I have a friend who refuses to write cheques. His signature never matches with the doodles he drew while opening the bank account.

It’s not that I recall such characters usually on weekday mornings but reading the newspaper headlines this morning somehow made the brain do a bit of jogging backward. Most missed the drama that lay readers like me looked for after the adrenaline rush that counting-day TV was. To be told--more than 14 hours after the last vote was counted and the last figure updated on “seats won” column on our TV screens-- that Narendra Modi has won again, that it is a hat-trick, is to leave a huge scope for discontent among average readers like me.

Or was it a case of mismatch of the signature tune?

Hat-trick? At 7 pm Thursday, the corner cigarette shop owner knew all the details, and at 9 am Friday, the household help could have told me more. “Modi wins third time in a row; Cong unseats BJP in Himachal”, Hindu Business Line told me in six columns and two lines; “Modi hat-trick in Gujarat; but BJP cedes Himachal to Congress”, Business Standard told me; Deccan Chronicle-Hyderabad played out the header in the you-know-it-but-I-will-still-yell-it-out style: “BJP retains Gujarat, Congress wrests HP”.

The Asian Age gave a spin to the hat-trick ball, letting me know that “Modi scores a hat-trick, buzz over shift to Delhi, while The Hindu appeared in full gear in the cricket season: “Hat-trick for Narendra Modi, sticky wicket for BJP”.

The Indian Express did a little better, taking the hat-trick ball forward to unravel the next step, telling you “I’m your man: Hat-trick Modi to India”, while the Financial Express looked for the spooky on the day the world-will-end junk was to hit the world: “Modi’s hat-trick casts shadow on Delhi”. While that was the picture headline, the copy header, which came below the fold, scored more, though a bit banal by blowing the bugle metaphor: “Modi blows 2014 bugle from Gujarat platform”

Moving off hat-tricks moments, Mint told you that “BJP, Congress split spoils”, though it is anyone’s guess how the spoils are split while discussing two states as different in numbers and significance as potato and strawberry, and Mail Today wrote “GUJARAT MODIFIED DELHI AHEAD”, with the alphabets M, O, D and I in red. That’s in case you missed the pun — if you did, go back and read it again.

Hindustan Times said “Modi boards Rajdhani Express” — being an open ticket, not many know whether the booking is confirmed yet — and the Times of India “Home NaMo Sweepaya” (interrogation marks in thought bubbles).

I liked The Telegraph-Kolkata headline “Verdict: Be decisive in power”, purely for resisting the temptation to use the H word or pun with Modi's name or nickname (NaMo). Two personal bests of the day came from Economic Times (“Gujarat May Lose Modi”, with even the sub-headline imaginative in using the cricket parlance: “Hat-Trick for CM, Hit Wicket for BJP in Himachal”) and DNA-Mumbai: “Brand Modi wins. Eyes 2014”. Making it amply clear that the paper is taking the story forward from the plain-vanilla report of the victory, even in this case the subhead was interesting, “CM talks in Hindi, addresses nation”.