Hello to nostalgia
An eclectic choice of subjects made 'the India magazine' a collector's item for some readers like me
Terrascape often brings back memories of similar
magazines from the past. There are not many
that I remember, though. Of the few I do, 'the
India magazine' – yes, that is how the title was printed on the cover page and inside too – was certainly
the most picturesque, attractive and informative of its
time. There was one other magazine quite a long
time before that, the Onlooker, patterned on the Life
and the Post magazines, of America but that was a
rather poor immitation. I have also somewhere copies
of a still older travel and cultural magazine, the
Indian State Railway, published by the Central
Publicity Bureau of the Indian Railways for railway
passengers in the days when there were still no air
flights. There was yet another similar publication for
railway travellers in the 1930s published by the
Times of India group. In later years, there was the
Times of India Magazine and later still the Illustrated
Weekly. They were all an amalgam of illustrated,
feature articles on travel, literature and social and
cultural issues.
'the India magazine' was different. It did not copy
the Life’s half folio format of illustrated feature magazines but was draped in A4 size of news magazines
such as Time, Newsweek and the similarly sized Indian
news magazine of those years, Link. Its writing was
not really great and was, actually, often rather just
tolerable, but it was profusely illustrated in colour
and b&w and often adorned with beautiful line drawings. The most interesting part was its rather broad
and eclectic choice of subjects—art, architecture,
archaeology, nature, travel,
faith, food and folk culture
and, occasionally, even political cartoons of OV Vijayan.
The magazine was attractively designed and well produced. There was a certain
freshness about its choice of
photographs, the range and
breadth of its features.
Almost every issue took readers to some quaint, unheard of remote place or
introduced them to an artist or dancer or a new
development in theatre or photography.
Then, there was the Raj nostalgia which was beginning to show up in the 1980s, both here at home and
in England. Features on the Raj theme were popular
with readers of the older generation, especially as
they were accompanied with reproductions of engravings and aquatints from rare publications of the 17th
and 18th centuries. Actually, when the letters column
was introduced first in the first anniversary issue in
January 1982, I think, it had a nostalgic period
engraving of a dak gherry from some such publication
and the page was evocatively named Dak. When
readers’ responses were published on a page called
Comment, the illustration at the top was again a Raj
evocation.
Very early in its career, the magazine acquired an
all-India character and readership penetrated deep
into small towns. Its editor, Malvika Singh, came
from a well-known and a well-connected Delhi family
and was therefore soon able to attract the attention
of a wide circle of influential people at home and
abroad for readers. She was a skillful promoter of her
magazine. She made it a point to send complimentary
copies of her magazine to contemporary celebrity
writers and authors. Not many of them were attracted
enough to send in contributions but most of them
certainly sent in congratulatory letters. Often, they
included such eminences of the times as Satyajit Ray,
Alvin Toffler, Devika Rani, Bill Aitken and John
Lawrence. I think the
magazine was launched in
January 1981 and was
wound up sometime in the
late 1990s. But, I must say,
the magazine was a great
read and a treat to the eyes
for as long as it lasted. That
is why even now I don’t
have the heart to sell my
copies off in raddi.
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