Circa nineteen ninety-six. My first travel outside the country (second, if Nepal counts). The U S of A. It’s the little things that get your attention. Among many such little things, it was the size of the newspaper that drew my attention. Big, fat USA today. Too heavy to hold in one hand. Back then in India all we had, if i remember right, was a few pages of Times of India (yes, I read the Times of India and am not ashamed of it. Well, I’m not proud of it either:-p). BT wasn't even born. Page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 didn't even exist.Cut to today! India is seen going the US way. We are inundated with fatter and fatter newspapers. Too much junk is being shoved into them. Too many topics and too many words. Too many special sections. They have no respect for our busy lives. I wonder how they come up with all this news. I can’t come up with a decent 250 words to blog, for crying out loud. I think the future of newspapers is to compact compelling new information (news behind the news). When are they going to learn?
The biggest side effect of this obesity is raddhi disposal. These raddhi disposal cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Which means almost every second weekend I have to remember to call the raddhi wala. This, among the zillion other weekend-end activities that are competing for time.
I am suffering RDS or Raddhi Disposal Syndrome. New age illness this! Our newspapers need to go on a diet . That's the only cure!
