Tell people you are a journalist and the reactions range from “Wow!” to “I like journalism so much!” to “Oh, then you must write about this, Madam”. What they ask me to write about is often quite important. So I will write about some of that today.

A few years ago, when I was going through immigration at the Chennai airport, the officer inspecting my documents found out I was a journalist. When he returned them to me, he said, “Madam, these travel agencies, they staple stuff to the passport (a token, a protective cover, etc) which makes it difficult to scan. We have to spend time taking out the passport, removing the pins and scanning it. Please write about it, Madam, people need to know.” All of us could do with fewer passport problems and spending less time in queues, couldn’t we?

Another complaint is about cell phone towers. There are many complaints about the afflictions they allegedly cause, ranging from vertigo to cancer. Their installation in residential neighbourhoods is a cause of concern. And while I have not written about it myself, except in this blog, my newspaper has discussed it, quite a few times.

Another issue I am often asked to write about – and one that gets my goat as well, is junk SMS and calls despite registering with the Do Not Call registry. Once that was done, they petered off and all was peaceful for a while. Till the SMS – for plots on the outskirts of the city, insurance, a hospital for rent in Bangalore – made a comeback. (I even routinely deleted something from AT-NTAROT for quite a few weeks before I realised it had nothing to do with tarot cards, and that the only prediction it contained was from my service provider about my SMS package which was in auto renewal mode!)

The concerns are many, and I identify with many of them, such as >these and >these . What are your pet peeves?

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