In terms of newspaper supplements you are likely to be disappointed by the options available here in Trivandrum.They are few and frankly uninteresting.Back home in Delhi, you are barraged with supplements day in and day out.And Sundays.. Sundays are always special due to the sheer amount of reading to be done.we subscribe to around 3 papers on Sunday, so you get around 9-10 supplements in total( no kidding).It take around an hour or more of diligent reading to slurp it all down.The Sunday morning paper session is something my whole family looks forward to.While i wake up to my pa and ma going through the papers,sipping tea and gossiping,having returned from their morning walk,i get my hands on them at around 11 and carry on right until lunch is served.My bro sadly is still to cultivate a reading habit.All the reading he does is on his tech forums and gadget reviews.
The saving grace here in trivandrum is the very respectable The Hindu Sunday Magazine.It comes out on.. ( yeah that's right, Sunday).I steal it in the morning itself and hang it on the clothes rod in my bathroom.For the entire week it is my gracious companion as i perch myself on the commode to carry out the morning ablutions.It has been for over a good 3 years, from when i came down to trivandrum.there are 8 pages in total, but i skip the one with crosswords and readers mail, so that makes it 7 pages one for each day of the week, until the new edition comes out the next Sunday.The first page is an issue of the week type article.the second is related to art,fashion and wildlife.The third has articles from a range of personalities like Shashi Tharoor,Sevanti Ninan, Ram Guha,Mike Marquessee,Bill Kirkman and the feminist Kalpana Chawla.they speak on everything under the sky , and i listen..the 4th and 5th pages are devoted to snippets from the life of various artists from dance,cinema( world and regional), photography and other fields.there are also articles on rural life and life in India in general.It also features India beats which features "stories on the unusual, the exotic and the extra ordinary" as the underlying description states.the 6th page as i said features the crosswords and readers mail and one time carried a comic strip-Pickles.i really liked Pickles which was about a retired old guy and his daily antics accompanied by his wife, his grandson, and a bespectacled neighbor.Pickles was taken off and replaced by Dilbert, which i still believe is out of sync for a lifestyle magazine.The 7th and 8th pages are dedicated to travel and you have several regulars writing in.Several pictures from the magazine now adorn the walls of my room.
As i come to the end of my 4 college years , i know it has been a good time while it lasted.The HSM reading habit is one thing i will be taking home with me.
PS: Dilbert go back to the WSJ
