When I was in school , my favourite teacher who happened to teach us English insisted that we read newspaper daily, to be specific, the editorial page. At home we used to get The Tribune and The Indian Express. But i had my favourites in newspapers as well and Tribune remains my favourite till date. Comprehending the writings of 'think tanks' was an onerous task nevertheless, being a sincere student i opened that page daily and looked for things that could interest me and eventually i took a liking to the writings of Mr. Harish Dhillon. He used to be the principal of a renowned school and he made a wee bit sense to me. Henceforth, began my habit of reading other than school books on daily basis. My grandfather used to stay with us and he was such a voracious reader of newspapers. Every day he would spend couple of hours with each newspaper. Sometimes it seemed to me that newspapers were his intimate companions and he was most contented, calm, composed and considerably happy in its company. If I attribute the inculcation of my reading habit to my English teacher, I attribute my knowledge of vocabulary solely to my grandfather. Although I was more than sure that my grandfather knew the meaning of each and every word in every possible dictionary by heart, yet he would insist that I look up the meaning of difficult words in the dictionary myself, because according to his logic, if i put in effort to look up, the effort will keep on reminding the purpose and therefore I shall never forget the meaning. Wonder what his logic would have been for all those dictionary apps that believe in only making our lives easier. Touch and read.
Holiday homework, which in those days seemed like one of the most cruel inventions ever, instructed us, among other tasks, to write down any ten interesting news-headlines daily. Something which seemed to be an utterly futile process then, contributed a great deal in developing my interest in politics later. My grandfather was obsessed with the idea of death and I had heard him discuss it often with hia peers. His other passion was writings of Khushwant Singh which led me to read his articles and eventually I used to look forward keenly to his musings in sunday editions. Till date Khuswant Singh remains my favourite author. When I joined college, like any college going girl I too had my share of crushes and the biggest of them all was my crush on the cricketer Imran Khan thanks to the sports page which remained my favourite page for a long time.
Let me also mention that one of my college teachers introduced me to The Hindu. I was 'attracted' to this newspaper because it's tuesday edition carried a small column named "Know your English." The scrap book made out of the cuttings related to this column still remains my most valuable belonging till date. Gradually, newspaper reading became quite an addiction and remains one till date despite the fact that Twitter renders all the news stale these days. Newspapers have evolved a great deal over the years, page long and full page advertisements take up most of the space these days. One thing that has remained the same throughout these years is the obituary column. My obsession with these columns started when my own grandfather's obituary was published in the newspaper. How much this small obit revealed about his life was just amazing. The message conveyed that he had lived a full and fruitful life flanked by his four loving children and many grandchildren, though he stayed with us only throughout. His picture showed how youthful and handsome and happy he had been once. This column is my only favourite column these days. I can spend hours looking at the pics of those dead. Some smiling, some laughing, some grim, some old, some young, making me wonder what made their near ones chose this particular picture for the final tribute. Sometimes while taking a selfie a thought crosses my mind what if this pic becomes a means of final goodbye and I smile harder. The size of the picture amazes me as well making me think whether a bigger picture implies bigger love or bigger social status? The loving messages attributed to the dead, the details of the family, details of the occupation, home address--doesn't a mere obit tell us all about the life once lived? Is it truly a measure of life?
For some, obituary may be a plain show off, for me it will always remain a tribute of love by the loved ones. I've no idea whether my obit will feature in the newspaper but I certainly would want to be missed after my death.
