On Monday, the 23rd September, the TOI carried edit page article “Hum Aapke hain Kaun?” trying to define its relationship with its readers “THE CHRONICLE OF A RELATIONSHIP” For those who don’t subscribe to this shitty piece of paper, this article can be found on its website - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?artid=22959072.
This is how the article would have read, if the newspaper (its owners) had been honest with itself:
I don’t know how to begin this story. It’s about me. And it’s about you. I monopolise you for 30 minutes (You are so stupid! You could have spent that time better on alternate media on the net) every morning. I converse with you and soothe you into reassurance that everything about the world is as we report it. I am part of your thoughts throughout the day and mind-control you with my bullshit. But do we really know each other? I know you very well, because I have created you. Every thought that you have ever thought came through me. But do you really know me? Do you see beyond what you read in my pages?
I would call it a private agenda for an idiotic public. But little is known about this hidden agenda. Before I reveal that, let me tell you something about myself: I’m extremely selfish, brand-conscious, and possessive. To quote Ben Bradlee, I like to be my best manipulative today, better tomorrow. Only by pursuing excessive selfishness can I create your good in the way I want (and my advertisers) want it too. But who am I? Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?
Indeed, I am your friendly nationhood mind-controller. I am The Times of India. My reach is huge (which makes my job easier). My readership is diverse (but unified by idiocy). And my relationships are intense (mostly of extreme hatred and loathing). They go beyond the mere act of informing, into the realm of brain washing. They even go beyond the unwritten covenant between you and me: reportage with conscience (what’s that?). I often have to suppress the hard news behind the glossy makeup of soft news. For, I believe that even in darkest hour, I have to give the reader his finest half-hour of absolute mindless trivia. And when the real news makes me angry, I try to be soothing by not publishing it.
It’s not easy to do that. I don’t have a single tribe of followers. There are communities of them. Each has a different DNA. Each derives unique value from the newspaper. Together, these values create a brand called me. Some fall for me because I am cater to their lowest instinct; some depend on me because I am like a drug, giving them illusionary pleasure, but sucking away their intelligence; some pursue me for my stature; and some are wedded to the decadent values they follow (without realizing, of course) and perceive in me. Let me introduce you to my communities; you may even find yourself in one of them.
The regulars: The Deshpandes are hardly swayed by my moods (or my editorial policy, which is determined by my advertisers). They don’t really care about what is happening in the world they live in. They only seek information about the world, the nation, the city, and the locality they live in, so that they can carry an intelligent conversation at social gatherings. Put simply, they desire just a slice of a slice of a slice of reality, not reality itself, (which is anyway, too complex for their limited understanding) For them, I present the bird’s eye view of the world – neat and beautiful.
The relaxers: The Azads may not be aware of it, but they are soothed by the cascading effect that pervades my front-pages. Here, hard news is converted into soft stories. It helps the Azads to relax even as they get entertained. In their humdrum lives, I have now become an oasis.
The addicts: Don’t be surprised, I can become an addiction, just like tobacco or TV or fast food, for I am composed of the same material i.e JUNK. I know of the Silvas who suffer from mild depression if they aren’t able to start the day with me (If I made them aware of the real world, they would become depressed reading me, instead). In their solitude, I become their dearest friend. It’s through me that they learn to escape the harsh realities of life itself. As one of my mood makers (a journalist – Cyrus Merchant) reminded me the other day, I help addicts to convert existential angst into liveable worries. I am the beacon in their lives.
The influencers: Nothing pleases my egotistic self more than the knowledge that the Singhs often quote me at elite gatherings. I am their getaway Ferrari to a world where being hi-brow counts (another illusion that I and my advertisers create) Which is why the Singhs rush to the leader article and the editorials even before they take in the toons.
The aspirants: I have long forgotten my role as a conscience-keeper of the nation, by entering into an incestuous relationship with my marketers. My marketers often remind me that my job is to arouse aspirations through stories about rich Indians wrooming in BMWs. The Rameshes see me as a catalyst for their own career gameplans. Yes, I have increased their aspiration quotient and made them a perfect tool for my marketers.
The differentiators: Long ago, the woo-words were news, news, news. Nowadays, there is so much news that needs to be censored that it is difficult to fill the pages with news. So my new mantra is to distract, distract, distract.. er differentiate, differentiate, differentiate. I distract the masses and classes by preoccupying them with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. I differentiate by catering to people’s infinite appetite for distraction through color supplement filled with half-naked party-girls and bird-brained socialites, by devoting realms and realms of newsprint to my self-created celebrities and other such trivia.
Does the perceiver see such perceptions in me?
To perceive is to differentiate. When I see a reader in a limo stretching my masthead like a bull-worker, it ups my image (that is the only thing that counts). The bull-worker may be just one perception that defines me, but it tells me something. It tells me that I have become infectious, that I infect readers with mindlessness.
Perceptions vary. They make me happy. They make my advertisers happy! But what do I really want to be? I manifest myself in various ways, but I would like to perceive myself as a dialogue. It’s a samvad that helps the reader to sleep soundly and blissfully in his ignorance. Like the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, where a healthy skepticism culminates in a bloody war, wavering resolve culminates in a bloody resolution, and work culminates in slavery. But I do not seek to signify culmination (for that would mean the end of my existence) I only seek to be the beginning of a unending dialogue. It’s a chat that will keep all my readers confused and keep me enriched till eternity.