There could be nothing more invigorating than the fragrance of rain soaked soil, freshly brewed coffee / tea, and new books / magazines / newspapers.
A combination of all of these at the same time is a confluence of emotions and mesmerising experience.
Since March 2020, the ubiquitous physical newspaper has become a scarce commodity in households, offices and coffee shops. Lifelong patrons, such as yours truly, have made rather unsuccessful attempts to go digital in the search of "low - no contact" newspaper reading. But I was always missing the “kick” of reading a physical newspaper or a magazine, inspite of the many digital options.
Towards mid July 2022, after being estranged from the physical newspapers, I was at a clinic, and a rather dated but crisp edition of the Economic Times was begging for my attention. I picked it up, and the proverbial, “unputdownable” feeling crept in as soon as I started flipping through the pages. I managed to read cover to cover. My five year old was amused. He could not fathom why I was as engrossed as he would be when watching Ben & Holly on YouTube.
I took to reading newspapers like fish takes to water dating back to the early 1990s. Those were the days, when the Kolkata edition of the Telegraph would be swung onto our doorstep by the friendly delivery boy. As time passed, the newspaper delivery boy would become a buddy outside of school. He would stop by on Sundays and hover around for a bit longer, and offer him a cup of tea. Over tea, standing at the doorstep, we would discuss newspapers, comics, cricket and Bollywood songs.
On Sundays, I would request my father to subscribe to special weekend editions of other newspapers and the weekly magazines, for example, the Sunday Observer, The Asian Age, India Today, Sportstar to name a few. My father willingly relented. I would devour the newspapers in no time, with music playing on All India Radio, and this was after completing my fair share of watching Rangoli, mythological series, Disney’s Tailspin, Spiderman, Street Hawk, etc., on the telly.
This reading inculcated the habit of writing letters to the editor. Back in the days, quite a few of my letters got published in the Telegraph, Times of India and India Today. There was no greater joy than seeing one’s letter being published in a national newspaper / magazine.
This started my writing journey, and there has been no looking back ever since.
As time progressed, more publications got added to my reading list, The Frontline, Competition Success Review, Wisdom, Manorama, Reader’s Digest, Business Today, The Week, Outlook, apart from bestselling fictional works. Economic Times was not widely available in my hometown, Cuttack. One could only buy it from the Wheeler's at the Railway Station. One of the rituals, I adopted was if I would receive or see off someone at the station, I would reward myself with an Economic Times.
During my post graduate days in Hyderabad, there was no dearth of publications at the institute's library, apart from Economic Times, my favourite publications were the Business Line, Harvard Business Review (certain contextual articles only), Advertising & Marketing, and Business Today.
On my tours to NA, UK, Europe, the newspaper reading habit did not diminish. In the US, USA Today was delivered in the community that I resided. In the UK, it used to be the Guardian, and Yorkshire Post. Truth to be told, I have the Apps for these editions on my phone.
Circling back to that day at the clinic around mid July 2022, I have resumed the physical newspaper subscription to continue to feed my decades old passion of reading physical editions.
In the constantly evolving world of 280 character Twitter feeds, 30 seconds Instagram Reels, and TikTok videos, originality matters, and great content thrives.
The other day, a former colleague of mine reached out to me on LinkedIn. They were were curious to understand how I narrowed down to a topic to write about or where do I get the time to write. My humble suggestion was to read a wide range of articles, albeit from balanced publications,; form an opinion, and scribble one’s points of view on the said article.
Once the passion to write ignites, the topic automatically makes way for the time.
What have been your reading and writing inspirations?
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