Home » Interviews » Tanay Sukumar, Chief Editor of satirical humour blog ‘News That Matters Not’

Tanay Sukumar, Chief Editor of satirical humour blog ‘News That Matters Not’

Tanay Sukumar

Tanay Sukumar is a first-year civil engineering student at Delhi College of Engineering (age 18). He loves writing, blogging, social networking, cricket, reading and maths. He runs a site-blog called ‘News That Matters Not (NTMN)’ where he writes satirical stories based on original news. The site began in November 2009 during his holidays.

In this interview he shares with us some of the interesting things about NTMN.

Interview

Q.: You run “News That Matters Not”(NTMN) – a site which displays imaginary and funny news having relevance with the real news. What pinched your brain to go for a rarely harvested crop?

A. : Firstly, thanks for having me here. News humour and satire on internet is certainly a “rarely harvested crop” in our country, as you put it. Now that I look back, I guess NTMN began as an attempt to “use one skill I was good at (writing), to improve another (sense of humour)”. Fake news is not my concept; NTMN began as an emulation of a leading news satire site I came across. I started writing such news stories on my personal blog, after which some friends got interested to contribute, and within a month, it started taking the shape it has today, that of “a first-of-its-kind satire and humour site managed by students”. It is now an amalgam of teamwork, talent, dedication. Gradually, we became better at the skill, and “humour” turned into “satirical humour”; we want our readers to “think along as they get amused”.

Q.: Don’t you have to be careful about any legal issues as you twist the real news in a funny manner? Sometimes it may hurt the originality of it?

A: Well, we have not had any problems till now. Satire is an integral part of any modern democratic society; it is intended to bring out ugly and uncomfortable truths in an amusing, yet thought-provoking way. We have a disclaimer on our website, which is meant to neutralise any ill-feelings that may arise. No one is perfect, we welcome readers to poke fun at us if we offended them. It might help settle issues!

We can’t satisfy everybody at a time. Say, if we are poking fun at Mayawati, and the whole world is laughing with us, even then, there existsone person who is not amused: Mayawati herself (if she cares to read us, I mean)! What matters is that we don’t hurt people insensitively and insensibly. Satire consists of being sensible and taking things in the right spirit. It’s essential to be rational by thought.

As far as the originality of news is concerned, I guess it’s not a big deal. People are bored of the way news is treated in the general news media.  Moreover, sometimes some of our readers get to know the real news AFTER they have read our satirical treatment to it!

Q.: Apart from presenting your writing creativity for NTMN, where else you apply it?

A: I have recently started writing a weekly column for a new e-magazine called 21 Fools (http://21fools.com). Besides, I have this new interest of thinking up witty one-liners. I also have a seldom-updated personal blog, where I write stuff completely different from humour. Some of the other NTMNers (that’s what we call our staff) are bloggers, and they are a creative lot.

Q.: Which is your favourite subject to write fake news about? And why?

A: Rakhi Sawant, Raj Thackeray and Mayawati are all-time spoof favourites. One who frequently gets involved in eccentric activities is an easy target, you know. However, we try to avoid a feeling of redundancy among readers, and we try out variety and versatility.

Q.: Let’s have the LIVE pleasure of your satirist writing skill. Have us some exclusive funny short, satirist news from your side based on the present real story.

A.: Hmm… let’s have this news on Jats turning off water supply today in Delhi, and threatening to boycott CWG. “To keep Jats quiet during CWG, government agrees to reservation of seats for them in stadiums”

“The Home Ministry has assured the CWG organising committee that the Jats won’t be able to boycott the Games during October. The government has planned to reserve seats for them in the Games stadiums, and hopefully the word “reservation” will keep them quiet. The Jats have been revolting for reservations, a 21st century status symbol. Reacting to the government’s idea, a Jat leader said they can’t be fooled so easily. “We have other plans. We will sabotage the government’s efforts to teach citizens the art of peeing in MCD urinals. We will demolish all urinals, and tell people to urinate on the roadside and the foreigners,” he told our reporter.” More

Q.: What are your future plans for NTMN?

A: We are just engaging in writing and getting appreciation from readers right now. No concrete plans. We weren’t even sure we’ll last six months, but writing of the kind we have done every day for half a year, has transformed the way the mind reacts to stuff, and now we are sort of used to it. In future, we would like to see more young college students take up humour and satire writing; it is the most difficult, yet a satisfying and self-entertaining genre of writing. Maybe we could make NTMN a full-fledged students’ platform for humour writing in India. It will get talent noticed and appreciated.

Q.: Any special notes you would like to add at the end?

A: I wish to thank others who are an integral part of this blog, for their efforts and enthusiasm. Although I handle all the administration myself, but the contribution of regular and talented authors like Kartik (an article by him was republished by Mid-Day recently), Sugandha, Dhruv among others, is immense, all this is instrumental in our mechanism. I have my gratitude to my old friend Prateek, whose help gave the initial boost to the website, since he was the first volunteer in my venture, and the site was run by only two people for about a month. You can get to know about our staff on “Our authors” page of our website. Besides these, obviously, there is a sea of constructive comments, both criticism and appreciation, from friends, fans and readers, which tells us how we are doing.

Thanks again.

