Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Why page 3 is number 1
No one will read this story. Why should they? This is not page 3. That’s all people read these days. Page 3. Front page is passé. Sports page is infra dig. The front page carries news from the day before. But page 3? It carries news from the night before. Page 3 is a reliving of the night before on the morning after.
Page 3 is seduction, page 3 is nasha, page 3 is instant gratification. To get on the front page, the business page, the sports page, you need to bust your butt. To get on to page 3, you only need shake your bon bon. Or your martini.
Page 3 is the fix and the hangover. Page 3 is the Alka Selzer and the coffee. Page 3 is a desire, a craving, a hankering. People need page 3 every morning just as much as Gautam Singhania needs to party every night. Page 3 is the new world order. It divides the world into three: Those who want to be on page 3, those who want to see who is on page 3 and those who are already on page 3.
The page has its own vocabulary. On page 3, Indigo is not a colour nor Rain a season. Frangipani is not a flower and Olive is not something you have in your salad. Page 3 makes proper nouns of them all.
Proper nouns is what page 3 is all about. On page 1, you may read about the President of the United States. But his name doesn’t appear in bold. On page 3, even Aarti Surendranath’s name shows up in all caps and bold. Which makes AARTI SURENDRANATH more prominent than President Bush, come to think of it.
It is perhaps this heady rush of blood, this impending sense of superpower that leads seemingly sensible people to design events with an eye on page 3. Shows, soirees, raves. Featuring models, movie stars, business magnates, politicians, movie stars turned politicians, magnates turned politicians. Page 3 is all about photo ops. There are no don’ts on page 3. There are only do’s. Parmesh and Adi’s do. Avanti and Yash’s do. Ritu Beri’s do. Gudda’s do. Page 3 is about who’s at whose do and, occasionally,about who’s doing who.
Page 1 is news, page 3 is goss. Page 1 is river disputes, page 3 is watering holes. Page 1 is social issues, page 3 is socialite evenings. Page 1 covers earthquakes, page 3 is where the earth moves.