Drowning in the "Unreal Real" | How to Keep Our Minds from "Drying Up!" ❤️

Is it Misinformation, Disinformation or Malinformation?

#newspaperinlearning

The Hindu, Chennai Edition

I happened to read an article in The Hindu Chennai Edition this week, on the Artemis II Mission being clouded by a blizzard of misinformation.

So what pray, is the difference among these three terms - misinformation, disinformation and malinformation?

Well, misinformation is false information that is shared without any intention to cause harm. The person sharing it usually believes it to be true and might even think they are being helpful. It is essentially an honest mistake.

In short, misinformation is False, but not malicious.

For example, a well-meaning family member shares a Facebook post claiming that drinking hot lemon water cures a specific viral infection. The medical claim is completely false, but the relative shared it because they genuinely wanted to keep their family healthy, not to deceive them.

Disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and shared with the intent to deceive, mislead, or cause harm to a person, social group, organisation, or country.

In short, disinformation is False, and highly malicious/manipulative.

For example, a group creates a fake news website that looks identical to a trusted local newspaper. They publish a completely fabricated story claiming a local political candidate embezzled funds, timing the release perfectly to manipulate voters just days before an election.

Malinformation is true or factual information that is used out of context, exaggerated, or leaked with the intent to cause harm. This usually involves moving private information into the public sphere to damage someone’s reputation.

In short, malinformation is True (or mostly true), but malicious.

For example, a disgruntled former employee hacks into a company’s database and publishes the CEO’s private, legally obtained, but highly embarrassing medical records on the internet solely to humiliate them!

Now for the literary takeaways –

These three types of Information Disorder connect to a tee with the concept of Post-Truth in Literary Studies.

So what is Post-Truth?

Post-truth is a term describing a political and public landscape where objective facts and evidence are less influential in shaping opinion than emotional appeals and personal beliefs. In this environment, objective facts become secondary, and false statements are often ignored if they support a desired narrative.

To put it in simple terms, If “post-truth” is the climate we are currently living in, then three types of Information Disorders are the weather events happening within it!

Because a post-truth society prioritises emotion and belief over empirical evidence, it creates a highly fertile ground for misinformation to spread organically.

And when reality becomes highly subjective, people process information through the lens of identity rather than accuracy. A person is much more likely to share a false story (misinformation) if it validates their pre-existing worldview or evokes strong outrage, completely bypassing critical evaluation. The "truthfulness" of the post is secondary to its narrative utility.

Post-truth offers great scope for study within literary and cultural studies.

Instead of just asking “is this true?”, a literary approach asks: How is this “truth” constructed? Whose interests does this narrative serve? What rhetorical devices are being deployed to make this falsehood feel emotionally true?

One famous literary example come to my mind!

It is Quichotte by Salman Rushdie - a modern retelling of Don Quixote!

This novel is an exemplary critique of the contemporary post-truth era. The protagonist’s mind is so saturated by reality TV and internet culture that the boundary between fiction and the actual world dissolves. Rushdie actively explores how society loses its anchor when “truth” becomes nothing more than whoever has the loudest, most entertaining screen presence!

Sample these two paragraphs from Quichotte by Salman Rushdie. But before you sample-taste it, a word on these paragraphs in advance! 😊

These paragraphs - which form the brilliant opening to Salman Rushdie’s 2019 novel Quichotte - are a masterclass in how a writer’s sentence structure can perfectly mirror the themes of their story.

In fact, the enormous length of the sentences hit you hard! Here, Rushdie is deliberately employing a maximalist style, using a massive, sprawling list (a literary device called cataloguing) to describe the protagonist’s addictive “television diet.”

The long and endless sentence structure reflects the endless, overwhelming stream of modern television and internet content.

The reader is bombarded with a mesmerising volume of images - from housewives and zombies to giant carp and plastic surgery - in the exact same way the protagonist is bombarded by his TV screen!

The lack of full stops in these long paragraphs force us to read it in a breathless way, thereby creating a hypnotic effect that pulls the reader directly into the “quicksand” of the “unreal real” that the protagonist is drowning in!

