Touchy about my newspaper reading routine

I HATE THE LOOK OF

CRUMPLED NEWSPAPER SHEETS. IF THE PAPER GETS SOAKED ON A RAINY DAY, IT’S MOST UPSETTING

The initial days of the lockdown created different impressions about different things, which weren’t known, or experienced earlier. About newspapers, the initial information reaching us, forbade reading or subscribing to them, since they were touched by numerous hands, in the process from printing to vending, which could be risky amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Later, a protocol was introduced that prescribed safe use of newspapers, projecting that human hands don’t touch them in the printing process.

For three days, I discontinued my morning constitutional, which had stayed with me since college. But even after they were touted safe, I let the newspapers dry in the sun the whole day, and took to reading them in the evening. I heard some people went to the extent of even ironing the newspapers to kill the virus.

To me, a taza akhbar always meant a fresh morning newspaper, not only with regard to its content, but appearance and texture as well. I hate the look of crumpled newspaper sheets. If the paper gets soaked on a rainy day, it’s most upsetting.

Being on deputation to the Government of India, I had to stay in Delhi for a few years, living in flats in different localities such as Pandara Road and Kidwai Nagar. Something I always dreaded there was to wake up to the sound of a thud when the newspaper hawker would hit my balcony window, with a bruised, folded newspaper.

It was a pain straightening the creases to make it readable. My wife pointed out that I was unnecessarily paranoid and touchy about newspapers. Well, she ruthlessly folds the newspaper to conveniently put it in her lap and gets lost in her indulgence of solving the sudoku puzzle. Though she takes every care to return the newspaper to me, with all that crispiness, yet the spirt is gone.

During my university days, I stayed with a family for some time where nearly half-a-dozen members got hold of one page each of the then just-delivered newspaper. I found it irritating. I have been in the habit of reading my favourite columns first and anything else later. The distribution of pages among the family members robbed me of my interest in them.

I also hated fellow travellers in a bus, or a train, in those days, who wouldn’t buy their own newspaper, but the moment you got one for yourself, their begging hand would reach out towards you.

Now in the third phase of the lockdown, I have become comparitively complacent and read the newspaper with ease. Still I confess that I rush through my favourite columns first and finish reading them as if I’m relieved of a liability. It’s my touchiness. Well, where is the sanitiser, please! n