My Window To The World. Review on The Hindu

Isn’t it strange how certain things become so much a part and parcel of our lives? At times, to an extent that we continue doing them in spite of various constraints. This is especially true when we are addicted to something, as against merely doing something else. I have had five major addictions in my life so far - Crosswords, Books, Mouthshut, Sports and Newspapers.

In some strange way, the first four have invariably stemmed out of the fifth. The expansion in my knowledge base, from my tiny world of classmates and friends to the more gigantic world at large, began with “The Hindu”. At a time when there were no 24x7 news channels, I would invariably be the first to pick up the newspaper from the doorstep every morning and start reading it in reverse gear – from the Sports section. It was very imperative that I do that before the others in the family woke up to pounce on it and took away the different pages of their interest.

This newspaper has become such a part and parcel of my life that it would be more apt to say that I was “born and bred” on it. Intermittently, I have also been exposed to various other dailies but none of them could get me hooked to them with the same tenacity that “The Hindu” has.

A brief History

The Hindu was first published in 1878 as a weekly and turned into a daily in 1889. The paper has a huge readership in South India (mainly in Tamil Nadu, AP and Karnataka) with a current circulation of over 700,000 copies and a readership of over 3 million. It is published from Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Madurai, New Delhi, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvanathapuram, Kochi, Vijayawada and Mangalore). The newspaper is published by Ms. Kasturi & Sons, Chennai. (Source: https://hinduonline.com)

1. Layout & Content

The façade is among the best designed for any newspaper in the country and comprises national and international news depending on their degree of importance with the very last column concentrating on the most important happenings of that particular state/area. There is a narrow column on the extreme left titled “Digest” and this contains snippets of the main news of other states with a referral page number at the end of it leading to the story in brief in an inside page. “All In The Game” is probably one of the longest running cartoon snips in any newspaper. The cartoon and its narration are wonderfully conceived by Mr. Keshav and brings a smile on the readers face.

The next 4-5 pages comprise the local news of all kinds (at times including info on overflowing gutters, incompetent local bodies and dysfunctional street lights). Another 5-6 pages are on other “National” and “International News” with “Business” and “Sports” bringing up the rest of the content.

2. Coverage of News

“The Hindu” has its correspondents in almost all major cities of India and a few resident correspondents in the capital cities of major countries. This ensures that the reader is kept up-to-date with all the events taking place both within and outside the country. Rarely have I seen the paper reporting an important event more than 24 hours after it occurs (something that The Times of India and its southern cousin, “The Deccan Chronicle” are notorious for). The paper even publishes articles by internationally renowned personalities (like Ted Corbett, in sports) and there used to be one superb column by “Art Buchwald” on Sundays that was a delight to read (am not sure if its still on).

3. Quality of Reporting

In the unlikely prospect of an event happening just before the paper goes into the publishing stage, the readers are at least given a small snippet with the news marked in bold and with the complete report on the next day. It is also one of those few newspapers that give the complete scoreboard of any test match as at the end of the play even if the match is being played in another time zone. The language of reporting is excellent and that’s not because of the usage of incomprehensible words but pertinent words that any educated person can understand.

Colour pictures are inserted (especially for coverage of important happenings) wherever applicable. Refreshingly, its also one of the few newspapers in India that’s totally unbiased and has no leaning towards any particular political party or religion.

4. Supplements

The paper carries at least one supplement a day with onus on various fields like Science & Technology, Business, Literary World, etc. This is apart from a supplement titled “Metro Plus” that appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These other supplements are Business Review (Monday), Open Page, Education & Book Review (Tuesday), Job Opportunities (Wednesday), Science, Engineering, Technology & Agriculture (Thursday), Friday Review (on arts, movies and general entertainment) and a Sports special and a Children’s special on Saturday. All these supplements contain useful information as per their themes and are a treasure trove of information.

Thus Spake TiC

I love reading “The Hindu” because no other Indian newspaper covers news in such a germane manner. There are no frills or unwanted gibberish (as in The ToI or Asian Age) like glamour news with huge snaps of some heroine wearing A/c clothes (that leaving nothing to imagination) as she attends some high profile function with a glass of champagne in one hand and the latest mobile phone model in the other. The news coverage is extremely impressive and totally devoid of unconfirmed news or rumours.

Two or three days a week, there are also guest columns by distinguished personalities on topics such as bilateral relations with other countries or expert opinions on international events that directly or indirectly affect India. It’s my firm belief that if one were to diligently read these articles, there would be no need to dig into a Dictionary or Thesaurus in search of new words. The language and words in these articles are unintelligible at times but that’s no cause for complaint because I believe that it’s one of the roles of a good newspaper in a developing country to enrich and enhance the language of its readers.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention about my favourite section, the Crosswords! Suffice to say that if you can even solve half of the words in this one on any given day, solving those in other newspapers will be a stroll in the park.

Priced at Rs. 3.75 (35+ pages) on weekdays and Rs. 4.50 on Sundays (44 pages), it’s certainly worth every pie shelled out. My only grouse is that it’s not easily found in Mumbai (obviously because its south based and does not have a Mumbai issue) but Thank God for the newspaper vendors at major local railway stations. I haven’t been reading it on a daily basis since I shifted to Mumbai 4 years ago but I do make it a point to pick up a copy whenever time, memory and availability of the paper permit.

To this day, I read the newspaper in “Reverse gear”…isn’t it strange how certain things become so much a part and parcel of our lives?