A survey on newspaper readership habits in Chennai was recently conducted by Barbara Brehm, a media and business management student from Germany, in four leading colleges in the city. It revealed that 95 per cent of students read a newspaper – 39% several times a week, 36% daily, 17% once a week, and 3% several times a month. While 64% spent 15-30 minutes reading a newspaper, 29% spent less than 15 minutes, and only 7% spent more than 30 minutes and upto an hour on a paper. So, 93% of the girls surveyed spend less than 30 minutes reading a paper. The majority (78%), though, subscribe to a newspaper.

Lack of time was cited as the major reason for not reading a newspaper – 59% said so. Other views expressed were that a newspaper is not attractive enough and that you cannot do anything else while reading it, unlike while watching television or listening to radio. Eightyone per cent of the ­students read a newspaper to get news as well as background ­information; 7% read it only for news, and 12% for background information. Headlines and ­pictures in a newspaper draw the most attention, the students said.

The survey revealed that television is their main source for news – 46% of the students surveyed rely on this medium for news. Only 28% depend on newspapers for news and information and 13% rely on the Internet. Magazines, mobile services and radio find less favour.

Interest in different kinds of stories is almost evenly spread. While 19% of the girls liked to read stories about women, 18% showed preference for sport, and 17% for celebrities. Politics was chosen by 14%, economics by 11% and science by 10%. Ninety per cent of those surveyed considered local news important or very important.

What media suited their personal lifestyle best? The majority (more than 35%) plumped for television, 20% found newspapers more attractive than the Internet (17%), and 5% opted for mobile and radio. Why TV? Well, a TV set is easily accessible, news is fast and gets updated regularly, it is entertaining, easy and convenient, and you can do other things as well.

Reasons trotted out for preferring newspapers were that they are reliable and can be read any time. Newspapers are cheap and portable and provide detailed and accurate information. Newspapers do not sensationa­lise much, they help improve language and communication skills and, after all, reading a newspaper early in the morning is a habit.

Overall, 98% of those interviewed said that newspapers meet young people's needs – 47% felt that their needs are partly met.

Would reading habits change in the next five years? Sixtytwo per cent of the girls felt that due to technical developments people will prefer other media such as the Internet; 17% said that habits will not change because newspapers are the most reliable source of information and reading a newspaper is a habit for almost everyone, while 13% felt that as literacy increased many more people will read the newspaper. Only 10% said that people will not have time to read newspapers due to busy lifestyles. (Courtesy: IFRA India News­letter)

Note: For the survey with 59 students from Ethiraj College, JBAS College for Women, Stella Maris College and Women's Christian College, they were given questionnaires and interviewed. The average age was 20.2 years.

On the train again

Ghost Train To The Eastern Star
– Paul Theroux (Hamish Hamilton, Rs. 550)

Paul Theroux loves trains. Read his latest account of a train journey which he first undertook nearly 30 years ago and you'll understand. A riveting account of countries, this book from one of the great travel writers of our time, takes a look at various countries, their cultures and their peoples.

Hopping on to Eurostar from London, Theroux sets out on a 25,000-mile trip through Europe, Central Asia, India, Japan, China and Siberia. This sequel-of-sorts to The Great Railway Bazaar is full of evocative, funny and poignant stories and chronicles the changes that have shaped the landscape of each of these nations. In the three decades since his first trip, the world he recorded has seen dramatic transformation. The Soviet Union has ceased to exist, China is another superpower and India is the next big thing while Burma continues to be bogged with political turmoil.

Theroux's odyssey takes him from Eastern Europe, still hung over from commu nism, through Turkey to Georgia, which is reverting to feudalism while its neighbour Azerbaijan revels in oil-fuelled capitalism. Theroux witnesses it all, travelling by trains, rickety buses, taxis and, at times, on foot – encountering adventures of different kinds, from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad).

What makes the book a great read is his eye for detail and his ability to arouse the reader's curiosity. Like one of the reviews said, "He never fails to inspire, enlighten, inform and entertain. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is Paul Theroux at his very best."

* * *

A journey with music

The Score of My Life
– Zubin Mehta (Roli Books, Rs. 395)

There are some poeple who make news no matter what they do. And there are some people who make news for their achievements. Zubin Mehta belongs to the latter group. The illustrious conductor, who is a name to reckon with in the world of Western classical music, tries to bare his heart and soul in his autobiography The Score of My Life.

Like most memoirs, this one too has Mehta talking about his first 18 formative years in Bombay, watching his musical-minded father Mehli Mehta make a living playing in orchestras. His mother was a strong-willed yet soft-spoken woman and her influence on young Mehta was quite deep. It was his happy childhood that stood him in good stead in later years, he states.

The book is, by and large, a chronicle of Mehta's journey which begins after he abandons a medical degree in Bombay to travel to Vienna to study music. The pages are filled with his experiences in the city of Mozart and Beethoven, his exceptionally gifted teachers, his first glimpse of the legendary Her bert Von Karajan, and his deep friendship with musicians like Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Itzhak Perl man and Pinchas Zuker man.

