Many Lives of a Newspaper Page

I belong to the generation where most of us got awakened each day by the thudding sound of the newspaper thrown as a missile by the newspaper boy, on our verandahs, in the early hours of the morning. A typical day would begin with the careful balancing of a steaming cup of tea in one hand and the freshly delivered newspaper in the other, as one would settle down on one’s favourite sofa, to savour the fresh news with relish. Many from my generation would agree that the smell of freshly printed sheets of the newspaper is indeed both intoxicating and addictive. This feeling, alas, might not be fully appreciated by the younger generations, who have graduated to more tech-savvy methods of remaining abreast of the day-to-day news around them.

There is no denying that the internet offers unlimited opportunities to glean current as well as archival local, national and international news, with great ease. Technology breaks the boundaries set by newspapers, making news both dynamic and exploratory. One need not wait till the next morning for updates. Yet, the advocates of newspapers would agree that nothing can beat the sheer joy of reading news by physically holding the sheets and scanning page after page through a deft play of the hands. Till today, the Sunday editions for many remain a treat to be savoured at the end, for weekly forecasts, cinema reviews, comic strips, recipes, puzzles, Sudoku, matrimonial, job advertisements and more, interspersed with absorbing articles like travelogues that inspired one to travel the world. These additional cherries simply captivate the interest of the reader, leaving them insatiated. One cannot forget how newspapers geared us sufficiently for competitive examinations and for meeting the day-to-day challenges of life. I recall my trepidation each time I sifted through the pages of the newspaper to arrive at the right page where examination results and subsequently UPSC results were published. The finger feverishly going through the list of roll numbers to finally find your own is an emotion that goes beyond words. I don’t know whether the feeling is the same in the case of online results.

As children, many of us would cut out important news items that were kept carefully as archives in our physical folders. I recall that when Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space in 1984, I had religiously cut out all news items related to the event and prepared a scrapbook with my own commentary on the event. It remained a treasured item for me for years beyond my childhood, till it got lost during some cleaning exercise or transition.

Talking of physical formats, since these do not bombard their readers with an overdose of information, they leave scope for mental assimilation and absorption. You would agree that the analysis which the internet does in seconds of any news item today was earlier being manually processed by our very own grey cells, thus perhaps keeping them more sharpened and alert.

Having delved into some of the merits of the official usage of newspapers, allow me to elaborate on how the human brain has discovered multiple uses of newspapers, which would make its inventors squirm in their graves. I take you back to my growing years, to delve albeit in a lighter vein, on the unbelievably versatile usage of an innocent newspaper other than its prescribed role of providing news. A newspaper till today remains an integral part of any middle-class household in India. I remember how the single daily newspaper, after having been devoured thoroughly first by the head of the family and later by others in the family, would be stacked in a safe corner of the store room for future use. It was here that its versatility evolved in countless and unique ways, some of which I would illustrate.

Memory takes me back to the hot summer days with long power cuts during my childhood. The minute the power would go off at night, each of us would appear on the terrace, armed with newspapers that would be dexterously used to fan ourselves. Mothers would fondly fan their toddlers with this item to put them to sleep despite the power cut. They even used them as sun-blocking screens for the windows, to make the water coolers more effective in the summer months. Even in the cold winter nights, one would often see newspapers and wood being used extensively on the street sides by the homeless to ignite fires to keep them warm in the chilly nights. The ubiquitous newspaper thus gave both the comfort of a fan and a hearth to many.

Here, I highlight another common use of the newspaper, which I am sure most would relate to. Before the advent of aluminium foils in Indian kitchens, newspapers in many middle-class households served the purpose of napkin sheets for say stacking chapattis and even packing food for travel, schools and offices. I remember how we also used the sheets as mats for the kitchen cupboards, as well as for our clothes wardrobes. These sheets got religiously replaced by fresh ones during the house cleaning sprees. Newspapers in many households till today are also being used for mopping and cleaning purposes. I myself swear by the newspapers for cleaning glass tops and mirrors. In a household with children, it came in handy for cleaning the frequent mess created by the overactive young devils.

Newspapers remained our faithful companions even during travel. One can easily relate to pulling out a newspaper from the travel bag and it being laid out carefully on the train berth for spreading out the food items packed for the journey. Sometimes these were also torn into smaller square sheets to be used as plates on which home-cooked food could be enjoyed by the entire family during these journeys. Talking of train journeys, I remember how sometimes travellers who did not get a reservation used newspapers as bedsheets, spreading them between the berths and falling asleep on them like a baby, as the train chugged along towards their destination.

I feel nostalgic recalling how, during my childhood days, newspapers served as a raw material for creative playthings. We, in those days, did not aspire for expensive toys and games, and could be entertained by the simplest of things. Many would associate with the boats and aeroplanes that were crafted from the newspaper sheets. The sheer joy of your own newspaper boat sailing courageously in the water puddles created by the rains, or the newspaper missiles hitting their intended targets, cannot be expressed in words.

Many would agree that there cannot be a better weapon than a rolled-up newspaper. A whack or two at the right places sometimes instils discipline in a recalcitrant child without causing much physical harm, by merely establishing the symbolic supremacy of its user. I hear that it has the same impact on unruly pets as well, who are averse to the “whish whoosh” sound of the newspaper and fall in line to avoid its use on them.

Having spent over thirty years in the Government, I would not like to associate this item with any form of idleness in Government offices, but humourists often associate this as a weapon used by sarkari babus to kill flies as they idle away their days in office!! Indeed, a debatable issue in today’s time!! While idleness of the “sarkari karmchari” may be subject to debate, there is no debating that a newspaper remains the best and most ‘foolproof’ weapon against insects/flies/rodents and any such species. One needs to just aim and attack, with results guaranteed.

Surprisingly, despite its multiple uses in the household, at the end of the month, there still remained an ample number that could be sold to the local scrap dealer after much haggling, to arrive at a mutually acceptable rate. So the newspaper bought at perhaps one rupee during my youth, after having gone through its various evolutionary uses, would also finally provide a net profit to its owners through its sale!

Having once crossed the threshold of a common Indian household, the newspaper would change its form for continued usage in different ways. For years, we received paper bags made out of newspapers while purchasing vegetables, fruits, daily groceries, popcorn, roasted peanuts and street food from the street vendors. The famous newspaper “thonga”, as it is called in many regions of India, remained an integral and ecologically safe part of our lives, when unsafe plastics had not fully evolved in the system.

The innocent newspapers have been put to so many unimaginable uses by their innovative users that no complete listing of their multi-dimensional uses is possible. Having attempted a few, I reiterate that in doing so, I neither wish to undermine the serious role that the newspaper plays in our lives nor to belittle its importance, nor to pit it against the internet, creating a case for one against the other. This commentary, written in a lighter vein, merely highlights how we as human beings are so adept at “jugaad”, that even an ordinary newspaper has triggered our minds to put it to unimaginable uses in our daily lives. By far, one of the best “jugaad” ever!!

Views expressed are personal. The writer is working as Economic Adviser in the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India