Moreover, these two passages are a brilliant, modernised parallel to the opening of Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 masterpiece, Don Quixote.

In the classic Spanish novel, a nobleman named Alonso Quijano literally loses his mind because he reads too many books about chivalrous knights. His brain “dries up,” and he loses his grip on reality, and hence he sets out to become a knight-errant to win the heart of a woman he imagines to be a noble lady! (Dulcinea).

In like manner, Rushdie brilliantly swaps 17th-century chivalric romances for 21st-century trash TV. 

The “traveling man” suffers a “peculiar form of brain damage” not from books, but from binge-watching reality shows, leading him to pursue an unattainable TV star (Miss Salma R, his Dulcinea) into the television screen.

In fact, the extraordinary length of these opening paragraphs isn’t just about wordiness! It is in fact, a highly deliberate, structural tool used to plunge the reader into the media-obsessed, obsessive mind of a modern-day Don Quixote!

You, we and me! 😊

Now for the opening two paragraphs (OMG type!) from Quichotte by Salman Rushdie for us all -

He devoured morning shows, daytime shows, late-night talk shows, soaps, situation comedies, Lifetime Movies, hospital dramas, police series, vampire and zombie serials, the dramas of housewives from Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills and New York, the romances and quarrels of hotel-fortune princesses and self-styled shahs, the cavortings of individuals made famous by happy nudities, the fifteen minutes of fame accorded to young persons with large social media followings on account of their plastic-surgery acquisition of a third breast or their post-rib-removal figures that mimicked the impossible shape of the Mattel company’s Barbie doll, or even, more simply, their ability to catch giant carp in picturesque settings while wearing only the tiniest of string bikinis; as well as singing competitions, cooking competitions, competitions for business propositions, competitions for business apprenticeships, competitions between remote-controlled monster vehicles, fashion competitions, competitions for the affections of both bachelors and bachelorettes, baseball games, basketball games, football games, wrestling bouts, kickboxing bouts, extreme sports programming and, of course, beauty contests.

As a consequence of his near-total preoccupation with the material offered up to him through, in the old days, the cathode-ray tube, and, in the new age of flat screens, through liquid-crystal, plasma, and organic light-emitting diode displays, he fell victim to that increasingly prevalent psychological disorder in which the boundary between truth and lies became smudged and indistinct, so that at times he found himself incapable of distinguishing one from the other, reality from “reality,” and began to think of himself as a natural citizen (and potential inhabitant) of that imaginary world beyond the screen to which he was so devoted, and which, he believed, provided him, and therefore everyone, with the moral, social, and practical guidelines by which all men and women should live. As time passed and he sank ever deeper into the quicksand of what might be termed the unreal real, he felt himself becoming emotionally involved with many of the inhabitants of that other, brighter world, membership in which he thought of as his to claim by right, like a latter-day Dorothy contemplating a permanent move to Oz; and at an unknown point he developed an unwholesome, because entirely one-sided, passion for a certain television personality, the beautiful, witty, and adored Miss Salma R, an infatuation which he characterized, quite inaccurately, as love. In the name of this so-called love he resolved zealously to pursue his “beloved” right through the television screen into whatever exalted high-definition reality she and her kind inhabited, and, by deeds as well as grace, to win her heart.

Coming back –

Well, in an era where our screens constantly dictate our realities, the line between fact and fiction isn’t just blurred – it’s actively being erased all of the time!

Whether we are facing the innocent ignorance of misinformation, the calculated manipulation of disinformation, or the weaponised facts of malinformation, the responsibility ultimately falls on us.

It is up to us to ensure that our own minds don’t “dry up” from bingeing on the endless scrolls of the post-truth eras that pop up constantly on our mobile screens!

Added, before we share, repost, or accept a sensational narrative as absolute truth, let’s take a step back and ask those essential literary questions: How is this truth constructed? And whose interests does it really serve?

Keep your reality checks grounded, your critical lenses polished, and try not to fall entirely into the addictions of the mobile screen! 😉

Because, as critic Scupin Richards rightly says,

There’s more to life than the mobile! 😊

Stay curious, stay questioning, and see you in the next post! 😊

How to Avoid Eating Your Friends | The Drama of the Dash and the Love of the Hyphen! ❤️

Do Writers Speak? 😊

The Secret Voice Hidden in Hyphens and Dashes!