How he landed his first job as a conductor, his stint with the cream of orches tras – such as the New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and Vienna – and his lifelong association with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra are all recorded in detail.

He is candid when he admits to his extra-marital affairs and children out of wedlock, and how they affected his relationship with the love of his life, Nancy. In a smart move, he has allowed his wife to tell the story of how they met. But Nancy does not comment about her feelings when she discovered her famous husband had cheated on her. Well, you get as much as you read.

Anyway, the book, a translation from the German, throws more light on Mehta, the conductor, rather than the man and what makes him tick. But a gripping read for those who love auto­biographies in general and Zubin Mehta in particular.

Chennai is a reasonably 'greened' city, especially in its southern parts where a persistent chatter you can hear at times from the tree canopy is attributed to the three-striped palm squirrel (Funambulus palmarum). Chennaiites have no problem in identifying the animal since it is diurnal and it calls attention to itself by its characteristic 'sqibberish' or 'squirrel gibberish'. Along with crows, pigeons and mynas, this chatterer is among the more noticeable tree-living beings around. Fortunately, unlike crows, it does not seem to multiply, but maintains a sustainable population, as it were. Most often, it comes to eat the cooked rice that is ritually put out by housewives every day – sometimes in competition with the house crows but more often after the bounders have left. In the countryside, it is often associated with the palmyra palm and, hence, its Latin name.

The squirrel is the very epitome of agility. Watching the subject for a while, you will find it a most sprightly animal full of joie de vivre.

"Come and trip it as you go,

On the light fantastic toe"

are the lines that come to mind.

In Southern India, especially in the drier locations of Karnataka and Andhra, there is a related species, the five-striped palm squirrel. In this species, the light bands on the back are two more in number than what the commoner species has. Even among the three-striped squirrel, those in the Western Ghats are darker and have a bit of rufous to the head and body.

Apart from those handouts of cooked rice, the palm squirrel seems to eat anything edible, which includes ants, termites and ground beetles as well as vegetarian fare like flowers, fruits or seeds. In our apartment complex, we have several trees, including the yellow cassia (Cassia siamea) and African tulip (Spathodea campanulata), and the seeds of these trees are relished by the squirrel (Picture shows the palm squirrel on a tulip tree). Each and every seed in the pods of the cassia tree is eaten and it is no wonder that the tree doesn't seem to spread. On the contrary, the profuse production of seeds by the African tulip tree results in the saplings of this tree sprouting in our grounds in spite of the heavy seed depredation by the squirrels.

The palm squirrel is really a most charming component of urban wildlife. Pairs not only indulge in chasing one another but also play hide and seek. Noticing you strolling in their direction, a squirrel quickly climbs the nearest tree and, from a safe height, peers at you from behind the trunk. If you approach closer, it climbs higher or jumps to a nearby tree or bough and peeks from around. It plays this game even with the crow. A squirrel initiates the game by approaching a crow and makes a mock charge. The crow is unsettled and chases the squirrel, which runs and hides behind a tree trunk and peeks back. The crow is tempted to go around when the squirrel again puts the tree trunk in-between. A game gets started and may go on for some time before ennui or a disturbance, usually in the form of a human appearing, putting an end to it. Sometimes 'the catch me if you can game has a sad ending and I have seen crows eating dead squirrels.

Squibberish is indulged in when male squirrels are holding territories during breeding. ­Intruding male contenders are chased away and a chatter is kept up to determine the boss of the place. Perhaps, the ­female chooses the male
which has the most sustainable ­chatter. Short calls are uttered when a predator like the shikra, a raptor quite adept at catch­ing squirrels, is sighted. The ­ulti­­mate expression of excitement is when the squirrel sees a snake. At this time, along
with mynas and babblers, squirrels pitch in with maximum noise, hurling invectives at the predator. This may be more to boost their own self-confidence or to warn others, rather than to scare the snake which cannot hear anyway. It is a sight to see the squirrel screaming for all its worth with its arched bushy tail moving back and forth. Cats and owls also get this unwel­coming attention. If a cat is caught creeping on them, the squirrels create such a racket that the marauder, now detected, pauses to stare at the screaming crowd and makes a rather slow getaway barely maintaining his dignity.

Squirrels usually have many nests at the same time. Some may be used as resting places rather than for breeding. Nests are made from an assortment of dry roots and fibres. Many nests of the same squirrel can be found on a small tree or the outside of an unused bathroom window or below the aircondi­tioner projecting from a building. Squirrels resort to this practice as, if only one nest is used, they are more liable to be caught by their enemies, the shikra hawk or snakes, on trees in the open or, nearer human habitation, the domestic cat. Young ones of the squirrel are born blind and hairless and are quite helpless. It is not unusual to see a baby squirrel having fallen out of a nest, squealing while getting bitten by ants. Baby squirrels can be fed diluted milk and, if care is shown, become very affectionate pets. However, great care has to be taken to protect them from the local cats.

