Your special on women this year (Nov 1) is a collector’s item, the best you’ve done so far. It shows that Outlook too is maturing, like India’s women. The stories of bravery and conviction carried showcase the real progress our country’s made. A country with such women can only go from strength to strength.
Mandira Chakravorty, Pune
The list of women role models chosen for your poll (Want to be Her) is very impressive. But there is something curious about the points you give for the ‘qualities’ you’ve fixed. Only three of them score a full 100 points for ‘success’ and all of them are from the world of business. The top role model, Medha Patkar, gets only 72! Is success measured only financially? Further, all three of the ‘success’ trio score much less for ‘courage’, where only Medha Patkar and Kiran Bedi get 100 each, followed closely by Sonia Gandhi and Arundhati Roy with 96 and 95. Further, among the ‘success’ trio, only Kiran Shaw gets a better score for ‘independence’! Sonia and Medha are very poor in ‘personality’ scores, P.T. Usha the poorest and Aishwarya Rai the topper! Any explanations?
K.S. Vasudevan, Chennai
Home Alone was a beautiful article. I think our society needs more examples of women like this. I myself am in the process of changing direction in my life. I am no more at a crossroad. I’ve made my choice and am moving towards it. And this article is an inspiration for women like me who might have a tinge of doubt about whether we’re taking the right step or not.
M.N. Ramani, Framingham, US
The modern damsels of India have given a whole new twist to the meaning of freedom and liberation. Emancipation to them is flouting norms of decorum, embracing Western culture while spurning everything that is Indian, denigrating masculinity, disparaging male achievements, making them feel gelded. Their efforts may not result in annihilating ‘mankind’ but they just might beget a neo-world called ‘neuterkind’.
Ashley Coutinho, Mumbai
Not so long ago, a newsmagazine would dish out a bit of current affairs, a bit of investigative journalism and a bit of this and that. It would provoke people to think, raise issues, rankle a few here, ruffle a few feathers there. Sadly, the demise of good old journalism arrived with the marketing people who in trying to grab more eyeballs sacrificed the very essentials of a good newsmagazine, the news. So, in a magazine 132 pages long, there’s some eye candy for the boys, some stuff about women’s lib but very little news. Outlook’s ability to call a spade a spade was what first got it the eyeballs and circulation. So don’t sell your soul to the devil for the sake of a few bucks.
Amit Khanna, on e-mail
It’s amazing to see the changing Indian woman. It needs a lot of determination and courage to tread the unconventional path, especially in Indian society where everything revolves around the submission of women in whatever role they might be. So far bogged down by living on borrowed identities, she is finally finding her place under the sun.
Avna, Mumbai
Bringing out a women’s special is in itself a kind of sexual discrimination. If women do want to read and see the kind of stuff you’ve trotted out, they always have a Femina to turn to. And if it was the men you were hoping to attract, you can’t beat a Debonair at the game, can you!
R. Venkatesan Iyengar, Hyderabad
I’m a 24-year-old student going for further studies to America. I’ve decided to carry 20 copies of your women’s issue there. What can be better than the articles in this issue to show how India’s developed! Queen Crimson’s Bleeding Beau describes so well exactly how out of place we Indian men feel compared to the places the Indian woman has reached. Home Alone put together what I’ve seen happening all around me but never could make sense of. Finally, Battle of the Atoms made me most proud to be in a country where women are so courageous despite adversity.
Bhupesh Madan, Delhi
It’s because of articles like Battle of the Atoms that Outlook redeems itself. Otherwise it’s just a mouthpiece for the Mullah-Missionary-Macaulay-Marxist nexus.
Dharmayudh Singh, Philadelphia, US
Excellent article.
Aranya Goswami, London
Truly inspiring.
Gayathri Gowri, Chennai
Great issue. But did it have to have pictures of semi-nude women? Or tales of Advani
and the rest of his horrible ilk?
Sri Venkatasubramanian, Kochi
Indian models have indeed created a niche for themselves abroad (The Dotboomers) but in that process, they’ve lost the serenity associated with Indian beauty.
Siddhartha Raj Guha, Jabalpur
Just when I thought feminism was out of vogue....
