Sunday 9 January 2011

TEA TWO THOUGHTS ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

While the world (read parents) is out on a picnic , I am left blissfully alone enjoying a lovely warm Sunday.  There is something about being alone on a Sunday that is absolutely heavenly ...... okay here are the 3 top reasons !


1.No one to ask me a thousand times what I would like to eat while I'm trying to concentrate on a book/newspaper/silly TV show. (what's a Sunday without one silly article in the newspaper? sample Shobhaa De draws a parallel between an out-of-order lift and the condition of India-----nice "original" comparison but a whole article on that ! Just one humble question-- is she paid for writing that stuff ?  )


2.No one to yell the time at me with an implicit intention of inducing guilt pangs. Seriously the devices are great at times , I mean you don't technically ask a person to wake up but when you can SEE the person enjoying a nap you just yell "it's 12 o'clock" .......eloquence of the unspoken words did you say ! 


3.No one to remind me that every spot of my room needs cleaning, while I am thinking about the politics in  bengal- my non-existent career- Koffee with Karan- punching Biman Bose right across the face- holding Mamata Bannerjee hostage in a jam stuck street for 5 hours without water and food and mike (if I give the last she might not miss the previous two)..... and other grave matters.




I begun this new year with a great new change.  We switched to TOI from The Telegraph.  I was very glad about bidding adieu to t2... for various reasons... firstly it has become the paid advertisement forum of Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Rituparna ..


At least once every month I have to see a 6 page detailed analysis of clothes which some villagers wear in deserts and which are oh-so-unwearable and resembles my carpet , or I have to see at least a dozen pictures of some bleak, dark, room which has trunks, haariken and broken bulbs and then I will learn it's a "store", which sells designer outfits. (shoot me !) 


On some other days I have too see the holiday pics of some Bengali actresses in Thailand , and I wonder seeing their beach wardrobes if its Thailand or "Thigh-land". If not this, Miss.Rituparna will scare the hell out of me with her untamed mane of hair and blood red lips,  her style statement is unique .... purple dress-red lips, black dress-red lips, red dress-red lips, yellow dress-red lips and so on. 


Then at least once a week t2 journalists have a round table conference to decide which issue of the playboy magazine they will ape now. Finally their editor gives a nod and there is a whole feast of limbs, arms, and what-not on display. Clothes are so fragmented and body parts are so diversely displayed, its very postmodern. 


The cherry on the cake: recently they got crazy about Polo , not the mint with the hole, but the game played on horses. (spare me the horror !)  and then HOLD YOUR BREATH... they want first class graduates as journalists for t2. Sure ... those innocent young beings spent 3 years of their lives reading about Chaucer, Browning, Osborne etc so that they can write a 200 word article about Shilpa Shetty's cleavage.


Ok so now if you have an iota of intelligence , you must have noted with how much diligence I have read every issue, even though I have been blasting missiles at it. Well t2 was the fodder of many soulful conversations with my friends. The hours just whizzed by as we discussed it...  


And I did have the option of just not reading it... well I admit at times reading t2 is de-stressing and seems far more "real" than the world of CWG, Maoists and 2G...sadly the latter world seems a part of a fiction that we are forced to live through..any serious thoughts end in despair so why not t2?  


t2 and CT are to us  what "Disneyland" meant to Baudrillard.... a joyride that makes us think what we live through is real , important and significant....concealing the fact that what we endure everyday is not as vulgar, not as pointless, as t2...........


Now that I have TOI basking in the sunshine on my terrace every morning and not Telegraph, I realize the fragmented  visions of limbs are still very much a part of my life thanks to CT. ( LOUD SOBS)
at least it has a lesser number of pages. 


Ta Ta...Lunch beckons !







4 comments:

Harish P I said...

And you say toi is better?

Moo Moo said...

@ Harish... No I don't ...they are different.. Telegraph is better with local news and TOI has beter coverage of national news...I was just rambling a little about their entertainment supplements...no comparisons !!!!!!!!!! :)

DISGRUNTLED GENIUS said...

ToI is always nice .. esp on weekends + fri. ...

Btw.. kolkata wl nw b jammed by a 'third' force - Dada fans. SRK Effigies already being burnt :)

Moo Moo said...

@ DG... "third" ??? shed some light on the previous two ! and please i was NOT comparing the two papers .... !!