Squirrels are captured and killed for the hair on their tails from which paint brushes are made. Narikoravas kill and stuff them along with a raised-hood cobra body wound round it and sell it as a curio even though, thankfully, such a sight is becoming uncommon these days. Palm squirrels can become a nuisance in cardamom and cocoa plantations, where there is plenty for them to eat and multiply. Fortunately, in the city, they seem to be maintaining a sustaining population. How I wish it were so for crows and humans!

I suffer from a chronic ailment, a form of violent allergy. It has been troubling me for the past two decades. The Macmillan Guide to Family Health, which has been my bible for any diagnosis, unfortunately, does not list this ailment, providing me no solace. I have over the years coined a term for my condition: cricketitis!

In a sense, my allergy probably started when I made a perfect match in life due to cricket. That was 55 years ago, when I got married. My brother (who later became the Sports Editor of a well-known newspaper) was a good friend of the man I married, and the common bond between them was their love for the game.

Allergies it is said can start at any time. I know that as a young girl I too was quite interested in cricket and I used to thrill to the golden voice of Talyarkhan over the radio: "He's coming up to bowl," and after a pause "He's bowled!" and so on. Although there were no visuals, his commentary made you "see" the game.

But what's happened to all that interest of mine in cricket today? What's gone wrong? Has my appetite been killed by a surfeit of the game? Yes, I think it has. If there is a Test match these days, the TV sports channels are switched on. For five days the TV commentator goes on non-stop. First the condition of the pitch is described as damp or dry and there are predictions made about the decision the captain who wins the toss will take, about whether his team will bat or bowl first. When the game begins, it gets no better. The commentator goes on to describe every ball, every hit, every miss. And every shot is replayed from different angles, and you are bombarded with many details: the bowling spin, the speed, the angle, and even how the ball is held (or should have been) between the fingers!

And if you think you've had enough by the end of the day's play, you are mistaken. What follows at night are cricket highlights, and you are back to watching cricket again!

I thought it was a brilliant idea when Packer introduced the 50-50 overs match. Later, with the Twenty Overs match, I thought that Test cricket was on its way out. But there was no such luck. We play all three! Votaries of Test cricket swear that there is a style in which strokes are played in the game. Enthusiasts of one-day cricket are thrilled by the action-packed play with boundaries and sixes, with a definite conclusion at the end of the day. But for me this only means more and more cricket, TV and a worsening of my allergy.

It's cricket all the year round, with the Buchi Babu Memorial trophy, the Ranji trophy, the IPL, the ICL…Is there anyone out there who can help me?

It is the year 2020. Call-centres are opening all over the West, as the new economic power India outsources work to the countries where many jobs once originated. Millions of Americans, still struggling to adapt to a global economy, are willing to accept jobs that pay them in a new currency sweeping much of the world: EuRupees.

Some of them, eager to land one of the customer service jobs from India, are attending special training sessions in New York City, led by language specialist Dave Ramsey, who goes by a simpler name for his Indian ­clients: Devendra Ramaswami­nathan.

On this warm afternoon, the professor is teaching three ambitious students how to communicate with Indian customers.

Professor: Okay, Gary, Randy and Jane, first we need to give you Indian names. Gary, from now on you'll be known to your customers as Gaurav. Randy, you'll be Ranjit. And Jane, you'll be Jagadamba. Now imagine you have just received a call from Delhi. What do you say?

Gary: Name as tea?

Professor: I think you mean namaste. Very good. But what do you say after that?

Gary: How can I help you?

Professor: You're on the right track. Anyone else?

Jane: How can I be helping you?

Professor: Good try! You're using the correct tense, but it's not quite right. Anyone else?

Randy: How I can be helping you?

Professor: Wonderful! Word order is very important. Okay, let's try some small talk. Give me a comment that would help you make a connection with your Indian customers.

Randy: It's really hot, isn't it?

Professor: The heat is always a good topic, but you haven't phrased it correctly. Try again.

Randy: It's deadly hot, isn't it?

Professor: That's better. But your tag question can be greatly improved.

Randy: It's deadly hot, no?

Professor: Wonderful! You can put 'no?' at the end of almost any statement. You are understanding me, no?

Jane: Yes, we are understanding you, no?

Professor (smiles): We may need to review this later. But let's move on to other things. Have you ever heard Indians use the word yaar?

Randy: Yes, my Indian friends use it all the time. Just last night, one of them said to me, 'Randy, give me yaar password. I am needing it to fix yaar computer.'

Professor (laughs): That's a different 'yaar,' yaar. The 'yaar' that I'm talking about means friend or buddy. You can use it if you've developed a camaraderie with a customer. For example, you can say, 'Come on, yaar. I am offering you the best deal.' Do you understand, Jagadamba?

Jane: Yaar, I do.

Professor (smiles): Okay, let's talk about accents. If your client says I yam wery vorried about vat I bought for my vife, how would you respond?

Randy: Please don't be vorrying, yaar. She vill be wery happy and vill give you a vild time tonight.

Professor: Vunderful! I mean, wonderful. You have a bright future, Ranjit. And so do you, Jagadamba. But Gau­rav, you haven't said anything in a while. Do you have any questions about what we've just learned?

Gary: Yes, Professor, I do have one question: Wouldn't it be simpler to learn to speak Hindi?