Prescription: A daily dose of news

Grandpa was sick and tired of the heat and dust raised by the TV channels at prime time. He would barely listen to the cacophony on one channel before moving on to the next. Apparently, he found them all abhorrent. The bare news was even more acrid. Endless channel surfing provided no relief.

The Ukraine war had piqued his interest when it first broke out. He kept up with the latest war news on as many channels as he could find. He compared the ground reports of war correspondents from all indigenous TV channels that were resourceful enough to place their gritty correspondents in the war zone. He was thrilled to watch the courageous correspondents continue to speak unperturbed while shells exploded all around them and an occasional rocket sailed past their heads. He was particularly fond of female correspondents.

He had expected the war to end within a week, but as it dragged on endlessly, he was as surprised as perhaps Mr. Putin himself. Gradually, his interest wore off, and he was quite disgusted with the war and the bloodshed and gore that filled the TV screens. But he didn't give up watching TV.

The spiralling prices of crude oil in the international market piqued his interest next, and he started tracking them, recording the escalating prices of Brent crude and oil futures. After comparing crude oil prices around the world, he moved on to petrol prices around India, much to my grandmother's chagrin. She found it particularly annoying when he blurted out petrol prices in such remote corners of India that he had neither visited nor could visit anytime soon.

Next to intrigue him was the health of the Indian rupee against the US dollar. He surfed all business channels and sleep-talked about Bloomberg while tossing in bed at night.

His unease knew no bounds when crimes of hate in the wake of religious acrimony began hogging the limelight. From serious concern about the world, he became extremely concerned about his own country's problems. He was distraught as soon as he picked up the daily newspaper, but continued to move shakily from banner headlines about bloody religious riots to local news about deadly road rage.

His anxiety increased throughout the day, peaking during prime time on TV. Grandma had had enough. It was time for Grandma, who usually puts up with all his whims, to step in. She firmly put a stop to all media with immediate effect. Grandpa had no choice but to surrender.

He soon became very quiet and withdrawn. With no newspapers to wake him up, he slept till noon. He went into a deep depression. He was just not himself, and psychiatric help was sought. The doctor, after a detailed inquiry, finally found the malady. The prescription was a daily dose of prime time and newspapers.

It worked!