My Sunday Special

This weekend, is one of the most relaxed weekends that I had recently. Though I am into a project where the work is not as demanding as it was in my previous project, my laziness always had something or the other task scheduled for the weekend. And most often than not, I again postpone them to the week after that weekend. Anyways, after sometime, recently this has been the week where I am most relaxed.

I am an ardent fan of Eenadu and in particular the weekly Sunday special from Eenadu. Back home, on Sunday's we still have competition to get hold of the weekly magazine every weekend. We feel the weekend is incomplete, if we don't get our hands over the Sunday special of Eenadu. Now that I am in this distant dollar nation, I don't have to compete with my family members to get to the magazine. In fact, I get to it even before my family members; thanks to the online version of Eenadu.

For me, the sections that I look forward to in the magazine are (in the order of preference)
(a) Cartoons by Sridhar: The witty picturization of the national and state politics. Foreign affairs and relations with our neighbours are worth appreciating. They are funny, simple and yet drive the point home.

(b) Bala Vindoini (Fun for Children): Though I have grown up, right from the school days when I started reading the newspapers, through my teens both in high school and graduation and till the present day of professional,..this is one such sections that I have never missed to pay attention to. Though this section is for children and kids, this still remains as one of favorites. The cartoon character (don't know if this character has any name)...still remains the same though I have grown young and has been my weekend friend who brings smile on my face with his funny quotes. The other interesting topics in the section are (i) Find the differences in similar pictures, (ii) the once in a while maze, (iii) the simple moral stories from the old extracts of Panchatantra, Akbar-Birbal etc., and (iv) the word puzzle, which i had rarely completed; not that it is tough but it did not attract me. Anyways all these collectively make "Bala Vindohini" one of my favorite sections of the magazine.

(c) Sachitra Katanalu(News with associated Pictures): This section carries news items along with the associated pictures. The usual culprits that are make their way into this section are (i) the short interviews with celebrities and their opinions on some day to day topics. (ii) silly point: a comedy section with some quotes that make you smile, (iii) Short biography of the artists /telugu film fraternity: This section usually takes a leaf out of the lives of the famous personalities from Andhra Pradesh and in particular from the lives of the Telugu film artists. The hard times that they faced, how they overcame the tough times of their life and the support that they received to make it big in the industry.(iv) Short inspirational stories; one such inspirational story that I read today, prompted me to start this post. Though the intention of starting this post was different, the content in the current post truly deserves a mention in my blog. Now my immediate task is to rename the post on its completion. And include that inspirational story in the immediate post.

(d) Cover Story: Discusses about the hot topics in the recent past, present or future in detail in this section. Though this remains the crux of the magazine, every weekend, I usually leave it to the week ahead to complete the reading. One main reason for leaving it for the rest of the week is the competition to get hold of the magazine at home and the second reason is leaving some tasks for the week ahead. I need to either watch television or read newspaper or some magazine while having my dinner / lunch, so I leave the cover story for the week ahead. After reading for so many years, one cover story that I always look forward to on the eve of every new-year is the round up of the news events that made the headlines the current year.

(e) Maya lokam (Imaginary World): This section in the magazine is reveals about the funny behaviours of the old time rulers and the funny behaviour / beliefs of the who and who of the world. This really makes you think of the funny attitudes beliefs people had in the old days.

(f) Katha (An imaginary story) and Idi Katha Kadu(Real story): These are the sections that read the least in all these years. The imaginary story though are interesting and try to deliver a moral to the readers, the stories are usually around the topics of human relations in families. The stories mostly revolve around the relations between parents and children in the modern days compared to the pre-globalization era where join families, family values had preference over the worldly attractions and wealthy (THE THINGS). Talking about the real stories, these are usually are the real and mysterious stories; there was a time in my teens when this section made it to be my compulsory readings. But I left reading this section as I have least preference to read crime stories.

All these columns make our weekend and week pass by in no time. As I was talking about the event that triggered this post, the initial title for the post was "Secret of Success" - a short inspiration story that I read in today's Sunday Special of Eenadu. I wanted to make a mention of that story in this blog, but as I started writing the post the topic of Sunday Special took over and I had to change the title to Eenadu Sunday Special ..oops - My Sunday Special.