Thursday, October 26, 2006

Too many newspapers, the loo, and time spent



There was a time, before DNA, Mumbai Mirror and Hindustan Times launched, when life in Mumbai was simple.
The newspaper reached your house at 6.30 am, because all the newsvendors had to do was to insert BT into ToI and hop onto their cycles.
Now, they’ve got to insert Mumbai Mirror into the ToI as well (or NBT into the ToI, depending on what you opted for), then they’ve got to insert DNA Money and After Hrs into DNA, insert HT Style into HT, and so on.
That’s the minimum. On Mondays, they’ve Education Times as well….
You get the drift.
And all this inserting takes time – time that cannot be crunched by automation.
So the start time for the paper route is shifted by at least half an hour or more, with the result that the newspaper, which used to reach me at 6.30 reaches me at 7.30 (The vendor takes more time to cover the distance on his cycle than he did pre-newspaper-explosion-in-Mumbai, as he's carrying a heavier load).
Which plays havoc with my loo cycle, which has been forced to shift from 6.30 to 7.30, too.
As newspaper barons have reminded us time and again, I cannot carry my TV with me into the bathroom. So I am forced to wait for the paper, twiddling my thumbs and smoking more morning cigarettes than I should.
And after the papers arrive (I read all of them), life is a rush – not the leisurely one hour I had for them earlier.
Because nothing else has changed. I still need to leave my house by nine, and the day still has just 24 hours.
And this is not happening to me alone. It’s happening to everyone in Mumbai.
Which brings me to the questions that I seek answers to:
What happens to time spent?
Not for those who have decided to buy more than one paper – but even for those who buy just the one?
Will NRS and IRS show a drop in time spent?
Will advertising in Mumbai papers be less effective?
Will newspapers soon be delivered on scooters and mobikes like the pizza guys do?
And the final question: is there a case for an early morning edition?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Which plays havoc with my loo cycle, which has been forced to shift from 6.30 to 7.30, too."

Lolz...the complications in your life@anant. Well--u could read the newspapers in office...like I do:p

Nice to read your blog..btw.
Keep posting.