Page 3

The first few things that you notice after returning from a long trip away from home, are not the big, life-changing ones. They are little things, like how the curtains seem a little mildewed after their once brilliantine splendour, and the thin layer of dust on the old Compaq Presario (possibly out of sheer neglect in your absence), and how the venerable Times of India has changed.

From the stately black and white pages of yore, TOI has coloured somewhat - both literally and metaphorically. On a literal sense, the colours do jump at you from the pages. I don't have much to complain about that, that's progress, or so they say. But in an other sense, the pages are littered with journalism of a dirty yellow hue.

And an illuminating example of this is the Page 3 section.

I find that my filter-coffee-and-newspaper morning- my personal space - is invaded by arbitrary characters from a seemingly upper-class menagerie- by the Manoviraj Khoslas, the "Sweety and Friend"s, the Prasad Bidappas. All seem to share the same slightly dazed expression - a drunken stupor laced with a dash of self importance and contempt.

What are these characters doing occupying a good 3-4 pages of the colour supplement that I pay good money for?

Is it a change of the times that people like me are willing to pay to read about the personal drunken orgies of these upper class twits?

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On another note, I was watching Amol Palekar's interview on TV. The interviewer asked a question that I have often wondered about.

"You were the champion of the light hearted, middle-class comedies of the 80's. Where has that genre gone?"

His reply was somewhat startling. "That's a difficult question. But where has that middle class gone?"

Where indeed.