Je-June
Headlining in newspapers is always a headache. In my two short forays into journalism, I have seen veteran journalists (a veteran is a person who doesn't quite possess the panache of a vintage) scratching their heads for their everyday quota of epiphanies. Instead, what comes out is dandruff. Okay, was that too unkind? May be, or may be its too generous given that most veterans don’t have the requisite hair for dandruff.
The reason I am writing on headlines is because I have nothing else to write about. Also, I have observed a habit among journalists that’s been in play for some time. The use of famous book titles as headlines for articles. “The reluctant songwriter” is a very nicely written piece in this week’s Open magazine about Amitabh Bhattacharya, the lyricist of movies like Dev D, Udaan and the soon to be released Delhi Belly. The title is of course inspired from Mohsin Hamid’s book, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Some of the other books whose titles have extensively been used as headlines could be “Maximum City,” “Midnight’s Children,” “The God of small things,” “A Suitable Boy,” “The Hungry Tide.” Can you add a few more to this list?
Perhaps, the reason why anyself-respecting egotistical journalist would borrow such titles is because these books are all FAMOUS. People know them and their writers. So anything about Mumbai has the word Maximum appended to it. Anything to with India will have the word Midnight in it. And when the Tsunami struck, “The Hungry Tide” swamped our newspaper pages. The dreaded phenomenon of the word brand rears its head.
I am not really a big fan of this practice, unless there is some clever wordsmithing that fits the context intelligently, rather than a forced and lazy attempt to appropriate others’ works. One such example would be the TOI headline when the Indian cricket team exited the 2007 World Cup in the early stages. “Sitaare Zameen Par.”
But of course I will take such headlines over “TONDULKAR” or “ENDULKAR” which are “suitable” only for trashy tabloids.
The reason I am writing on headlines is because I have nothing else to write about. Also, I have observed a habit among journalists that’s been in play for some time. The use of famous book titles as headlines for articles. “The reluctant songwriter” is a very nicely written piece in this week’s Open magazine about Amitabh Bhattacharya, the lyricist of movies like Dev D, Udaan and the soon to be released Delhi Belly. The title is of course inspired from Mohsin Hamid’s book, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Some of the other books whose titles have extensively been used as headlines could be “Maximum City,” “Midnight’s Children,” “The God of small things,” “A Suitable Boy,” “The Hungry Tide.” Can you add a few more to this list?
Perhaps, the reason why any
I am not really a big fan of this practice, unless there is some clever wordsmithing that fits the context intelligently, rather than a forced and lazy attempt to appropriate others’ works. One such example would be the TOI headline when the Indian cricket team exited the 2007 World Cup in the early stages. “Sitaare Zameen Par.”
But of course I will take such headlines over “TONDULKAR” or “ENDULKAR” which are “suitable” only for trashy tabloids.
Comments
Post a Comment