Your article The Ganga at Juhu (Dec 20) is one of the many false attempts by the media to wrongly portray the North Indians in Bombay as a political force to reckon with. The objective may be either to ignite linguistic passions or just to make the Maharashtra government give more concessions to North Indians to get their votes.
Deepankar Wavare,
Mumbai
While your article acknowledges that ‘Bhaiyya’ is slang usage, it’s invariably used to describe North Indians. Strange, considering the word ‘Maharashtrians’ and not the slang ‘Ghati’ has been used to refer to the Marathi people in Mumbai. Is it because the writer of the piece herself is a Maharashtrian?
Harsh R. Saxena, Mumbai
I’m a 19-year-old girl who appreciates the need for a healthy and open attitude toward sex, more so safe sex, but am tired of your magazine fleshing it out so often (Sex and the Married Indian, Dec 20). You are doing us no favour (only your sales) except filling us with dread on what the next issue might bring us and considering our subscription with misgivings. Agreed that sex is a delicate issue and people are squeamish about it with their pre-conceived notions, but it has to be tackled tactfully, not with some crude in-your-face survey. It only hurts your cause by convincing people of the need to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. There is a fine distinction between being ‘open’ and being ‘crude’. And I thought Outlook would know the difference. Honestly, you need a break and we need it too.
Krishna Tiwari, Allahabad
I read with great interest your cover on sex and the married Indian. I wasn’t clear about one thing. Was it conducted on the same couples over the period? Were they kept track of for 15 years and asked the changes their relationship had seen?
Raktim Saikia, Gurgaon
Your cover story proceeds with the assumptions that Indians are conservative, Indian men are poor lovers, the women are sexually inhibited. But having been engaged in research on sexuality with the main emphasis on women since 1971, I can tell you that the notion that ‘Indians were prudish’ doesn’t stand to historical or empirical testimony. In my study I had specifically interviewed old women (who were young in the ’40s and ’50s). Not only their participation but even their wisdom about the different aspects of sexuality and all the remedies to enhance or diminish it for compatibility was truly fascinating.
V. Verma, Noida, UP
So, now Outlook deems it fit to tell us how often married couples have anal sex. Why? How does this help the mental or spiritual development of any society or individual? But I am being foolish. As journalistic goals go, they clearly dropped out of the reckoning sometime ago. You are now just in the business of keeping the consuming classes focused on the pleasures of the senses—and in shopping malls. I abandoned your main competitor after years of loyalty for precisely this—the splattering of garbage across once-dignified pages. Where would you have readers like me go now, Outlook?
Sunny Bindra, Nairobi, Kenya
How is it that ‘India’s largest sex survey’ only discusses typical gender identities and hetero-normative behaviour? Are we to believe that a survey which covers 15 states, 15 years, and over 15,000 people from ages 19 to 90, found no case of gay, lesbian, trans- or bisexual behaviour? Ignoring alternate sexualities in India undermines the cause for repealing Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code; it also undermines the fight against hiv; and at the ‘personal’ level it leads the individual who has a different sexuality into believing that he or she is alone and has a pathological sexuality or persona. The truth is that we exist and we are ‘normal’; we could be part of your family, but if you ignore our reality and our existence then how can we ever build an authentic, meaningful relationship with you?
Aprotim, Hari, Manish et al, Good-As-You, Bangalore
They say that in India only sex, religion and cricket sell. Nobody knows it better than Outlook. For, I am sure that neither are your samples representative of all Indians nor does anybody take your statistics seriously. Like the finding in your survey that extramarital sex has gone up 3.3 times for men and 14.6 times for women in the same period. Strange. I thought you needed both men and women for adultery. How could one show a larger increase than the other?
R.K. Sudan, on e-mail
The way Outlook is going, it won’t be long before people start looking look down on those who subscribe to your magazine.
Dr Sumit Sharma, on e-mail
Outlook and Debonair. Vinod Mehta playing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
D.V. Madhava Rao, Chennai
Please cancel my subscription and return the amount remaining to me. I want to utilise it for better reading.
