On the Brighter Side...

Newspaper reading has always been like a morning ritual for me; a hot cup of tea with any newspaper was the perfect recipe for a bright day. However, for past few years, this exercise leaves me more disillusioned than energetic. More often than not, the front-page stories are about terrorist attacks, accidents, natural disasters and scandals of various nature (political, economic, sovereign, sometimes just plain inhuman). As a means to overcome the huge negativity, I often pick-up the more glamorous 'Mumbai Mirror' which is full of useless entertainment gossip. So, two things have changed -

1. My morning reading time has doubled and

2. Even at the end of the entire 'feel-good' ritual, am left more saddened.

Things have reached such a stage where, I have begun to skip articles just looking at the headlines. The headlines itself make me go sick and I decide it’s not worth going through the article. The same is true for most of the TV news channels and traditional media on the internet.

Some might say that the news is just a reflection of our current times and that we shouldn’t be running away from it. It is informative and prepares us for the everyday evils. True, but I also believe that journalism has the power to impress and bring about a change. Now, can we not tilt a bit more on the positive side of things? Can we not urge people to be good by giving the right examples? It's not that there aren't any positive things happening around us; may be it's just that positive stories do not have the same 'sensational' effect as some of the negative stories.

While, am not an advocate of 'push all negative stuff' under the carpet and always paint a rosy picture; I would like a right balance to reassure myself that the world is not full of only crooks and cruel people.

Though I haven't come across much change in the traditional news medium (its just got worse), I have found some useful sites on the internet which focus on sharing positive experiences. One such site, though it’s not been updated for few years is - Good NewsIndia.

http://goodnewsindia.com/index.php/gni

Each story on this site is worth-reading and enlightening. Most of the stories focus on an initiative which has brought a positive change in the lives of hundreds of people, if not thousands. Most of the initiatives are not driven by monetary ambitions nor are purely socialist in nature. It’s mostly a case where someone, a regular person like you and me, comes across a difficult situation and instead of just walking-by, decides to do something about it. The changes are not instantaneous but visible over a period of years. At the end of every story, am filled with a feeling of happiness, a positive outlook and new jest for life. In the offline medium, some magazines like Reader's digest have often carried such stories and even some dedicated books. Wish there were more...