CityLine! Nay, Citizens’ Life-line

By N R Pattarkine

‘The Hitavada CityLine’ now hits a headline. A vibrant topic sets itself for a discourse. A novel journalistic event, which completes its Silver Jubilee and smartly progresses on the path to its Golden Jubilee with a renewed vigour, the ‘innovation most satisfying’ as aptly described by the paper itself (December 2, 2022), cannot go unnoticed at least by its connoisseur readers. With its main pillars like ‘Prose’, ‘Footloose in Nagpur’, ‘Loud-Thinking’, and ‘Sunday Sojourn’, along with ‘Xplore’ and usual ‘Cinario’, CityLine has already become citizens’ ‘life-line’, with every morning a reader craving for it. As an avid reader of ‘The Hitavada’, I honestly congralute the success most vying of the entire team of the CityLine peeping through a grand group photograph and fervently wish that its smile will stay serene in the times to come. Now, it is the reader’s prerogative as a beneficiary to reciprocate this gesture of valuable labour, imagination, and thinking of this team toiling hard to ‘incarnate’ the ‘CityLine’. The reader’s response is inevitable.

Strange are the ways of journalism. The ever-changing world situations political, social, cultural, and otherwise; the soaring human aspirations in every department of human life, always make a journalist restless and his psyche then becomes eagar to capture those experiences and observations in word-images. His reaction to the situations gets a facelift in his writings and the columns like ‘Prose’, ‘Loud-Thinking’, ‘Footloose in Nagpur’, ‘Sunday Sojourn’ evolve. Sitting at his desk with a desktop by his side, a journalist with ideas crowded teemingly in his mind, struggling for expression, finds release when his fingers move on the keyboard and ultimately that gush gets a ‘local

habitation and a name’, and what emerges is ‘CityLine’. I salute to this restlessness of the journalists because it is most confiding and creative.

A discourse, therefore, about these columns now becomes a desideratum. A writer goes on writing with his usual flair, but while doing so, he sends ripples of reaction that, in turn, generate a greater domain for expression. This is how a stream of writings flows perennially. Totally permeated by this urge, I now take to write about these vibrant pillars of CityLine. ‘Loud-Thinking’ gives advice as well as imparts wisdom. It is educative and propelled by the urge of transformation among people on pragmatic and positive lines. The example of the emulating discipline in the behaviour of the Army officer can become an admirable topic for thinking aloud. The ‘loudthinker’ gives a confiding assurance that the life will change for the better if sports are given a great deal of importance in education. A good many habits are to be inculcated and an oft-spoken habit of ‘Early to bed early to rise’ mostly elicit from the mouth and generally wither away with the puff as the elders whom the younger generation follow in their footsteps themselves disturb the cycle. The loudthinker emphasises that maxim discussing its all contours and corners. Reading of books is becoming a fast-diminishing trend amongst youngsters, who take more to screen than to the pages. But, the experience with those who avidly read books is a pleasure beyond words. The personality of the reader always peeps through his readings, his thoughts are christened, his expression chiseled. It is the apt concern of the loudthinker as to why this wisdom does not dawn on many.

The ‘Loosefooter’ intends to bring home various issues of civic concern that beset the otherwise smoothe life of a city-dweller. Though the Loosefooter cannot mitigate the situation, he can surely stand to his commitment to the people as a journalist of this ‘Vox populi’. It is his candid conviction as he puts it: “The Hitavada has also kept doing its job most sincerely to bring to the public notice the faults and flaws in city’s development narratives. (November 3, 2022). The Loosefooter has a keen observation. At times, it strikes on an aesthetic note when he expresses his concern for preserving cultural heritage, maintaining ecological balance through an appeal for making arboreal canopy.

‘Sunday Sojourn’ marks a different vertical in its conception and execution. Setting a particular theme in motion by way of interview with a person engaged in that pursuit, inviting comments from the persons from different walks of life, and finally the CityLine member elaborating, discoursing the issue on its finer side, all these put together can be summed up as the beautiful face of ‘Sunday Sojourn’. It is a cherished stay with the topic, especially delectable is the parallel pondering by the staff in their own characteristic and inimitable style. The topics like health, photography, polite speech, mountain, castles, idiot-box, reading or festival may peripherally appear commonplaced but when they enter the domain of ‘Sunday Sojourn’ what wealth of thought it generates! How the area of expression is expanded, sometimes giving birth to the words like ‘Brighti-tude’ or playing pun on the word ‘Wor(l)d’, all these become a matter of joy. The side discourse ends up drawing a moral or a message rendering the columns more meaningful, really a pleasure with profit.

‘Prose’ is the most posing and imposing column handled by Shri Vijay Phanshikar. But here, he takes to the unusual heights not scaled by his other fortes namely ‘Loud-Thinking’ and ‘Footloose in Nagpur’. He has a liberty to be on the wings of poesie and what the connoisseur gets is a beautiful literary carving, a sculpture. His ‘Prose’ is a variegated poetry, encompassing vast domain of human experiences, emotions, thoughts reflected in the writings of poets, philosophers, texts ancient and modern. Words fail in euology and one remains silenced and overwhelmed while appreaciating the beauty and beatitude embedded in it.

Other verticals such as ‘Youth Zone’, ‘Cinario’ and ‘Xplore’ emphasise their own positions catering to the specialised tastes of the readers according to their age and inclination. Drawing to a close, one must irresistibly say that the Journalist and the Litterateur are of one ‘trait’ compact -- writing. While the Journalist is in a hurry to run with the time, the Litterateur has a poise to stop and look beyond it. They both dally with the language and romance with the words, craving for exactitude and elegance in expression. A journalist is not only a professional in journalism; he is also a creative writer as he is the one who interacts with the language first and the most. Journalism is the never-ending process of thinking and expression, and the journalist, like a spider webs his own net relentlessly, unmindful of his creativity he bequeaths to the world. Rephrasing the words from ‘Bhagavadgita’ in favour of a journalist, I may say: Ya Nisha Sarvabhutanam, Tasyam Jagarti Patrapanditah (While the rest of the world goes to (profound) sleep; the journalist stays awake (and active at his desktop).