#newspaperinlearning #artofwriting

18th April 2026

We’ve all been told that professional speakers and orators have a unique “voice” of their own, ain’t we? 😊

We can sense their unique ‘voice’ through the tone of their speech, the clarity of their speech, and the pacing of their speech, ain’t we?

However, quite interestingly, the same applies to professional writers as well!

Seasoned writers across the ages – as you would have known – have always relied heavily on three important kutty-little lines – the hyphen, the en dash and the em dash, for expressing the tone, the pacing and the clarity of their writing!

In other words, the hyphen and the dash give a writer their unique “voice”.

Before we proceed, have this mantra in mind - 😊

The Hyphen Unites! The Dash Divides!

Or

The Hyphen Glues, the Dash Disrupts!

So why do writers use the Glue and the Disruptor?

Writers use hyphens and dashes to prevent their readers from getting confused. Without hyphens, sentences can easily become ambiguous or even hilarious!

Consider the difference between a man-eating shark (a shark that eats humans) and a man eating shark (a guy sitting at a seafood restaurant eating a shark). The hyphen clarifies exactly how the words relate to each other.

The Em Dash (—), called so, since it has the width of the letter ‘m’) is used largely by the American publishing industry. Writers simply love it because it is incredibly versatile and breaks the rigid rules of formal grammar to create a more conversational tone.

Think of the em dashed words as side notes that shout! Yes, the em dash always demands attention!

The girl—who is wearing a red hat—is waiting to meet you.

Parentheses marks always whisper gently to the reader (“by the way, here is a side note”). Em dashes shout the side note shamlessly! 😊

As regards the en dash, many style guides outside the US prefer using an en dash with a space on either side to do the exact same job as the American em dash. Writers use it for the same dramatic pauses and interruptions, but it looks slightly cleaner and less cluttered on the page.

Globally, the unspaced en dash is the standard way to represent a range, meaning “up to and including.” Writers use it to quickly bridge numbers or related concepts.

Example: Read pages 10–25. (Instead of “10 to 25”).

Example: The New York–London flight.

In this article from today’s Times of India, you can observe that, almost all of the red circles and boxes in the image (except one) highlight spaced en dashes.

The author has used hyphens and dashes to create a conversational tone. The dashes here are used to inject sudden thoughts, add emphasis, or expand on a point without ending the sentence.

As we discussed earlier, in this article, unlike dashes, which separate parts of a sentence to create a pause, hyphens are used to glue words together!

The next easy mantra to remember, would be –

Hyphens hook words together. Dashes drive them apart!

Examples of hyphens hooking words together -

I bought a second-hand car.

She is a well-known author.

Raju likes sugar-free coffee!

Japan has high-speed trains!

Examples of Dashes driving apart words!

We had everything we needed for the camping trip—except the tent!

After three days of intense birding, we finally saw it—the Malabar trogon!

The student—who had never studied a day in his life—somehow passed the examinations.

Now, I’d love to have you go through these circled and boxed news articles from today’s English-language newspaper, to see and observe for yourself, the hyphens that hook, and the dashes that divide sentences! Here’s wishing y’all happy reading!

So yes! why wait? Grab you day’s newspaper, spot those kutty-little lines, and how they express their unique voice! Happy reading, and happier punctuating!! 😊

Why is India Resisting the American Spelling Takeover! 💜

Why is India Still ‘Organising’ Instead of ‘Organizing’?

From Macaulay to MS Word | The Evolution of Indian English

#newspaperinlearning #reflections

17th April 2026

One cursory look at any English-language Newspaper or Magazine or Journal or Government communication printed all across India, and you are prone to find the ‘S’ that has gained significant traction over the ‘Z’ – Something that the Indian Print Media has been so faithfully and consistently following all along, till date!

Be it behaviour instead of behavior, humour over humor, centre instead of center, theatre instead of theater, apologise instead of apologize, organise instead of organize, jewellery instead of jewelry, defence instead of defense, catalogue instead of catalog, cheque instead of check, plough instead of plow, tyre instead of tire, pyjamas instead of pajamas, travelling instead of traveling,

the difference is indeed like chalk and cheese! 😊

In my classes too, I have students asking me this same question over the years!

