Old Lady of Boribunder – The enduring 175 old brand – Times of India

 

“Who is the old lady of Boribunder?” This has been one of my favorite quiz questions. The answer which most people fail to give is – It is the “Times of India”. TOI as it is popularly called is celebrating its 175 years of existence as a brand.  

In a era where brands come and go it is very hearty to see a brand that too from the media celebrating 175 years. Times of India was launched as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce in 1838.

It was the same year in which Queen Victoria — later proclaimed Empress of India — was formally crowned, and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, who’s "Vande Mataram" became the rallying cry for freedom from the Raj, was born.

TOI has grown from a single edition of a few thousand copies to some 50 editions with a circulation of close to five million — the largest in the world for any English newspaper. This speaks of TOI’s ability to judge and adapt to the ever-changing mood of the chaotic, contradictory and creative country, India.

Which big brand in India (and how many globally) can claim to have been around 175 years ago and grown the way the same way as The Times of India? The secret, TOI claims lies in being contemporary and relevant.  The "Old Lady of Boribunder" remains young at heart, nimble on her feet, and razor-sharp.  

One another brand that has become popular the same way as TOI has been the common man Cartoon drawn by R. K. Laxman the brother of the world famous R. K. Narayanan in the Times of India. The common man of TOI started by Laxman has become a cultural icon and in many ways represents the travails and the problems faced by the real common man of India.

 

News readers and their funny pronunciation - Case for correct Communication

News readers have a important role to perform. They have to read the news, create interest in the viewers and at the same time appear to be empathetic. Many a time news readers make mistakes which are absolute howlers.

Many of the north Indian news readers get the south Indian state names all muddled up. They call Kerala as Keral, Tamil Nadu as Tamil Nad and Karnataka as Karnatak. This jars the South Indians . North Indian News readers find the word Tiruvananthapuram difficult to pronounce. Their struggle are painful to see and hear.

Some times their pronunciation of even national level leaders is puzzling. They get the name of P.V.Narasimha Rao wrong and call him Narsing Rao. They end up calling Kurnool as CURNOOL. In Andhra Pradesh Kurnool is spelled as KARNUL. Same way they call Cuddapah as CUDDAPAH where as the local people call it Kadapa. They call Ongole as on-gole but in Andhra Pradesh it is pronounced as Ong-goal.

Laxshmi becomes Laxmi and Rajender becomes Rajinder. Chandigarh becomes Chandigad. When pronouncing names from a different region one needs to be careful. Same  is the case with Bengalis. They call computer as cumputer and customer as kustomer and shoe becomes su. Very  puzzling.

A south Indian was working in Kolkata, Bengal. His neighbor had called him one day for Bhojan (dinner). The south Indian was excited,. Being the foodie, he was exited as Bengali food is tasty and has mouth watering fish curries.

He eagerly goes to his neighbor’s house in the evening. He finds all his other neighbors also there. They were sitting on the floor and chanting hymns and prayers. This  goes on for two hours. The  south Indian was getting frantic. His stomach was grumbling, But he sits and waits. May be the Bhojan will be served after  the prayers!. But to his dismay small amount of Prasad is served. All his neighbors were going home. Hurt and terribly hungry he looks at his host. His host folds his hands and says “ Thank you very much for coming to our  house at attend the Bhojan”. The reality hits the South Indian hard, His neighbor meant “Bhajan- praying and singing and not Bhojan - eating”.   

Media - really too much!

The media especially television media has become very obstructive and in the face. Even though one can understand the plight of the television channels and their management the antics of the TV channels are becoming too much to bear. I remember the television channels goading a man who was threatening to commit suicide to do it as soon as possible. The stringers finally persuaded the man to pour kerosene on himself and gleefully filmed the same. The poor man was consumed by fire and died.

What was the role of TV in the above incident? Don’t the media have a responsibility in stopping the suicide and informing the police about the same? The media and the sensation mongers seem to be feeding on each other like parasites. The media has no self control nor follows any censoring. The media follows the crime scenes like a peeping TOM. It shows the death scenes very graphically and shows dead bodies and people hanging from ceiling fans. All gut wrenching scenes.

But that is not the end. The crime scenes are packaged and they are dramatically presented in the crime series that are aired every night. These nicely packaged and edited crime specials (some of them even have re enaction of the crime scenes with models acting as roles of the victims and the perpetuators of the crime) are very popular. The channels owners say that they are fulfilling their social responsibility role but are they not glamorizing the crimes! Blood and gore has become so common that children have become desensitized and are becoming apathetic towards crime, blood and violence. It is just another TV news item for them.

We can learn so much from the coverage of CNN and BBC. CNN covered the entire September 11th attack on the twin towers without even showing one dead body. Same is the case with BBC which covered the London bombing without showing blood and gore. The Indian media should remember that so that of blood and gore can be revolting. The black and white picture of the small girl who is about to be buried and her father gently wiping of the dust off her face brings all the horrors and the trauma of the Bhopal gas tragedy flooding to the mind. And to think that Bhopal gas tragedy is 25 years old! There was no hounding media presence at that time. Thank god for small mercies in life.

The media sensationalizes even the most trivial of the incidents. A man keeping more than 40 dogs in the compound or a film star celebrating his 54 birthday is treated as more news worthy than all the deaths of the farmers in rural India. It is indeed sad to note that no major media house has done a in-depth analysis on the farmers' suicides in India. A sorry state of affairs. The media should realize that it has a great responsibility and that it should not confine itself to the narrow band of customers that it thinks represents India – the urban middle class Indians.