And so it came to pass that in addition to being a freelance writer, bunging in a skit here and an anecdote there, I had to wear the mantle of a news editor. The newscaster was going to be Priya, my 11-year-old daughter, a student of Holy Angels in Madras.
The headmistress, a wispy nun had bidden me through my daughter, to groom her as a newsreader. Every day, she had to read the news of the day in the assembly before hundreds of girls.
Her love for books and vocabulary were commendable for her age. Even if it were a Russian book crossing 1,000 pages, she would read without yawning. Her pronunciation was impeccable. Once she corrected her science teacher, who mispronounced the word ‘coccyx’. She had the tailbone, and more importantly, the nerve. Priya’s voice was (and even now ) booming with bell-like clarity, ideal for a news reader; the only thing found wanting was height. She had to stand on a footstool to be high enough to face the mic.
But the news? The headmistress’ confidence in me to deliver the goods, rather the news, fit for pre-adolescent girls was touching. And so, I had to wrack my brains, while scanning through the morning papers to select, edit and curate the news that would be fit for them. The task was challenging, as I had to encapsulate the news I was going to disseminate, in a catchy headline, followed by a short elaboration, to be done in limited vocabulary. Variety being the spice of life, I included science, technology, sports, and wherever possible, bits picked up from ‘Box Matters’ that would make the girls chuckle.
Nevertheless, my daughter became a hit. Her seniors would ask her, “What news, ducky?” whenever they ran into each other in the tuck shop. Against my fond hope that she would shape into a news reader in Doordarshan, she chose to study computer science at BITS Pilani and is now a successful software engineer in the US. That her news reading stint stood the test of time was proved when she was identified by a woman with a kid at New York Penn Station. “Hey, I was at school with you. Forgotten your name. But aren’t you the Holy Angels news reader?”
J S raghavan
Email: jsraghavan@gmail.com