This seller of newspaper and magazines bets big on print
A profile of a 75-year-old newspaper seller in Chennai who maintains a traditional print mart despite the digital age. He rejects modern technology, including mobile phones, to preserve his long-standing business.
Why it matters
It highlights the persistence of traditional media and analog lifestyles in an increasingly digitized global society.
No, Pandian does not follow Insta trends that romantisise the tactility of physical books, the incredible idea of holding thoughts in your hand before dropping them into your brain. Putting it in grander terms, the sacred union of the sensory and the cerebral. He does not canonise physical books writing digital hagiographies to them and canonising them into sainthood through posts on social media handles. No book apps to his name; not a single one. In fact he does the unthinkable: he carries no phone with him. When a quizzical brow running the gamut of questions (why, how come, why not, since when?) is directed at him, his answer is unhurried and accompanied by a gesture (palms covering his head): “The mobile phone is a headache”. He says that in Tamil. Who is this “mystery man” Pandian anyway? His bio at the press of a button, nay the flipping of pages.
The article is a human-interest feature story with no political or ideological agenda.
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