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Since the time Vijay Shekhar was 12 years old, he read thenewspaper religiously every morning, and like many children hisage, he did not really understand what he was reading. On May 22,1991, when newspapers announced that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated,17-year-old Vijay decided to keep a copy of the day's paper for thefirst time. "I was shaken," he says. Since the last 21 years, hesays he has collected over 250 news clippings of what he considered"breaking news", one among which is ‘as old asfree India'. "The first copy I collected was the May 22, 1991copy of the Hindi newspaper "Awaaz" because TheStatesman only had a Calcutta edition then, which reachedJamshedpur in the afternoon," says Vijay who lived inJamshedpur back then. While delicately laying out the brittle page which reads,‘Rajiv Gandhi killed in blast', he has an epiphany."When I look back at all the newspaper clippings I havecollected, I notice how almost 60 per cent of the clippingsannounce sad events like death and killings and only 40 per centare about cheerful events like cricket victories," he saysdefining what he considers "happy" and"sad". The headlines of various newspapers that span two decades, readsomewhat like this — ‘Giani Zail Singh is dead',‘Moraji Desai passes away', ‘275 die in train collisionat Ferozabad', ‘Milk drinking idol creates country-widefrenzy', ‘Kalam rockets into presidential orbit', ‘ITSWAR ON MUMBAI' and ‘Bye, bye small change', among manyothers. Filing newspaper clippings one after another in black and blueplastic folders, is perhaps, his way of arranging history, ofbinding together disparate events which he has been witness to. Hewants his hobby to help him look back at these clippings, and say,"So this is how it happened". While there are glaring omissions to his collection, like thedemolition of the Babri Masjid, and the appointment of thecountry's first woman president, among many others, he has notmissed a single eclipse. "Either these events did not move meor I did not think they were consequential," he says aboutthe omissions. "Some of the omissions I regret making,"he adds. His most ‘prized possession' however, is the original August15, 1947 issue of The Statesman, which he got from the editor C.R.Irani after writing several letters and making several visits tothe office in Calcutta. "During the Calcutta Book Fair in2003, The Statesman came out with a booklet called ‘pagesfrom the past' which was a compilation of important front pages. Itstruck me that if I tried hard, I could get the original copy ofthe Independence Day issue. I tried for close to three months andwas given the Delhi edition of their August 15, 1947 issue,"he says admiring the copy that has a du Maurier advertisement onthe right hand side that reads, ‘There'll never be a bettercigarette'. "I love telling people that I have a paper thatis as old as free India," he says. He has also preserved newspapers that came out on January 1, 2000and January 1, 2001. "There was some confusion about when themillennium began, so to be on the safer side, I've keptboth," he says with a strange sense of delight. Having livedin many cities, he collected clippings from whichever newspapers heread at that time. "A newspaper is something that comes toevery home. When you store a clipping that everyone will eventuallyforget about, you are preserving history," he says. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Epson Laser Printer Toner Cartridge , Lexmark Printer Toner Cartridges for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Samsung Laser Printer Toner Cartridge.
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