Dreaming of Zihuatanejo

I don't watch the news in this country. The closest I get to the news is 'The Daily Show'. Being an old-fashioned person, I continue to rely on the newspaper. My concession to technology - reading the newspaper on the internet.

A couple of nights ago, I watched the news inadvertently (the TV was on, and I was too lazy to hunt for the remote), and am still recovering from the trauma. Don't remember the network involved (with names like KWFA or KDFI or WXPGA, who does?) - one of the stories was about Fire Fighters 'rescuing' a bunch of ducklings. Mama duck was out strolling, with the ducklings in tow, when out of nowhere, an open drain appeared! Mama duck, being an old hand at dealing with open drains & other perils in the DFW area, neatly stepped aside. Poor ducklings, understandably still a little wet behind the ears (question - do ducks have ears?), did not. And to cut a long story short, their day ended happily. No, we do not know if their adventures included getting a ride in a big red fire truck.

A heart-warming story by any standards. Why am I being such a curmudgeon? Call it thwarted ambition. When I was a wee babe who knew nothing other than DoorDarshan and the 'news' they offered - I used to hate the news. It was always a time that Dad got the TV, and I was supposed to keep shut (an excruciatingly difficult task, as my usually two-ticks-above-being-declared-vegetative mind would be bursting with views to share the minute the news started.)

The only bits of the news I found interesting were those clips of the Prime Minister wearing yet another silly hat on a visit to yet another remote part of the country, in his/ her attempt to win the tribal vote. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Rao, even the rather serious VP Sigh - no one was spared. I tried to imagine Manmohan Singh doing a tribal dance, and failed. Not willing to admit defeat, I tried to imagine him in a many hued hat made mostly of feathers. Failed again. The smart man wears a turban.

But I digress. Most of the news was filled with stuff that went way over my head - RBI increasing or decreasing interest rates, the Commerce Minister talking about trade deficits, the Union Budget, cricket... Thanks to 6 months of economics (only 3 of which count, as the other 3 were spent under mad, bad Dr. P whose insistence on certain new fangled instruction methodologies left 99% of my class, myself included, all at sea), I can at least pretend to understand the intricacies of Macroeconomic policy. (Cricket still goes over my head, but so do basketball, golf, American football, ice hockey and a vast number of other sports. I have long since stopped caring.)

All I want to do is watch the news and nod my head sagely a few times every other minute or so. A relatively modest ambition, I used to think. And what do I get? Ducklings! Just how am I supposed to feel grown up if by the time I do grow up, the news dumbs down? Do they have archives of old DD broadcasts? If so, where can I get them?

# posted by DoZ @ Thursday, June 30, 2005