Who doesn't welcome a bright, sunny morning? Who doesn't care to usher in another new beginning at regular 24 hour intervals? After a long day of hopelessness and frustration, culminating in the black-hole called night, who does not look forward to a new harbinger of hope, of another day, of another go at the challenge called life? Who does not relish opening his eyes to awake, arise and take a long satisfied breath to find he is going to be alive for another day?
But why should all our mornings start with newspapers? The new day is dead even before it dawned, thanks to the newspaper. Few modern inventions have wreaked more havoc with our lives than the daily broadsheet that life throws at us each morning. Few things make or mar your day as the morning newspaper. Make, they seldom but mar, they do without fail.
Just have a look at all the avalanche of 'breaking news' my newspaper drowned me with, this morning. Nothing wrong with the morning, though. Bright, cool and sunny. Offering a thousand possibilities only 'today' can offer and what millions of 'yesterdays' gone by could not. Just as I was girding my loins to capitalise on this 'today' fully, to make up for the lost past, the newspaper was thrown into my balcony by the paper boy. And my first hour of this new found day of hope was spent pouring over the following:
i) Bus hits wall of the flyover and tumbles down 20 feet. 40 injured but no one dies. (the reporter almost sounded apologetic for this!)
ii) Floods swamp Dhemaji district in Assam. Thousands marooned and rendered homeless (this was in page 9, deep inside, so that nobody notices it but I did. I can smell any news from Assam from a mile away!)
iii) LeT's prize recruit - man behind 26/11 apprehended (the way LeT is recruiting, it is not far from being the top Head Hunter in India-and see the performance of all its recruits! The best in the industry! At another angle, this is the 26th man we have apprehended as the man behind 26/11. May be 11 more remain to be apprehended)
iv) Another scam, this time in rice procurement. Ex-Minister under the scanner. (It's high time newspapers designated an exclusive page for scams and scandals, like page 4 or page 5, so that all can have a daily quick update without rummaging the entire paper. It would also help if they give a daily update on the cumulative value of the scams daily, from the beginning of each financial year, so that we can be spared of having to sum up the swindle on a daily basis to find out if they have exceeded 50% of India's GDP or more)
What a way to start the day! If one can digest all the above during his first waking hour of each day, hats off to him. But some newspapers really care for souls like me and throw in some comedy pieces also in between. Sample below:
i) Prime Minister positive that the economy would turn around before September and our growth rate would again reach double digits! (The growth rate may or may not reach double digits but the number of our learned economists and finance ministry officials who have projected varying rates ranging any where between 6% and 12% has reached double digits within the last one month! Our Met department has a serious rival in economists in forecasting!)
ii) Paes won't partner Bhupathi. Bhupathi won't touch Bopanna with a barge pole. Bopanna won't care a hoot for Vishnu Vardhan and Sania would not partner with any one (these MCPs, when will they learn?). And we will surely win a couple of medals in tennis in the Olympics, says the Sports Ministry.
iii) Monsoon has failed so far but it will rebound, says the Met dept. (rebound on 1st May, 2013?)
But if you are game to searching for a needle in a haystack, or for one bright spot in a man's morning, you would have noticed the following too in the papers. In fact, right on Page 1, wonder how I missed the brightest, most cheerful news bit of all! Enough to cast aside the horror and comedy pieces and look forward to the day. Here it goes:
Pranabda set to become President. North Block to get a new occupant.
That's enough for me, Pranabda, you made my day! To get rid of peril, the best course would be to nominate that peril for Presidency. That way, you kill two birds with one stone - the peril becomes the President and thus vanishes, and the President could cause no more peril to the country. That is, provided, he can or be allowed to do anything at all, other than hasten our bankruptcy by emptying the coffers on tours to Rwanda, Bosnia and Guinea-Conakry, with full family in tow, for improving bilateral ties!
P.S. Lest some one conjure up any bright idea of suing me for 'slander' above, here is the disclaimer: Conditions apply! This does not purport to depict anyone living or dead and is entirely borne out of imagination. (Wish it were really so!)
But if you are game to searching for a needle in a haystack, or for one bright spot in a man's morning, you would have noticed the following too in the papers. In fact, right on Page 1, wonder how I missed the brightest, most cheerful news bit of all! Enough to cast aside the horror and comedy pieces and look forward to the day. Here it goes:
Pranabda set to become President. North Block to get a new occupant.
That's enough for me, Pranabda, you made my day! To get rid of peril, the best course would be to nominate that peril for Presidency. That way, you kill two birds with one stone - the peril becomes the President and thus vanishes, and the President could cause no more peril to the country. That is, provided, he can or be allowed to do anything at all, other than hasten our bankruptcy by emptying the coffers on tours to Rwanda, Bosnia and Guinea-Conakry, with full family in tow, for improving bilateral ties!
P.S. Lest some one conjure up any bright idea of suing me for 'slander' above, here is the disclaimer: Conditions apply! This does not purport to depict anyone living or dead and is entirely borne out of imagination. (Wish it were really so!)