Ajay Moghe, Indore
Give us sex education, Mr Mehta, not sex seduction.
Venkatesh, Bangalore
This is Outlook, Playboy of the Indian edition.
Baldev S. Chauhan, Shimla
Who cares whether the Indian janta has sex with their bedroom lights on or off? We don’t need this Vinod Mehta Guide to Complete Titillation.
Sabarinadhan K.S., Thiruvananthapuram
Do you have a dumb and dumber competition going with ‘India Today’ on who can stoop to new lows?
Deepanshu Bhandari, Mumbai
Although no one is surprised that Outlook is writing the obituary of the bjp (This Way to Freefall, Dec 20), has anyone asked the question, how relevant Outlook itself is. Not much, it seems, considering how when it doesn’t have anything substantial, it falls back on trashing the bjp or lapping up Soniaji or Debonairesquely peeping into our bedrooms.
Ankan Kumar, Columbus, US
Why does Outlook need to promote casteism, communalism and bitterness with pieces like these? First the writer picks and chooses instances she likes to prop up her biased views against certain individuals. Then she baffles all by advocating that the bjp should have adopted casteist or communalist lines in states like Karnataka, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand? It is appalling to note that she expects the bjp, a truly secular and nationalist party, to yield to casteist and regional factors like the Lingayats, Backwards, Yadavas, Lodhs, Kurmis, Brahmins, Thakurs, Kayasthas, Bhumihars, Marwaris, tribals, etc.
Dr Balram Mishra, New Delhi
It was amazing to read about the ‘confessions’ of the Shankaracharya even before he probably made them (Prison Diaries of a Pontiff, Dec 20)! Coupled with the picture of the weeping man, it sure must have attracted attention but must have left your readers only with disgust.
Shantheri Mallaya, Bangalore
A true devotee of God can never harbour rancour toward anyone, however extreme the provocation. Jayendra Saraswati fell short of that. As all their activities are guided by the all-powerful "unseen hand", there is minimal chance of erring on their part.
S.C. Chakraborty, Nagpur
If not being flamboyant is one of the requirements for being promoted as an Air Marshal, why wasn’t it formally and explicitly included as one of the parameters to be graded in the annual confidential report (Air of Uncertainty, Dec 13)? Then avm Harish Masand would not have got the highest marks compared to the rest before the awarding of discretionary marks. Or did the infamous discretionary marks include lack of flamboyance amongst many other dubious factors to be graded? It’s a pity that in recent times members of the iaf promotion board lacked the moral courage to speak up and used these marks as a weapon of abuse to promote only those it wanted to.
Rukmini Pillai, New Delhi
I think the first Test in Dhaka has shown us why the Harkat clowns were so anxious that India not visit Bangladesh: the fear of humiliation of losing so comprehensively to a fairly average Test team (Bangla Beamer, Dec 20).
Arun Masilamoni, Hyderabad
Mukesh and Anil Ambani should remember that it is not their private wealth that is at stake but the billions poured in by financial institutions and millions of shareholders whose money they are holding as custodians (The Really Fine Print, Dec 20). Many illustrious families have gone into oblivion due to sibling bickerings entering their business interests. It’s high time they were warned before it gets too late.
S.S. Rajagopalan, Chennai
The feud between the Ambani brothers does vindicate the ‘Money Can’t Buy Happiness’ aphorism. You may well have an empire of nearly 1,00,000 crore but where is the peace of mind? Which makes me glad I belong to a middle-class family which can still sit together at a table and gain the sweet satisfaction of sharing the day’s experiences.
Neha Tinwalla, Nashik
In his review of Mani Shankar Aiyar’s Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist (Books, Dec 20), Saeed Naqvi uses a quote from the book which ascribes the period between Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism in the 3rd century BC to the last great Buddhist monarch, Harshavardhan of Kannauj, as a non-Hindu period. This is totally at odds with historical fact, as the said period saw some great dynasties such as the Shungas, the Satavahanas, the Vakatakas and the imperial Guptas, to name just a few. The secular brigade does go too far sometimes in proving its point.
Prateek Badwelkar, Gwalior