About

Devang Vibhakar is the Founder and Editor of www.SpeakBindas.com. He has interviewed more than 350 people. His effort was recognized by Limca Book of Records, twice. He has been to Scotland as well as Germany as part of vocational & cultural exchange programs and has compiled five books so far. He's passionate about bringing forth interesting stories & interviews of entrepreneurs to avid readers of SpeakBindas. He can be reached here.

13 thoughts on “Tanay Sukumar, Chief Editor of satirical humour blog ‘News That Matters Not’

  1. Nilesh says:

    Now that I look back, I guess NTMN began as an attempt to “use one skill I was good at (writing), to improve another (sense of humour)”.

    Nice interview with straight from the heart answers.

  2. Atul says:

    Can’t believe that you have published interview of a person who has shamelessy copied his website from the best fake news website Nakli News.
    shame on SpeakBindas!

    1. Tanay says:

      So Atul, you have reached here as well!
      See, I have no shame or qualms in saying that NTMN is an emulation of Faking News, the premier news satire site in the country. Please do not spam. I have nothing against you or your site.

      1. Tanay says:

        I wonder why you blame us for copying your concept when you yourself began your site three months after us!

  3. kartik says:

    @atul
    this is all a lie…please dont go for cheap publicity like this

  4. Sugandha says:

    The interview was very candid, as expected from Tanay, a person who is wholly dedicated to the strenuous task of taking NTMN to higher levels each day. And it amuses me, to see someone claiming that NTMN is copied from some website, which came after us and is “NAKLI” by its very name… haha…Pardon me, no offence meant, just got into the NTMN mood. ^_^

    Tanay has very honestly mentioned here in, that the concept behind NTMN isn’t exactly his and INFACT we are on good terms with the other site, where from the idea, and ofcourse, ONLY THE IDEA came in. So that I think should be proof enough.

    and the rest, we’d rather not comment on any other site. The readers are the real judges. And apart from that, the content is the mirror. We just want to do our own work, while giving our fullest and are calm and cool about anybody else going about talking stuff about us BECAUSE thanks to them, we not only get added publicity BUT it also shows how significant a stand, NTMN has attained, in this short period of time, so much so that, it is driving other people CRAZY, literally.

    And then ofcourse, SpeakBindaas must have had something in mind when it decided to have this interview.

  5. Sid says:

    Dear Atul,

    I will be very candid in my response to your above outburst of jealousy. First of all, we are extremely happy about the fact that you are so jealous of NTMN. The reason for that is, it is proof that we are doing great. To be honest, we were looking for the last few days a internet market research firm who could help us judge which one is better, but your extremely well crafted words have made life easy for all of us here at NTMN.

    Now in regards to what you should learn out of this. Your good for nothing comment which will only hamper your reputation is a result of your nonsensical attitude. Think about it, I am sure you would agree to me.

    We are proud to say, we copied you. But you too copied someone from somewhere in this world? Isnt it? — To give you some gyan, we live in a world which is going towards capitalism and market which is quite free. You should be happy that we are giving competition to you. NTMN copied your idea, but is not copying your articles. Just as your brain thinks creatively, the same way even our’s do (get more jealous!). I am extremely sorry, but you do not have a copyright on creativity.

    Now, do some mind masturbation, and think over. I am sure a lot of cleansing would have been done in your mind till now, and you shall get more creative just because of us. So now you better comment and thank us for our social service done which will only help you grow up in life.

    If you still don’t understand — well, Go catch Microsoft, Go catch Hyundai, because they too once upon a time copied idea’s in this free market.

    An idea can change your life. True, your idea has changed our lives. Thanks.

    1. Sid says:

      @Atul—- I thought, let me write we copied you just to give you something to be happy about. We care for people and want to make them cheerful. 🙂

      But don’t get so cheerful yet, because seriously —- we are faking it! — we emulated ‘faking news’ and not you…. 🙂

  6. Sid says:

    Atul,

    One correction to my above post- we did not copy your ‘nakli news’, we emulated the idea of Faking News.

    All the best in your quest to reach where we are. Keep it up.

  7. Nilesh says:

    Shame on you, Atul. Everybody has said something to you so why should I rest? I’m a reader and had read, watched and analysed every aspect of both the sites. Clearly, NTMN is doing good. So it would be more than enough if you try (just try) to improve the layout of your site.

  8. N.K.Sinha ,Environmentalist,Patna says:

    Just now I came to know about your site NTMN and your interview here .Well, this is a unique way to hammer the rotten system prevalent in the society . keep on ,go ahead . Till now you present the real news in a humorous or satirical way . My views are that you should expand your field and cover and highlight the news that flashes the corrupt and rotten system in the govt .& society so that it should come to the mind of mass and malpractices must rooted out .be it more or less.

    1. SHATAKSHI, X (Std) DAV BSEB,Patna says:

      Well done Tanay.Your ideas are really appreciable.I liked ur thinkings.This is a good way at all.At last I would just like to say that keep it up with ur cheerful and funny ideas .I read some of ur news.Go ahead.ALL THE BEST and ALL IZZ WELL.

  9. NewsMan BaBa says:

    Wow! Even Faking News, the best and the oldest news satire website in India doesn’t claim itself to be the best! I heard about NTMN, Faking News and Onionutthapam…. Havn’t about Nakli news!!!
    Now nakli news will cry that we too cheated on their concept! didi Onion too?

Leave a Reply to Atul Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*