I have been an avid newspaper reader- more than news, features like crossword, sudoku and cartoon strips hook me on to this old ingrained habit.
During my long professional career, I have been posted at several Mofussil centres where national English dailies were either not available or available only at the railway book stall and that too stale copy of the previous day. Of course, e versions were unheard of.
Kota, where I was posted and which was situated on New Delhi- Mumbai railway line, offered unique opportunity. It offered both the major editions of Times of India – Delhi as well as Mumbai. I would always go for Mumbai edition for it was much thicker – 24 pages minimum, at times running into 38 pages and full of ads and entertainment.
The reason for this nostalgia is the resumption of newspapers delivery at home post unlocking of Covid lockdown. The newspaper barely runs into 16-18 pages, with two pages of Mumbai Times pinned along with main paper! A couple of weeks ago, popular tabloid Mumbai Mirror that used to come free with TOI was discontinued and made weekly sans all its chutzpah and syndicated columns. Not that Hindustan Times is doing any better!
Print media was already reeling under the assault of TV and OTT and with Covid, readership largely shifted to net, where there are free sites giving real time news throughout the day!
As far as reading books is concerned, I have switched over to kindle. However, I can’t think of starting my day without actually touching the daily copy of newspaper and solving crossword and puzzles using pen. If indeed these major newspapers decide to stop printing and switch exclusively to e editions, it will be the saddest day of my life.
Arvind Arya blog 
That morning feeling, with the news hard copy in hand & a cup of tea/coffee will always be something special….!!!
May the print media live long !!!!
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Yes; but I am glad that you being a youngster feel this way
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Respected Sir ,Liked this blog as I find as if I am following Your Goodself way of Life and if that is there , shall make me something.
One I too liked The Tribune crossword , which I used to read at a library and used to compare results on next day. In Haryana The Tribune fans are die hard lovers of its editorial Sat and Sunday supplements.
Another coincidence I was also Posted at Kota during 2004 , 05. I too observed TOI Delhi and Mumbai editions at same place.
These days I also read e edition but real joy was to read The Tribune Paper.
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My grandfather loved TOI, but my brother couldn’t do without HT. In Chandigarh it was Tribune and Kolkata had Statesman and Telegraph. Chennai always loved Hindu
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Sir, was great reading your blog on newspaper. As rightly said, the e-news cannot match the fun of reading the hard copy print. Specially the extras/supplements and the other columns.
Though these days I hardly read the hardcopy as at times soft copy seems more convenient, in my childhood days, being brought up in Gujarati family, we used to get the Gujarati Newspaper copy at home and it was fun reading the articles and other columns, solving puzzles, crosswords, etc. Infact, because there was no English newspaper being delivered at our home at that time, as a result I learnt to read Gujarati.
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Vernacular dailies were at times more popular than English
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