Changing with The Times..bye bye TOI

Changing with The Times…

Sorry if that Headline seems like a cheap shot headline that Times of India (TOI) would use 543212 times and would still continue to do so afterwards, but since I do wanna speak about India’s largest circulated English daily, it seems more than apt.

Just like most Indians, TOI was the first English paper that I read. I remember while growing up in Aurangabad, that we only used to get a Marathi paper and our downstairs neighbours used to get TOI. I remember wanting to read the paper just because of Garfield primarily. Later my father started ordering TOI but only the Sunday edition. Now I am not a creature of habit, I couldn’t exercise or study regularly if there was a gun to my head. But this is where I developed this one fixed habit that I would never give up on, reading the Times in the morning for at least an hour without being disturbed. I would also grow on to have my only male chauvinist demand ever as a side effect to this ritual- having my cup of Bournvita handed over to me while am reading my paper.

Soon cups of Bournvita turned to cups of tea and coffee, the focus changed from the Garfield, Beetle, Hagar the Horrible to Sports and to Business pages but the habit never changed. My father, appreciating me and my brother’s enthusiasm, started ordering TOI daily. This was a time when internet was all dial up connections etc. and Nokia was the only phone known to mankind. Growing up in a town like Aurangabad which used to receive the earlier day’s TOI Mumbai edition, reading TOI was like a connection to the world, to bigger cities like Mumbai and Pune, to the wit of Jug Suraiya and Bachi Karkaria, to RK Laxman’s brilliant satirical cartoons to movie reviews (and ahem...’glamorous’ pics of actresses and models) and to reviews of books we wouldn’t get to read unless we went to Pune to buy them cheaply off the streets. It was such a sacred institution for me that I used to look down upon anyone who read *rolls eyes* Lokmat times- the local English daily-, it was almost like TOI gave you a certain elitist standard.

Maybe it was like that, because TOI has always been this class defining paper. This line of difference between good English speaking people and aspiring ‘Vernac’ people, you know the kinds who used to take ‘spoken english’ classes and introduce themselves with the words ‘Myself…’ in formal interviews and discussions. I don’t mean this to be a good thing, but this is how it was even after the introduction of broadband internet and how it continues to be in somewhat smaller way still. You either read the Times or you aspired to read it. That is how it is in an English worshipping society like ours and doesn’t come as a surprise for a paper with a 200 year old legacy. Coupled with the owners classy British sounding name of “Bennett Coleman Ltd”  , houses with regular TOI subscriptions are (or rather were ) considered classy households.  

I was such a defender of TOI that reading any other newspaper like the Indian Express or Hindu was a sacrilege. People who didn’t read TOI or rather expressly declared their affiliation for other papers seemed like the same people who don’t like Mangoes or Puran poli. I mean you do have the right to your taste, but it is shitty taste, is what I felt.  Even after, TOI started glamifying itself (I know that’s not a word, but hey if the Times can stoop down to using tabloid language in its articles, so can I) I still stood by it, thinking something on the lines of “Hey I know it’s not that good but what do you expect me to do? Start reading Deccan Chronicle or some shit?”

After we shifted to Pune, getting TOI on the same day was an added blessing. Even after I had to travel frequently because of my job I used to read The TOI on their mobile site on multimedia phones and then still continued to do so on their app on android smart phones. Whether I woke up after an electricity-less, mosquito infested night in Nanded or caught a crowded local in Mumbai, TOI was the first go to source for news. I suffered through their countless Indian liberal (which means solution-less cry babies) leaning articles or their frequent bias towards Marathi politics (Thackeray and co are sectarian hooligans, Karunanidhi and co are proud Tamilians) or not even mentioning names of movies which the Times group wasn’t promoting (For e.g “Akshay Kumar’s recently released  movie is doing well in theatres”) or giving not less than 3 stars to the movies it was promoting (Do you remember a movie called Mumbai Mirror, a terrible cop movie starring Sachiin Joshi?...well TOI gave it 3 and a half stars.)…but I still stood by it. I stood by when TOI shamelessly promoted its own initiatives (Rahein or the Times festival or Times Lit-festival) as news or landmark moments… But still I stood by it. When The Times glorified Mumbai blast accused Yakub Menon as a martyr in the headline while Dr. Kalam received a much smaller column…perhaps more out of habit than anything else, I still stood by it.

I still stood by The Times when it glorified mentally sick sadistic psychopaths like Arundhati Roy, Sagarika Ghose or popularity seeking polemics like Shobha De as conscience keepers of rational thought, polluting minds of entire generations into thinking that taking anti-establishment stand is the only way to be progressive. That anyone whose vocabulary doesn’t include the words like ‘poignant’ or ‘intellectual’ is not capable of sound political thinking but is also orthodox and culturally bankrupt. That anyone who calls himself a Hindu and is proud of his heritage, is as dangerous as a member of Al-Qaeda. Also that idealism is what we should strive for, that realism shouldn’t play any role in politics. That socialism bred and brainstormed in a kitty party over cocktails and starters is the best service to society. If you want to find the reasons as to how practical and inclusive secularism turned to idealistic, exclusive and imbalanced ‘sickularism’ in India, am sure TOI is one of the main reasons.

