Yellow Pages

I don’t know how many of you out here are journalists. Not the ones who smoke a beedi and wear an old unwashed piece of cotton dress.  I mean the normal ‘real’ journalists.. By which again I mean the one who writes all the cool Page-3 stuff. If you are that kind

Come one guys. What’s wrong with you all? You suffer from constipation or something?

For the record, I have stopped reading any paper other than Hindu or Financial Times. They are still not all stories of how fast Kangana Ranaut removed her undies in a movie. No we are not discussing that here, sorry. The others, especially TOI, are a sovereign socialist republican country for yellow journalism. There are close competitions to TOI.  Malayala Manorama from Kerala is the best. Oh! The tabloids from London got to learn so much from it. I will tell you why I think so. Once there was a suicide in Kerala (which is sad in its own way.) The police apparently forbade the paper from taking any pictures because Kerala police is very camera shy nowadays. One of their high ranking officials got trapped in an MMS scandal. He was caught washing a woman’s cloths. Nothing bad in that, of course! (oh! you feminists.) The problem was that, the lady turned out to be his neighbor. Washing dirty linen in public proved to be very costly for Kerala Police. So the next day when I opened the paper, what I saw really baffled me.  The news was front page. (Coup in Pak was in page 5, lower section. But I would say that actually deserved Page 11. I told you, it’s all yellow journalism.) On the front page, there was a big 8 column photo of a road, with people walking left and right wearing mundu. And a caption that read: “This is the road which he used to go to office”.  Now that was what I was looking for. This is what I missed in my life. Thanks Malayala Manorama. My day is so blessed. You complete me. To think so far sighted and to get that picture right in place, I tell you, is an art. Without that piece of information how could have world moved on? Especially the oil prices and stock market. By the way, anything and everything affect oil prices. It’s also because Kerala has the maximum population among all Gulf States. After Kerala, second is Saudi Arabia followed by . Saudi didn’t get to be the first because they keep cutting the private parts of their men on a rotation basis. I hear it’s a national festival there. Kerala doesn't do that. We have hartals and bandhs instead. Also we are fully literate. So we let our men roam freely. Oh yes, It’s all safe.

Another heading that I clearly remember was a humongous “BRA”. I got all excited thinking they are writing about streaking in Kerala or publishing an information bank on lingerie models (There are so many other things about that word but I refrain from mentioning those!). I love progressive modern countries when it comes to this. But it turned out that it is not BRA actually but Brazil. Apparently the previous day Brazil won the football world cup. What the… They could have at least shown a Brazilian chic in a Bra. It’s not very difficult to find one either. Come to think of it, I think that’s how the country got its name. They wait for a chance to throw off their clothes and will easily give Salman ‘The Blackbuck’ Khan a run for his money any day. That photo would have at least made some sense. They can use the girl’s photo at a certain zoom and angle and write ‘ZIL’ next to it.

This was all till yesterday, when I didn't know a thing. Now I am all grown up. I have changed. I see what they were trying to tell me. There is no yellow journalism. There is only one color. Yes. You said it. Yellow. Yesterday I was reading BBC. There was a news article which said ‘Missing girl found’. I thought it is the girl who was murdered in Goa. I opened it up and then realized that it’s in UK and not in the safest tourist haven, Goa. In UK, a little girl had gone to play outside and her parents got freaked out. Since UK police has nothing better to do (other than be a butler to Prince William) they tried to catch the little girl. Something similar to our own Chor Pulice. But the girl proved to be a tad bit smarter for the Scotland Yard. She successfully hid for 3 weeks behind a desk until third day when she forgot they were supposed to be playing and came out asking mama for milk. They have caught a guy who offered her water instead of milk. Apparently that’s a crime in UK. Now that’s not the end of it. BBC had given a detailed road map of that area. The county, Great Britain along with Irish mainland and Europe. Notes read: This is where she was last seen playing, this is where she was found, this is where the reporter made-out with the neighbor, this is where Queen of England #####, The English Channel and a big circular area down south with Theory Henry sucks written across it. By now I was speechless but I managed a ‘WHAT THE FCUK!’

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