Sir, do we use ‘s’ or ‘z’? Do we go with ‘colour’ or ‘color’?

Well, this prominent use of British spelling conventions (like “colour,” “flavour,” and “organisation”) in the Indian press, Indian academia and government is primarily a direct result of India’s historical and educational trajectory.

Here are the main reasons this “standardisation” has endured over the decades, across generations!

The foundation of English education in India was laid by the British during the colonial era, most notably formalised by Thomas Babington Macaulay's 1835 “Minute on Indian Education.”

The British established schools, universities, and administrative systems that naturally utilised the spelling, grammar, and vocabulary of the British Isles.

One reason why modern Indian education boards (like the CBSE, ICSE, and various state boards) continue to officially mandate British English in their text books, and students are traditionally taught using the Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries as the definitive standards.

So naturally, the spelling learned in the classroom becomes the spelling used in schools, colleges and universities, professional journalism and in the world of publishing as well.

Many of India’s oldest and most respected English-language newspapers (such as The Times of India, The Hindu, and The Statesman) also use the British spelling, as they were either established during the British Raj or founded by British expatriates. And hence we find that, their foundational editorial style guides were almost always built on British norms by default!

That’s hence, in order to maintain consistency, authority, and institutional voice, for probity and propriety sake, modern newsrooms have carefully cherished, nurtured and preserved these rules for generations.

In addition, the Indian bureaucracy, civil services, and judicial system have also been modeled oops modelled heavily on British institutions. Legal drafting, parliamentary records, and official government documents have been continuously maintaining British spelling conventions since independence.

Standardising a nation’s written language is a massive work of epic proportions. In case, India transitions away from UK spelling, it would mean a synchronised overhaul of millions of textbooks, legal codes, government forms, and editorial guidelines. That would also mean that, if in case this transition happens, very soon, in about 10 years’ time, all our existing archives, our official circulars, documents and literature might become obsolete or ‘trash’ to the upcoming generations, as they cannot relate with the ‘archaic English’ – much like we cannot relate with Chaucer’s English today!

Linguists use the term “Orthographic Conservatism” or ‘Linguistic Inertia’ to connote this resistance to ‘spelling change!’

However, although the print press and formal institutions remain resolutely aligned with UK spelling, American English is quietly creeping into informal digital communication and corporate environments in India, because of the fact that, MS Word processors and smartphones almost always set the US English as default!

That’s hence the witty, ol’ saying –

The devil is in the defaults! 😊

Myth in Motion | The Great Mother Archetype Simplified! 💚

The Universal Blueprint | The “Great Mother” Archetype Simplified

#intothewildwithrufus

Quite recently, during our forest outing in Karnataka, we were treated to a rare and beautiful sighting of a Mother Gaur and her calf.

And yes! we had to be as quiet as could be, to ensure that we saw the tender moments between the mother gaur and her calf!

What surprised us the most was the colour tone of the calf! 😊

And as we we were all watching, completely hooked, charmed and captivated, we were able to see the deeply touching display of affection between mother and her calf!

The adult Mother Gaur gently lowered her massive head, and began to gently nuzzle the calf! Such a profound display of tenderness and care for her young one!

As is always the case, wildlife sightings are always fleeting, you see! and yes! It was time for the pair to move on. In perfect unison, they turned away from us and began to amble deeper into the thick Karnataka wild!

For us, literary beings, this scene has a lot of enriching literary takeaways, ain’t it? 😊

So yes! Let’s view this lovely scene through the lens of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology to transition for a moment, from the literal meaning, to the literary meaning – that the scene entails, replete with such profound mythological resonance!

Well, Jung emphasises that the Great Mother is a “transpersonal” symbol - rarely just the personal mother - and represents the deepest levels of the unconscious.

