As long as my memory serves, or
should I say, from the time I had learnt to put together a few alphabets to
make a meaningful word, I have been a regular reader of the Indian Express
newspaper. I would have changed cities and thereby editions but my affair has
continued unabated with the Indian Express – or The New Indian Express, as they
call it in Bangalore.
During my early childhood in
Kanpur, we did not have a local edition of the IE and we used to get the Delhi
late Dak Edition, which used to come by the 12-Down Delhi-Howrah Express early
in the morning. And we would know the day the train was running late as the
paper would be delivered late that morning.
The Dak edition had its own pitfalls, as much of the news, particularly
the ones on inside pages, would be stale. My love for cricket and the detailed
analysis of the scoreboard would only be satiated by a visit to the neighbours
or to the nearby library. My friends would wonder as to why someone would buy a
newspaper carrying stale news but I had no arguments to convince my father, who
did not consider the local papers like the National Herald or the Pioneer
classy enough to dethrone the exclusive Indian Express from our subscription.
Or, he too had an old affair that was difficult to annul, perhaps.
Many years later in life, when I
was building my friendship with a lady colleague of mine, one of the common
topics of discussion happened to be the Sunday Magazine of the Indian Express.
It so happened that she had also grown reading the Indian Express in Delhi. Two
different cities, two different cultures but one newspaper that hooked us
together. We would recollect some of the regular columns and the columnists.
Thanks to my elder brother, who was more voracious reader than I was – I had a
fair idea of the background of many of the columnists that I could brag in
these discussions. So, I consider IE to
be one factor that bonded us together and when we got married the affair with
the IE continued.
Later, when my daughter grew up
and we were to look at all the college advertisements in the newspapers, we
knew that IE was not the right newspaper for that. But you don’t ditch your
first love on such flimsy grounds, so we started subscribing to another
newspaper in addition to the IE to ensure we continued with the affair and did
our parental duties as well without fail.
And that continues till date.
Over the years, the IE had
disappointed us on a few occasions, for short periods of time, when we thought
the content of the Sunday Magazine was not up to the mark or at least did not
match our tastes. But we have moved along. One veteran columnist that we loved
most for his versatility and the range of topics too had disappointed us in the
recent past by writing only about one theme that did not match our political leanings.
However, I took it on my stride as I have always been a votary of allowing a
contrarian view. Though my love for his writings diminished. And we have
continued with the subscription for the old-time sake. Sometimes, an affair
would be on the rocks but the key is to sustain until you find some common
meeting ground and we just did that.
Last few years, the Chess
end-game and the Crossword features of the Sunday Magazine have provided us
some family activity that we have been doing unfailingly on Sunday mornings.
Even during these Covid times, when my apartment management stopped newspaper
deliveries, we have been able to take a print of the crossword from the online
Sunday Magazine and have continued with our tryst with IE. Now, having got used
to my mornings without a tete-e-tete with IE, I am not sure when the
restrictions are removed, whether I would restart my subscription immediately.
My printer will surely be busy on Sunday mornings to ensure we get the weekly
dose of our activity. So, the virtual affair might continue. But will it be the
end of our tryst with IE print version, with its distinct and familiar font and
style – only time will tell us.
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