India's National Newspaper

Two things prominently stand out from my childhood – the Nilgiris (the blue mountains of Ooty) and The Hindu. India’s national newspaper, is for me, a memory that transcends time. It is, as it has always been, very timeless.

My association with the paper began while in school, when my father, ever diligent in his efforts to inculcate in me an early practise to begin reading, sought me, every day, to spend a few minutes, to read a small portion of any front-page news-item. I was required to identify five words, which weren’t known to me, and refer his red, bound, ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ to obtain their meanings. For a restless adolescent, this was a problematic affair. And, a particularly uninteresting one.

However, some of the most gripping incidents of childhood and teenage years, I read from The Hindu. The paper, to me, seems synonymous with the breaking-news culture of present-day television news programming (although, looking back, I must say that the quality of reportage was different by galactical proportions and could possibly never be compared with the shite of these days). Many an account, good and bad, have since been associated with their dutiful, unfailing bearer. In many ways, it also was my connection to the world outside, offering an uninterrupted glimpse of people and places I couldn’t readily comprehend.

Slowly, I was enamoured by the fascinating writings of Art Buchwald, Palagummi Sainath, Paul Krugman, Chinmaya Gharekhan, and Bibek Debroy – to mention only a few. Growing up, it didn’t matter, nor was it evident to me, that the paper carried a heavily tilted leftist bias, compounded with attitudes such as pro-Chinese, pro-Sinhalese, pro-Gandhi dynasty, and what not!

My first brush with India’s entirely ‘page 3’ newspaper, (whose name I shall dutifully refuse to pronounce, which also appropriately, and ironically, reflects the depressing times that we live in presently), came about in 1997, when my meandering took me from home, for the very first time. Immensely popular, especially for its bollywood-trivia and intensely salacious style of story-telling, it was voraciously consumed en masse. Blasphemy in colour – or so, I thought!

Suddenly, The Hindu, even with its unrivalled mastery of the English language and celebrated journalistic expression, seemed old-fashioned. Its readers were looked down upon as relics from a pre-historic past. An increasing lot, who had not the slightest inkling of what class-act journalism looked like, pontificated, at length, about how the paper was ‘overrated’.

But, was the paper losing appeal? Or, was it becoming the preserve of a very select group of readers? Was sensation becoming a mass requirement? Evidently, it was not everyone’s newspaper. And, with its limited availability, its circulation and readership, it was no match for its wildly popular tabloid rival. Even though the paper made progress, it lacked a national presence – in a very big way. And, then, the coverage – or the lack of it. While other papers offered sections of news pertinent to a whole range of subjects, oftentimes properly categorized for easy and quick consumption, The Hindu continued its focus on a very limited range of topics.

Could the paper do something to keep up with changing times? Absolutely. Should it change fundamentally in doing so? Absolutely not!

Putting Pen to Paper

Sometimes, somethings take a lifetime.

A few days ago, on a whim, I did something I hadn't done for a very long time. Strolling into a stationery shop, I bought myself a bottle of ink. Whether it is to make good on a lifetime of deplorable handwriting, or to be able to revisit a time and an age that is most cherished, I wouldn't know - but, the feeling was one of monumental excitement and enthusiasm.

Diligently washing and cleaning a modest collection of fountain pens that hadn't seen light in more than a decade, I felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, a powerful, gripping recollection of the past. A torrent of memories arrived, unleashed, as if freed forever, from a dark, deep abyss, that had contained and restrained them for what seemed a measure of eternity.

And, then, the words poured, haltingly at first, then steadily, as if they had been reassured of a definite indestructible path, until, in the accompanying of their joyous arrival, the outpouring reached a celebration of sorts - words lending form to thoughts emancipated from their cavernous hold, where they lay concealed and buried, strangled and lifeless, forgotten and consigned, until the chance action out of an impulse had finally set them free.

Truly, somethings take a lifetime.

Rock Me Tonite

Anyone who has followed rock music and its progression has most certainly understood, recognized, and celebrated Billy Squier, for his immensely popular music thematic to a more softer yet inherently contrasting loudness, contained together, that has since been classified as the genre known as 'arena rock.'

It has undoubtedly become a cultural inflexion in the evolution of yesteryear music - often standing out as a milestone that signalled the advent of a whole new age.

In the words of historian Gary Donaldson, who comes closest to describing the phenomenon, as being 'big hair, big voices, and really big guitars', this new form resulted in musical reactions like never before and rightly spawned subcultures that changed the social definition of onstage-performance, style, and appearances that now remain immortalized and often revered.

Little wonder that the period of the 80s is still considered the golden era of the new rock movement that gave rise to an army of names who would go on to establish themselves as influential and admired voices earning legendary fame and cult status.

But, I digress.

This is not about the style or genre, neither is it about the metamorphosis that came about so famously. It is more personal, actually. And, that is the recollection of the 1984 super hit, 'Rock me tonite', which, for me, is the 'truest' and the most absolute hallmark of Squier. Apart from of course the wonderful energy and electric tempo that this track so richly demonstrates and evokes, it is also in many ways the transformation of the artist - to embrace the then-emerging phenomenon that was known as techno-pop, the result that can at best be described as the fusion between the output of elegant guitaring and a new wave of electronic sound.

Critics may argue, and rightfully so, that this was a milestone that signalled the end for Squier - thanks in part due to the original video that portrayed, or rather sought to associate, a hideously stereotypical gay-theme with the rampant drug culture that seemed, at the time, most acceptable socially - perhaps to categorize and justify the typification. But, make no mistake, the adverse reception wasn't for the portrayal of a community as much as it was for the heavily laden homoeroticism that instantly put distance between Squier and his audience who almost univocally called out that "he's gay and he's on drugs."

But, I'm no critic. I'd like to think of myself as a music-buff to whom Squier's music, 'Rock me tonite' in particular, has appealed in a very big way. And, one line in the track, expresses the most descriptive of my feelings, when I listen to it, that "you feel the blood poundin' way down inside."