New( )papers

It was some unrecollectable time in the month of February when I was spotted cruising along one of the various bottle-necky, meandering roads in this megalopolis of Bombay, alias, Mumbai. Huge hoardings putting up swank neon advertisements of a certain three lettered newspaper that would be launched in an undecided date soon. The name had something to do with building blocks of protein molecules paired together and left stranded in sumthin called a double helical membranous surrounding found scattered voluminously all across our own and others’ bodies; that decide whether we are snake in beet-roots or pudding in honey.(For all purposes , I endorse all references to biology as one from a distressed biology student who , in no manner can take the onslaught of the Watsons, Cricks and Deoxy ribonucleic acids) .
Coming back to where I left (or started); one of the ad showed a corpocrat who looked more like a model straight out of Lakme India Fashion Week, pointing his finger at all the onlookers with a tagline “ speak out”. Before another week even starts there came smack another publishing house who did not so far have any issue published for this city and dropped double the number of hoardings all across the place. This one showed some blindfolded, well-attired, almost handsome dudes lost in the thick of life .I don’t exactly remember the punch at the stub. It had something to do with throwing light everywhere and unblind the blind and the blindfolded. The newspaper was a popular one in Delhi according to one of the few millions of readership surveys that go on in the cities every now and then.
The third range of hoarding, which captured the remaining free spaces and conspicuous nooks could be seen within a fortnight from then. This was from a well-established media house who has turned footprints into fossils over the period of time on the Indian media terrain. Days pass sooner than some of us think it would have passed until a day came when I realized the temporary newspaper stand next to the building where I stay suddenly started looking more bulky then ever before. The four legged stand on top of which the innumerable newspapers and magazines rested on a daily basis looked as if a light flutter by a stealthy fart would be enough to cause an irreparable damage to the stand. The bulge due to the weight of the newspapers on the twenty-something year old supposedly peachwood stand could be seen without any ounce of effort.
However it did not take longer than a lizards’ one yard move to figure out why the bulge, bulk and paperweight. Three new newspapers got introduced to the Bombay-masses, newspaper-wallas and the ubiquitous stands. Let alone, the prime-ministers, the ex-prime-ministers-turned-bribe-gobbler-turned-prisoner-now-released-on-bail.,whose faces and clothes would appear on three more cover pages with an astounding regularity. Let me not talk about the dirges for the Indian skipper whose unbeaten series of miscontributions have raised eyebrows and fountainpens of all the possible sports editors this country would ever see till I finish writing this blog. It would only reach more places near teapots on breakfast tables.
The competition could be felt. The three new players had already managed to stir gallons of tested adrenaline among the already existing players. . Thanks to the ninety-four hoardings per newspaper per square kilometers. Too much to take for even the big dons who were running this business in Bombay from times of the Virgin Mary.
One out of these three aforementioned was a Tabloid launched with an intention to street-snatch market share of another one who enjoyed Madonna fame among quite a pie of Bombay. Probably due to certain spicy-gupshups,half-uncensored corner pics and the very fact that it was the only tabloid the city was witnessing till the new one struck.

Tom, Dick and Shyamsunder Patthabiraman Pillai.

alt="" />
There he was, sitting on the lightly cushioned chair ahead of his interview for a certain multinational in another part of the world. The breakfast he had ,a wild muddle of aloo paratha made in coconut oil with tons of ketchup-held-in-water and Bhojpuri-ginger-pickle was enough to give him regular gastro-abdominal repercussions.Thanks to the sound absorbers around the waiting lobby , there was nothing much to hear anything out ,courtesy ;bowel gassification. And the strong lavender room freshener that was sprayed generously all across the space, blocked any unwanted, convulsive odor from causing any olfactory eeks.Time was ticking pretty fast and he was the sixth last candidate. It was actually difficult to count him from the first, as there were quite a few people who had come to play 'question and answer'. First prize: A job with the company. Second prize: A job with the company. Third: A job with thecompany. The interviewers weren't too sure there would be any fourth. That depended on the quality and ability they said.The next would be his turn and his heart started pumping faster than the speed of rising gasoline prices in India. The doorway to hell opened and outcame a dejected redface with a disgruntled, jaw-dropping look that seemed enough to take the remaining courage left out of him.Enter SPP( abbr. for Shyamsunder Patthabiraman Pillai)Interviewer1 (I1),with resume in hand: So your name is Shaam..s.under.Pat.ha.bi..raman..Pill..ai?SPP: A bit shorter than that.You can call me Shyam.Interviewer 2(I2) : All right Sham. Tell me something about yourself....Another quarter of an hour passes by and by the time he leaves the door of the interview hall behind his brain gets into mix mode. He did not fall in any category of smokers or else within the next hour he would have helped ITC's profits rise by another two percent. The results would be communicated through internet and the selected guys would see a soft copy of their appointment letter in one quite corner of their inbox, any moment starting then.Next day, with a face that appeared to have lost all it's agony of the yesterdays ,Shyam logged in the most commonly used personal email id.Shyamsunderstand@yahoo.com. All letters after 'r' in that id were a supposed creativity for the sheer overabundance of Shyamsunders across allof the globe minus Antarctica. After typing in the ******** he waited for the 256kbps line to yield to his digital demands . The first unread mail had something to do with exotic techniques to enbeautify certain parts ofthe human body in exchange of pounds. A pound for flesh . The second wasfrom a college buddy asking for his date of birth with or without the year .Once entered , would make social life easy for the buddy . No checking out scrap-books ,neither sending complimentary mails. It would be automatically done ,year after year . Internet revolution made easy. Sham used the sameinstrument and forwarded it to all the people he knew or used to know. The next was a forward from his not-so-close ,long forgotten batchie, Suharsh .Subject was " Save me" and once opened , unfolded a long narrative about aTurkish widow who lost her only husband in an undiscovered infection of the heart called angina-pectoriosis . In addition , her son who happened to bea little younger than an infant , was been held captive by a herd of non-vegetarian cannibals. A lot of news report followed by a last line,which asked the mail to be forwarded to at least twenty-five people withintwenty-five hours from then, failing which would cause irreparable pneumenoultramicroscopicsilicoconiosis, an uncommon complication of thehuman lungs . Without any molecule of hesitation, Sham, left clicked onthe icon marked 'forward' and added all possible ids . A countin at the endto make sure that there were more than twenty four. There were,in all,two more than the required, but the mail never provided any upper cut-off so nothing to scratch head about. With a refreshingly senseless sense ofaccomplishment at getting saved from the dreaded forty-something-lettered desease, he kept the chain moving. Message sent.Days passed and it did not take long to realise that any little expectation that Sham had getting a job in the aforesaid multinational seemed to be crumbling down like the century old multi-storied dhabas in Bombay whose foundations disssolved in the floods ; resulting in the fourth floor replacing the ground floor amidst disarrayed concrete, asymmetrically broken bricks, and rusty wrought iron supports. 9/11 on a portable television.One fine day, the sun shone bright . Sham , with his updated copy of his resume which he had got it developed,compiled and manipulated by a body of professionals called resume experts,set off for another round of puffing,panting, and wall-punching .A few moments down the lane;the interview bay."Welcome Mr. Shaam..s.under .Pat.ha.bi..raman..Pill..ai..Myself Tom Harmisson any my colleague Dick Ashton..."And thus began another belly-crunching, nerve-tearing sequel of " Thelook for employement ." The meet of the toms , the dicks and the harrys ,cut; Shaam..s.under .Pat.ha.bi..raman..Pill..ai..s.