And this Great Mother archetype is bipolar. The “Good Mother” represents nurture, care, and fertility (e.g., Demeter, Mother Nature, the Virgin Mary), while the “Terrible Mother” represents the engulfing or destructive aspect - anything that secretes, poisons, or traps (e.g., Medusa, Baba Yaga). She is symbolised by the womb, the earth, the cave, the tree, the moon, and the sea.

So what are archetypes?

Well, to put it in simple words, archetypes are ancient blueprints of sorts!

They are inherited, not learned. For example, we not only inherit physical traits from our evolutionary ancestors, but also inherit their mental frameworks! And they have existed for as long as human consciousness has existed.

They are universal in their nature, and that’s why the exact same “ancient” patterns show up in Greek myths, ancient Indian epics, and modern blockbuster movies, all across the world.

Moreover, a blueprint is not a physical house; it is just the design for a house. 

At the same time, the blueprint dictates the foundation and the walls, but the builder chooses the paint colours, the bricks, and the furniture. The individual’s personal experiences and their specific culture act as the “builder.” In short, they take the universal blueprint (like the “Hero” or the “Great Mother”) and give it a unique, recognisable form!

Because the Universal Blueprint or the Ancient Blueprint of the Great Mother is stamped into our collective unconscious, authors make use of this blueprint constantly to ‘build’ their unique stories. And what’s more - we are able to instantly recognise, connect and emphathise with these characters because they tap into that shared human instinct!

Let’s take the example of the character of Raksha in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Raksha whose name literally means “protection”) is the mother wolf who adopts the human baby, Mowgli. When the man-eating tiger Shere Khan demands the baby, Raksha transforms into a fierce protector, willing to fight to the death for a child that isn’t even biologically hers. She perfectly embodies the animalistic, fierce sanctuary of the Great Mother.

Just like Raksha in the jungles of Seoni, the Mother Gaur in the deep wild forest is living out this timeless, ageless, ancient blueprint of the Great Mother!

In fact, the Mother Gaur left us with much more than just a great wildlife sighting!

She was to us all, a cute personification of a Myth in Motion!!! 😊

Pāthēyam | A Gripping Performance | Today | St. Thomas’s Hall ❤️

Pāthēyam | A Gripping Performance

Today | St. Thomas’s Hall

Kudos to Ms. Lindsay and her team on their stellar performance today, at St. Thomas’s Hall Indoor Theatre, under the banner, Ottappaathrathhile Njandukal, for their directorial venture titled, Pāthēyam.

The performance is a stage adaptation of the legendary Parayi Petta Panthirukulam, drawn from Kottarathil Shankunni’s monumental compilation of folklore, Aithihyamala.

It is indeed quite heartwarming to see such engaging folk narratives transitioning alive onto the stage space!

The Parayi Petta Panthirukulam is a story that fundamentally challenges social hierarchies and speaks to a deep, underlying unity.

Each of the actors did their parts with such ease and excellence. Be it the songs, the proverbial breaking of the fourth wall, or the music, the actors did their parts with such felicity!

A special word of appreciation on the highly evocative nature of the flyer! Set against the beautiful hills and a river, the flyer focalises on the pothichoru - the traditional meal packed in a banana leaf, resting on the ground, with a trail of ants marching toward it. Woww!

The image in the flyer bespeaks to the title as well - Pāthēyam, which translates to “provisions for a journey.”

It was a memorable play, and thanks a lot to Mr. Rennie and Ms. Ranjitha for coordinating the excellent videography, thus making it a memory that’s got to be cherished for long!!!

A special note of appreciation goes to the vibrant Convenor, Dr. David Wesley, and the talented members of Ottappaathrathhile Njandukal for bringing this slice of the Aithihyamala from the page to the stage in such a grand manner! 

The Art of Writing the Diary: A Heartwarming Masterclass in Discipline from a Graduating Student! ❤️

On His Last Working Day Today

A Lovely Student’s Heartwarming Gesture!

He is one of our best students! He has never missed a class! He’s been very studious! Involves in class discussions and interactions all the time!

Today was his last day as student of the III BA English Class in MCC.

So yesterday he got an appointment to meet with me. I gave him an appointment for 9.15 am this morning, and he was there on time.

