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I honestly think that the greatest achievement of my teenage life was learning to read the newspaper. Not the act of reading itself, but finally seeing the point. Eventually, understanding the benefit of losing ten minutes of sleep to read the headlines, or sleeping ten minutes late to finish reading the op-ed's. I now have a thirst for the catching up and staying in the loop, and a constant want to have a more informed and equipped perspective to life.

This account is my introduction to the newspaper and my journey from only ever touching the newspaper to cover textbooks, to waiting for its arrival every single morning.

It begins with my twelve year old self absolutely refusing to read even the local gossip column of the newspaper because that is how much I detested it. It was, to me then, a hurdle I had to jump in order to get my mother to do my hair. It was just a nuisance to my morning routine and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I first interacted with them because of my mother’s insistence to be more "aware". But even then, my reading was limited to the daily comic section and even that was only to appease my mother. At that point, newspapers had absolutely no place in my life, they did not influence my grades or my interaction with my peers.

However, one evening, during a dinner with family friends, I was listening to a conversation between my father and one of his friends. They were discussing the fiscal policy framework change after the takeover of the new administration. Never had I felt so lost as to what someone was saying, and I was about to dismiss the whole thing as a argument beyond my understanding when the hosts daughter, who was around my age, refuted to something my father said. She was correcting a fact he had cited. My father was quick to pull out his phone a double check. Sure enough, she was right!

When I gave her a queer look, she turned to me and said "What? It was in the newspaper today."

I think that moment was really catalytic for me. I loved discussions and arguments, but the ones between adults were not something I interfered with, and it was not because I did not want to enter their discussion, I was simply not equipped. Similar events followed. One of which was a general knowledge quiz hosted by my school. I did not know the answer to almost any question, and it was deeply troubling. During a discussion with my a teacher about the answer to one of the questions about the Reserve Bank of India's Governor, our teacher turned to us and said, ''How could you not know him? He's been in the news all week!"

So that weekend, I woke up in the morning, opened Times of India and did not flip to the comics section. I opened the first page and read the headlines.

'NaMo's new protectionism looks more like Nehru, less like China'

Who was NaMo? What is he protecting? And what does that have to do with India's first prime minister or China? Safe to say, I didn't understand a thing. But that was okay, because all I had to do was ask my father who broke the whole thing down for me and explained everything. Some of the topics were still a little confusing, especially those that were deeply economic, but other issues relating to geopolitics I understood.

Week by week I understood more and more of what the newspapers had to offer. I got excited every time news about the same issue turned up because I already knew what had happened. The discussions between my parents or their friends started to make sense, and I could suddenly relate what I had learned in social sciences to what I had read in the newspaper. I could talk to my parents about the news and though I still knew very little, these discussions were very gratifying because I could finally contribute to them.

Every day I learn a little more about the world that I live in. The type of people that live in the world and the sort of person I want to be among them. Sometimes it is pleasant and sometimes it is not, but it is always helpful in challenging and shaping my own views and opinions. It has developed this want of mine to just know more, and understand more, and look for more. I can proudly say that I genuinely like reading the newspaper.

Purvi 10A