Morning newspaper

When I was in school a weekly page in newspaper was reserved for kids. All week, we kids remained excited about reading stories in it and on Wednesday when the page was published, I and my sisters used to argue that who’ll read it first.

Those were the days when my father without reading newspaper couldn’t finish eating his breakfast and as routine become habit, this practice of taking breakfast along with reading newspaper becomes a norm and much like a morning dose, it is necessary to start a day in my home.

I remember that special bamboo stick magazine rack that was placed in our drawing room.

I wish I could have an original picture but this Google image is very close in resemblence

It served us for nearly seventeen years and it’s only been lately that my mother like most of women who find it hard to get rid of old trash, mustered up her courage and let go off that crippled magazine rack, for the worn out rack lost one of its leg and when a new magazine rack replaced it, a debate erupted in my home.

In the presence of high speed internet, my parents are of the view that there’s no need to purchase printed edition of newspaper but every time when the idea is proposed, my younger sister, who after getting from school lies on couch and enjoy reading newspaper gets angry and, we all agree that as internet connection is not always reliable so it’s better not to stop the routine.

Now, it’s been some time that nothing has been said on this topic and yesterday while dusting off the furniture, I noticed the magazine rack which was filled up to its brim with papers. I sat on my knees and as I got myself busied in arranging newspapers, I recalled these lines from Wilbur’s poem

Richard Wilbur  in his poem “After the last bulletin” writes

After the last bulletins the windows darken

And the whole city founders readily and deep,

Sliding on all its pillows

To the thronged Atlantis of personal sleep,

 

And the wind rises. The wind rises and bowls

The day’s litter of news in the alleys. Trash

Tears itself on the railings,

Soars and falls with a soft crash,

When Wilbur talks about the worthlessness of news that become a litter on next day, I can recall reading that the Independent newspaper has called an end to its print edition after three decades and had gone online only and while arranging the messed up pile of old newspapers, I feel sorry about the loss of all news which has been arranged and published with great effort but it only took fraction of time before the most prominent news in the paper lost its vigor.

And, when daily Independent has decided to put an end to its printed edition, there are still newspapers which are getting published and despite the fact that morning news becomes worthless in evening, the same effort of gathering and publishing news is performed the other day.

To cap it all, I can say that when news is collected and fresh papers are published, it depicts the very fact of life that as new order replace the old one,life continues to move on.