When his turn came, he gently sat at the desk, opened his bag, and placed three beautiful diaries that he had written so meticulously and consistently for the past three years, and then he gently said –

Sir, I wish to thank you for cultivating in me the art of maintaining a diary. The very first class you met us, I remember you exhorting us to write our diary every day. I took a resolve to that end, and today, it has become an indispensable part of my life. MCC has given me beautiful memories, a lovely education, and one great skill that I would cherish for life – that would be the art of writing a diary. These days, it has become such a compulsive habit, that if I don’t write my diary for even one day, I feel quite restless, until I write it down!

So saying, he took out the traditional shawl and draped it over my shoulders.

Indeed, this lovely little gesture really made my day today! I personally feel that, this is the true purpose of education – acquiring / learning skills far beyond the syllabus!

He is none other than Mr. Khamlianthang - one of our best students ever, ladies and gentlemen!

Be it taking notes in class, or coming to class regularly, up until the last class of the semester, or participating in interactions / debates in class, or bringing the text to class, he was always known for his punctuality and disciplined manners.

Indeed, today I felt so happy when he showed me his diaries. Apart from our degree-based education, that our students today are so obsessed about, it is quite rare to see students venturing into honing their skills!

Maintaining a diary is indeed a rigorous exercise in self-reliance and emotional intelligence. Moreover, the discipline of putting pen to paper requires a student to pause, process, and articulate their thoughts in such a coherent and graded manner.

Diary writing also helps a great deal in cultivating consistency - a trait that Mr. Khamlianthang clearly exhibited through his flawless attendance and classroom engagement.

Mr. Khamlianthang leaves MCC not just with a BA in English, but with the skills of a scholar, a writer, and a disciplined professional.

I am sure that, it is these skills, that he has cultivated quietly and consistently over the past three years, that will truly define his trajectory in life.

We are so proud of you, dear Khamlianthang! And we wish you the very best in life!

For Bookworms, Bakers, and History Buffs! ❤️

Whisking Through the Ages

By Reji Jacob B. S | II MA English

A Review

Whisking Through the Ages is a delightful and deeply engaging exploration of culinary history through classic English literature, by Reji Jacob, II MA English, MCC.

Reji has done a highly commendable work by examining the baked goods found in classic texts spanning from the 16th to the 20th century.

The book explores how food in classic literature is more than just about eating! It serves as a powerful rhetorical device as well. For example, the book explains how the fine “manchet” bread in John Fletcher’s The Maid in the Mill acts as a metaphor for social class and hierarchy, and how Mercutio’s joke about a “Lenten pie” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet relies entirely on the audience’s knowledge of strict Elizabethan dietary restrictions during fasting seasons.

One special mention, that I would like to make about this book is that, Reji provides some yummy historical recipes for the literary dishes from across centuries.

Hence, readers can try their hand at recreating a 16th-century Lenten Fish Pie (adapted from authentic 14th and 16th-century recipes), a lamb pasty inspired by the venison pasty in The Merry Wives of Windsor, or a traditional Manchet bread using a recipe dating back to 1594.

Reji acknowledges that, the motivation for the book came from a concept that was sparked by modern YouTube creators who recreate fictional foods from anime, cartoons, and movies. He takes that same magical concept of making “fictional food materialise into something tangible” and applies it to the realm of classical literature.

Yet another engaging factor of the book is that, it offers a rich look into the evolution of baking itself. By detailing on how 16th-century baking evolved with the introduction of global trade ingredients like currants and treacle, and how 17th-century bakers had to rely on rudimentary tools, wood-fired ovens, and wild yeast.

In short, I’m sure that the book would be a toothsome delight to a melange of readers - bookworms, bakers and history buffs! (Sorry, the alliteration really doesn’t sit in the last one!) 😉

The author invites his readers, to not just read about the past, but to go ahead, “tie on an apron, preheat your oven and journey back in time”.

And well, the real icing on the cake lies in the author’s reminder to his readers, (in the front cover itself) that, this book is NOT a Sunday Times bestseller! 😊

Here’s wishing you happy journeying into the book to taste it for yourself!

And here’s wishing Reji our heartiest congratulations on his first publication, and here’s also wishing him many many more of such creative books in the years to come!