Newspaper Supplement

Friends, I really missed an important milestone in my Blog writing. Actually on 1^st Oct 2019, I uploaded my 500^th Blog, and today’s blog is my 506^th one.

Yesterday while going through the Sunday newspapers and especially the supplements , one thing which struck my mind was that why our English papers I have foreign fixations. I have also been observing this for long time all these supplements generally write about so many things which do not have any bearing on the day to day life of  more than 95% of readers, but still the editors of these supplements keep on publishing these articles. I, being a Mumbaikar, am regular reader of The Times Of India may be for last 6 decades and on Sunday they have two supplements , one is Bombay Times (which is supplement for other 6 days of the week also) and  other is Times Life. Even the advertisements which got published in Times life have no relevance to life of ordinary Mumbaikars/readers.

Now let me brief you about what was published in Times Life on 13^th Oct (Sunday).

-There was an article, about new age modern kitchen. The article says that it is more than cooking space, as it is heart of health and happiness of family. Agree with this statement, then the article says that Indian food while cooking entail a risk of various health problem. So chimney is required. Then the article writes about various advantages of modular  kitchen manufactured by  such & such Company. The fact is that Mumbai houses  are very small and in many of the apartments the kitchen size may not be more than 60/70 Sq ft,  and more than 60 % of Mumbai’s population still lives in Chawls and such types of tenaments, and they are least bothered about what is written about this system. If the editor is bothered  about health of ordinary Mumbaikar, then the paper should write about how to improve the cooking system in chawls and small apartments, rather than writing about chimney in the kitchen etc. To me it looked like a sponsored article, paid by manufacturing company.

– Then there was one article about the cultural cauldron (about food culture) of Azerbaijan’s capital Baiku. Most of the Mumbaikar may not even know, where Azerbaijan is located, even I had to google to search where it is located. The paper wants to inform us about the food culture of Azerbaizan’s capital. The country is bordered by Caspian sea in east, by Iran in south and Russian and Georgia in north. Now I am not sure that even 100 Mumbaikar will visit this place in a year, so what was fun of publishing this article. If the supplement had published article on the cultural cauldron of some place in Himachal Pradesh or even a place in North eastern states of country, the readers would have been enlightened, as they can connect with that place as in their mind they might have thought of visiting this place in near future but I am sure even after reading the article no ordinary Mumbaikar will think of visiting Baiku in Azerbaizan.

– The next article which I am pointing out is about How polluted is our home. The article mentions about the smaller apartment in big cities, and typical house is polluted due to heating, cooking, cleaning, smoking, perfumes etc. Polluted air is infested with large concentration of PM 2.5. CO2 and other harmful gases, having long term health implications. Then the articles describe how to control the pollution inside the house, very good information, but to implement some of the measures are quite perplexing like maintain indoor humidity below 50%, have kitchen garden (this in Mumbai’s flat is a tall dream). OK we do all what has been suggested in the article to keep home free of pollution, but when you have to move out of the house then what about outdoor pollution, do we have control on it, then what is the fun of keeping home free of pollutants. To me it seem that the article was sponsored by some company who is manufacturing De humidifier and other such products. Or this article is  inspired by some article published in foreign country, where outdoor air quality is good, so the article is written about how to control your home air pollution.

-On pollution there was one more article, which says the air around us can cause fine lines and wrinkles, sagging and dark spots. The article is very informative and looks like it has been written/promoted by some Dermatologist. The article further give the reason and probable remedies also. But in the life of a Mumbaikar who is working, and totally spends more than 12/14 hours out of his/her home, there is no time for doing what is written, except for washing his face few times a day. It  looks like this article is only meant for upper class people who stay in their AC homes, moves in AC car etc, and have ample/free time on hand to do all the things as suggested in the article.

-Then there is  pictures of different types of dresses worn by models and high society ladies. The each dress may be costing in the range of few thousands, looking at the dresses, in my opinion none of the dress must be costing less than at least Rs 10,000. My contention is why they can not show the dresses worn by ordinary people on day to day basis, and possibly from where these can be bought  and in what price range. This would help more than 90 % of the city’s population.

But it seems that Time of India and its supplements are least  bothered about their normal readers, they only care about their upper class readers, as they are sponsors of their articles, release advertisements in their paper etc etc.

Let us not talk about the other supplement which comes daily with Times of India ie Bombay Times. It has become totally sponsored paper, even news mentioned there are paid for, events/happening in the city described in the paper are paid by sponsors. The Bombay Times will print any Tom, Dick and Harry’s picture if it paid for.

With all this  happening/reporting in print media, it has become very difficult for common man to find a interesting items to read in these supplements, accompanying the main news paper.

What you say my friends.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

14^th Oct 2019