UP TO DATE. Review on Mid-Day

Ten years in Mumbai and this paper has been my lifeline to the news, views, gossip, relaxation and friend.

I was first introduced to this when I started working there. A colleague of mine was engrossed in it, and I just peeped over her shoulder to see what was taking her so much attention, and it was the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. I was curious and looked at the first page and there was the name in bold dark letters MID DAY. Yes from that day I have been addicted to that particular newspaper. I am from the land of THE HINDU, so never been curious of any other newspaper at all nor introduced to any other English daily in my life. Here was a newspaper, which got me interested.

Every afternoon after lunch I used to eagerly wait for the newspaper boy to come in and give me a copy of the paper. It was THE newspaper for me. It had everything happening in and out of the state, but more so about AMCHI MUMBAI. The travel time home from work by most of the mumbaikars is spent reading this daily. It has the most updated news happening, which is missed out by the daily morning newspaper.

Except for certain articles which are not based on right investigation once in a way it’s a perfect daily, but I suppose there is no newspaper in this country which is not biased nor with articles without proper spadework done.

Once I moved to Chennai I missed my daily dose of MID DAY, there was no newspaper equal to it in Chennai. The same old newspapers here are doling out the conservative views. The spice and charm of my favourite was missing. So the next best for me was to go back to reading MID DAY but how to do it, well I remember that MIDDAY had started online news site, so I checked it out and was very delighted to read the news on line on their site. It gave all the Mumbai news that was missing in the news dailies of Chennai. It also covers the news of the suburbs (metros) so I felt I was still in Mumbai and getting updated everyday as to the happenings there. Their guide to Mumbai is superb. The column Voices is also to be read to know what the common man in Mumbai thinks of the happenings in the city.

Recently I had downloaded their news alert WHASSUP?And it is very good. As I am online most of my working time, I can see the latest discreet news popup without going to their website every time I want to know the latest news, on my screen for few seconds. It covers all categories of news and not just current affairs. I came to know about the bomb blasts in Mumbai when I saw it first on the pop up, otherwise I would have been in the dark about it till I switch on the television. After that I decided that it deserved a review in this column. It is easy to download it and it does not disturb in any of the work being done on the PC. It is worth when we can get updated news ON THE DOT.