was not biased. I understood it when I saw his affiliations he was Rajyasabha MP belonging to BJP. That was the alternative source of opinion. There were few more spoke out. Though I did not find any to my satisfaction but I understood that none should be taken as the face value. There is always some hidden agenda. All the shouting and hooliganism is performed by only low level workers the one who moves high maintains very clean appearance.
I must not forget to mention about The Economic Times. It is from the publisher of TOI but it but has different flavor. I think the difference was because its main focus was on economic issues. So it ended up nearer to neutrality. I am not aware of its bias in economic matters.
Till then my new paper exposure was limited to one or maximum two. As it was costing money and time to subscribe while I was still studying. Then I landed in NCL. From there the internet edition of newspaper became available and I had opportunity to go through various new papers and compare them. I came to know of other source like Rediff.com where I had opened my mail. Then The Hindustan time, Navabharat Times (Hindi) and later Dainik Jagaran also included in that. Among weeklies Outlook was only freely available.
Recently there was lot of flurry due to 2G spectrum deals. Every news channel and news papers were trying to show that what they have is exclusive. But it looked like something was wrong. Something was going on for two years and suddenly so much is known. It did not follow logic. I was going through Outlook edition when Vinod Mehta (Editor) wrote the credit should be given to a correspondent of The Pioneer. That was the day I opened site of The Pioneer and there was no looking back.
What I loved is it has pure news. Not much of advertisement. Not much of links here and there. It is not that it is not biased it has a tilt towards BJP and the editor himself is MP on BJP ticket. But they don’t lie about their bias. They respect Bharateeyata, which I too respect a lot. They talked logic. I admired them even in talk shows. They did not go personal. I will be specially admiring Swapan Dasgupta. His cool and calm composure added to his unique voice. I don’t know if he ever looses cool.
Looks like I have found what I was searching. I would have loved this news paper to devote some more space to literature and art. I think its circulation is very low compare to many other but I feel comfortable. Not that I have stopped reading other news papers but I know I will get what I want in editions of The Pioneer. I read its journey through years and passage from one hand to another. I hope it will grow further in Making of Bharat.
Then I came across another news papers in Hindi that is Prabhat Khabar. It has internet edition which is not regularly updated but its editorial looked very impressive. It appears that there is a thinking man with vision behind those words.