Subir Roy: Newspapers, anybody?

OFFBEAT

Samar is one of those whom I call a "friend of newspapers". He is well read, has a keen interest in public affairs and has periodically penned very readable book reviews and useful pieces on information technology. So when he confessed over the phone that he had virtually stopped reading newspapers seriously, I knew it was time to worry.

It's not that he had actually stopped buying a newspaper. In Mumbai, I get the paper that everybody gets and glance through it to know what people are talking about but that's about all, he admitted. While convalescing at home, he had enjoyed going through a good biography and a book that offered a slice of the history of science. My worry deepened: What do you do when thinking people stop taking newspapers seriously.

I looked inwards, at my family and found the scene as dismal. My wife is happy to admit that the one benefit that papers bring her is the sheer volume that accumulates for the raddiwala in a journalist's home by the month-end. She does look at one paper regularly, but that is to do the easy crossword. The only time we fight over something in a newspaper is when she discovers that I have done the crossword before she could. Why don't you try the tough one, she snorts.

Our son who is not uninterested in current affairs and is away at a college hostel in Chennai, confessed he had stopped subscribing to the main newspaper in town. He did like the odd article in it, but had stopped buying the paper because he never got to read it carefully. When he becomes interested in an issue, he likes to delve deep into it and the Net is a boon. Sometime ago, when he became keenly interested in oil, he found the Economist website useful, and during the latest west Asia flare-up, the BBC website gave him a lot of background.

Our daughter, who has a good taste in fiction, doesn't care for newspapers and doesn't mind saying so. When she was in Bangalore, she would go straight for the city pullout whose counterpart I presume she patronises in her Delhi hostel. She likes the pictures of film people and the tattle about the page 3 crowd in India or elsewhere. She and her friends couldn't care less about the rest of the newspaper.

The only group of people I have lately found consistently looking through a newspaper are those who pore over share prices and analyses of what to buy and sell. There are also a few odd people who read and write newspaper articles, but their numbers are miniscule. And, of course, in the south, you will find that near extinct species who read newspapers and write letters to the editor.

As you get on in years, you almost look forward to being different from most of the rest. But still things don't lose value simply because they lose following. Decades ago, when I spent a bit of time in the west, I had become addicted to Boursin cheese. I almost forgot about it until the other day when a newspaper mentioned a few stores now stocking it.

I found it was right there in the newly rechristened Spencer's on M G Road, but a pack of six cubes cost Rs 350! I couldn't dream of taking it home on my rupee salary, but it was reassuring that everything has its place in life. Hence, I remain optimistic. One of these days, I will find a small quorum of bright youngsters who have a need for newspapers which can live up to their requirements.

sub@business-standard.com