The printed word faces competition from rapidly evolving technology and that makes reading an accomplishment by all standards. It has undergone numerous reincarnations in style while taking on TV news, online portals and digitisation of the print media. But who will deny that the printed word is always read with interest and curiosity, is appreciated and criticised, and the best preserved for posterity?
Whatever be the compulsions of the industry, it is the reader (read: subscriber) who has the final word because nothing matches the pleasure of holding a newspaper in hand and reading it from the first word of the first column on the top left of the front page to the last word at the bottom right of the back page.
Archiving newspaper clippings for future reference or remembrance and laminating or framing articles as memorabilia are simple joys that cannot be snatched away from any generation.
I knew of a social worker in Delhi who drew immense joy in marking articles in newspapers every morning. He spent his after-office hours diligently snipping the news items and pasting them on A-4 sheets with the date and name of the publication. As piles of his treasured clippings, beginning from the 1960s, grew, he stored them in mega steel trunks. When his family was shifting house, his wife audaciously sold the trunks to the junk dealer one day. Her contention was that she had never seen her husband unlock the trunks in the two decades of their marriage.
That evening their household peace was shattered. The husband almost sniffed the day’s ‘abnormal’ happening from the entrance of his house and bawled his heart out the moment he realised that the trunks were gone and empty shelves were staring at him. He ordered his wife to get the trunks back, no matter what. The poor lady had no choice and actually bought back the trunks from the kabadiwala.
As a witness to this particular incident, I have remained bewildered by diehard fans of the written word.
On another occasion on a trip to the Sittanavasal caves near Trichy in Tamil Nadu, an unwarranted encounter left me astonished about the value of the printed word and its readers.
On an assignment for a travel column for the paper, I found myself alone atop the famous Jain caves when a man tried to strike a conversation. I grew wary of him. He addressed me as “sister” and persisted with self-introduction — he worked as a Tamil Nadu Electricity Board engineer in Dharmapuri and travelled alternate weekends to interesting places.
He kept walking along with me and even asked for a lift to the main road to catch his bus. That 10-minute drive fuelled my belief in the printed word. He was curious about my background; I lied saying I was a student. He then pulled out a spirally bound book and I sat up. It was a collection from the same travel column, ‘Road Less Travelled’, 70 of the articles neatly laminated and numbered. And I could see my byline peeping out.
He had already been to 30 of those places. He felt reporters’ lives were interesting and inspiring, filled with rich experiences. Indeed. I do not regret withholding my identity from him. But I learnt that day how much we journalists owe our readers and the power of the written word. The kind of delight and respect it evokes — can the digital ever be on par? Is the slow death of the printed word an exaggerated emotion? Be it a food for thought, yet again.
soma.basu@thehindu.co.in
