I remember walking upto my dad when he was in the deep discussion with a middle aged gentleman ( I remember the gentlemans face. He had big black eyes & thick eyebrows. I vividly recall how arched the eyebrows became and how big the eyes became after I popped the question.).
My dad understood that the reading the newspaper could have other consequences, like big black eyes to become bigger and thick eyebrows to arch like a bow. And a smart little ‘kaun Banega crorepati’ question worth one crore being thrown at him without a lifeline or a phone-a-friend possibility !
The practice of reading newspapers has remained ingrained. Even though many years ago the brand changed from what my father read ( & still reads). Perhaps the change in brand signalled my arrival into the ‘grown up’ world. As insignificant that it seemed at that time, looking back, i think it was an important point in my life.
That aside, I have been wondering what questions children of today would come up with. Each day the newspaper has had so many ‘interesting snippets’ that I shake my head in disbelief reading the headlines.
Especially so of the researches that get mentioned in the centre page. Here are a few headlines from recent times.
“Well fed babies earn more as adults : study.
Oral sex can cause cancer in men.
‘Key impact’ chimps initiate hunting.
Exercise makes you younger by 9 years.
Office Stress is killing, literally, find British researchers.”
These are researches from around the world, which holds a great deal of interest I guess for many a person. I am not sure if any of this is relevant, proven or adopted as modern day laws. Our newspapers will nevertheless carry them. I guess out of ‘general interest’. For the smile and smirk to escape my lips !!
My next post will be on a headline that I spotted on the Times of India some days back.
“NASA images hint at ‘naked woman’ on Mars”. Any thoughts on what I should be writing about ?
probably write about how Laloo and other politicians are going to launch the Chak De Mars program after reading the news snippet…
In my schools days student should tell news before attending class and when all assembled for Morning Prayer. I doubt today many children have time to read newspapers!
Kavi,
This reminds me of my son’s question one day. My wife said that my son is waiting with a doubt and he asked “What do you mean by ..ck Daddy?” I could not tell anything immediately. He was just 5 or 6 years old. I said it was a badword. He replied “This is what worries me”. I asked him “Why?” and he said that one higher class student dropped his assignment in the school bus, and my son noticed it and handed over it to that bigger boy. The bigger instead of thanking my son, had said this “Oh..ck”. This happened many years before in India when my son had was in his primary class. Kids do ask such question and embarass us. I could only relate your incident to this. LOL. Nice to see you blogging. Keep it up.
I am sure your appa had one tough time with your questions. The few headlines you wrote there seemed almost normal to me after reading the crap these days continuously. Absolutely irrelevant and sometimes one wonders if these were written more with humor in mind!