But do I have a problem with a paper having particular political leanings? Yes I do, but still I can take it. I am not like a Dalit intellectual to hate something just because it doesn’t fit in my point of view. I don’t mind if you lean openly towards one side of the debate but as long as you do it openly and at least have some rationale, I can accept it. I don’t mind anyone having an agenda, what I don’t like is such people having a pretence of being impartial or balanced. That is what ticks me off the most. These days each and every news item you see in TOI, seems more or less biased but without openly declaring it to be so. But then again, I still stood by The Times.

As you might have guessed by the flow of the article, now comes the twist, the grand reveal of why I am about to give up on TOI, yes it will come, but not yet and not for the reasons you think. Firstly, yes I am slightly more right leaning than others, which does not mean am a “bhakt” or a “sanghi” I just think Indian version of socialism sucks. Also, I think that Modi govt. is doing a decently good job and apart from one or two stupid religious issues, I do not have any problems with it. They are bringing about the kind of development that is measurable in practical terms and while the BJP is not the ideal party to be in charge of a developing nation wanting to become a developed one, but it is practically the better choice. I mean who would you rather have in charge? Rahul? Nitish? Mamta? Also, until we as a society give up on casteism and populist politics, we should stop expecting our leaders to be better. So, I am just like majority of you people with their own political opinion, who even though leaning towards one set of ideas or the other, is not consumed by it.

But then what has all this got to do with TOI? Well, No am not quitting on The Times for being “sickular” or whatever, I don’t read news to get a political perspective…what I want with my news, is just that, plain old boring news. Like how DD or BBC are still the most respected news channels because they just report the news without colouring it one way or the other. So what if it’s airing socialist or leftist views you ask me? Well, the reason I hate TOI now is because it doesn’t have any leanings, it doesn’t have any loyalties whatsoever. How did I jump to that conclusion? I didn’t jump to it… just like a habit that got built up over the years, the resentment also did. Too often has TOI jumped from one issue to the other…too often, have I seen blatant displays of commercial journalism. The once favourite Sunday supplement now just looks like a catalogue for commercial advertisements and bland articles.

What most people don’t know is that Bennett Coleman is only the name of the co. which owns the paper, it has been run by the Sahu Jain family since the 50’s…and over the course of last 40 years, the family has shown real ethical standards by being embroiled and jailed in multiple money laundering scams. The image of the Times of India, as a sacred institution run by a fearless set of journalists should fall flat then and there in anyone’s mind.

The TOI these days runs columns by the likes of Aakar Patel (who is he? I doubt even his mother remembers dumping out that shit spawn) who once wrote a column wrote about how Hindutva-wadis are “ugly” and by that he didn’t mean metaphorically ugly, he meant fat, smelly, unkempt and ugly. I am not lying, he did actually write it. I have seen more sensible writing on bathroom walls. But what is surprising is that a 200 year old newspaper which challenged Indira Gandhi’s emergency, published such a petty article. What if somebody had replaced the word Hindutva-wadi with Muslim or any other word? Would Times publish it? Forget about that, TOI in the name of appearing balanced, publishes articles by Swarup Dasgupta, who writes right leaning stuff. There is nothing wrong with publishing contrasting point of views, but somehow it feels like TOI trying to pander to all audiences. Every headline they print reeks of sensationalism. It is not a newspaper, a voice of the people any more, it is a media conglomerate looking to sell more papers. . It’s not just me, The Times trust rating fell from 88 in 2013 to 174 in 2014 according to the Brand Trust Report. Also, when you start giving Chetan Bhagat the status of a regular serious writer, you know how low you have stooped.

 Well, it is at this point, I must thank my elder brother and my childhood friend turned journalist for nudging me to other papers like The Hindu or The Indian Express and Hindustan Times. I set aside my TOI ego, I gave the others a chance and even though they are not perfect standards of incorruptible journalism, they do tend to have more sincerity to them. There seems less stress on selling and more on reporting. While, I can’t say that other papers don’t have a propaganda on mind but at least they don’t appear to be as commercialized as TOI is. Being in a relationship with TOI is like being in a toxic relationship, sure we can pretend it’s going well, but one is going in a different direction and only wants to be with the other because of the money.

So, I guess this is it, it was fun while it lasted, I am quitting on TOI. Although I won’t urge you to do the same because this is a personal goodbye to a once best friend.  To conclude again in a very TOI like way, the Times they are a-changing… and it’s time for me to change too.