Newspapers

The other day an article written by me was published in a leading national daily on the edit page. Ever since I have looked at the daily newspaper with a different eye…looking at credits…who has written which feature?
But one does a variety of things with the newspaper. I used the newspaper as a table mat, while I was having lunch in office and it occurred to me that I was eating over somebody’s article. And then numerous images came to my mind on how I had used the aspirations of many a writers (read trophies) to clean my cup boards or pick up some filth somewhere…that’s what newspapers help us do. Even my piece of wisdom printed on some newspaper must have become somebody’s cupboard mat (fortunately) or may have been used to clean baby crap (unfortunately).

Just the other day, the daughter of one of my colleagues was featured in a newspaper in a photograph. The proud mother has put the photograph on the softboard at the office. But another copy of the same page could be somebody’s raddi…or a paper napkin at the local paranthawala…or a wrapper for chan chor garam.

Strange story of newspapers. It could make somebody’s day (when s/he sees her name in the newspaper) and at the same time be utilized by someone.

Newspapers are like soil.