Vishnu Menon, on e-mail
The clinically-executed ambush of Veerappan (Run to Ground, Nov 1) has done us no good. His services could have been utilised in realising President Abdul Kalam’s vision of developing a knowledge society. The csir, which is developing an indigenous digital knowledge library, could have hired Veerappan as a consultant and made use of his rich knowledge of the flora, fauna and layout of the Satyamangalam and adjoining forests. His knowledge of the movement of elephants could have been utilised in the ‘elephant corridor’ project in the Western Ghats. Veerappan should have been encouraged to render his services to the Indian Institute of Science involved in the project. He could then have been sent to other forests on identical missions.
Manu Rajan, IISc, Bangalore
One really expects something more serious from a journalist like Vinod Mehta, especially when he ventures into a sensitive subject like the media image of Muslims (Medium is the Image, Nov 1). Indeed, a common Muslim reader of Outlook (and he’s not a Muslim intellectual or an upwardly mobile middle-class Muslim) would expect him to address the harsh realities and suggest remedies to them. Gone are the days when Muslims could be dealt Congress-style. Their overall image can’t be visualised on the lines of a few elite aristocratic families of pre-Partition days who, post the event, decided to stay in India to feast on the promises Nehru made. This mindset of tokenism where favours are doled out to a few won’t work if journalists like Mr Mehta are to seriously consider the welfare of Muslims. That said, there’s another aspect to the Muslim image he has missed. The principal culprit for the distorted image of Muslims in media is due to the extremely insular nature of madrassas which, as per Government of India data, number half a million and have 50 million full-time students.
Arjumand Ara, lecturer in Urdu, University of Delhi
Vinod Mehta’s column was the perfect antidote to the most damaging story Outlook carried in the Oct 4 issue (The Changing Face of Indian Muslims). Surprisingly, he did not touch the issue of madrassas with all their inherent complexities. It’s also shocking to read his views on the aimplb; they are far from reality. The board is the worst example of the damage done to the Muslim community by an opaque group of self-appointed politicians who’ve been using Islam for their vested interests for the last 1,400 years.
Dr Anis Ahmed, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi
Mr Mehta is right in pointing out the importance of ‘image’ in our modern global society of instant and ubiquitous communication. However, he seems to put the cart before the horse when he claims that "Indian Muslims have failed to come to terms with the media". Surely, in a democracy the onus would be on the media to fairly, freely and accurately represent all sections of the society! Therefore, if the Muslim faces we see and voices we hear are of geriatrics, it’s because the media, itself an artifact of the majority social consciousness, does not shoulder the responsibility of representing younger, less conservative voices. It’s a vicious circle: our collective prejudices reinforce themselves.
Rohan Mukherjee, Bisra, Orissa
Outlook correspondents are the biggest hypocrites with hardly an ounce of patriotic spirit in them. One example is the story on Maharashtra elections (Fort West Won, Nov 1). The Congress performance has been the worst so far in Maharashtra. But it’s being made out as though Sonia Gandhi’s charisma has led to some sort of stupendous Congress-ncp majority. Whether one likes it or not, the Sena-bjp combine still has a lot of teeth and it’s only poll arithmetic that’s cost them the majority. It could well have been the other way round. Of course Sharad Pawar has taken beloved Sonia for a ride by giving her more seats to contest while taking away a majority of the ‘safe’ seats and putting up independents who could defeat Congress candidates. Charisma, huh?
S.C.N. Jatar, Pune
Dr P.C. Alexander in his autobiography Through the Corridors of Power (Books, Oct 4) laments on and on about not getting the highest post in India due to the non-support of the Congress party even though he worked under three Congress prime ministers. For that he has to blame only himself. For getting a second term as governor of Maharashtra he took the support of the Shiv Sena chief. Naturally, the Congress considered that he had migrated to the opposite camp. Now he should re-read his Bible to understand the Congress’ attitude. The Bible says, "He that is not with me is against me." That explains everything.
George K. Eipe, Mumbai
I’m disgusted that an Australian, especially the team captain, gets to write in Outlook. Clearly, nobody in the know at the magazine knows how the Australian establishment and media work when it comes to cricket: they try to win by any means, even unfair. Maybe ‘patriotism’ is not too high on the Outlook agenda. I hope the people who run it read some of the mainstream Australian press. As for the nauseous simpering that goes on over the Australian team in the media, the less said the better.
Radhanath Varadan, Hanoi, Vietnam
I find Outlook’s two-fold cover quite inconvenient. Invariably, the edges get crumpled within two hours of getting the copy. I know this gives you ad revenue but can you please recover it from the inside pages? I wouldn’t mind losing two pages of content. Nor would other readers, I am sure.
Sridhar Subramaniam, on e-mail
