Hobby: Reading: Part 4

 




14 03 24

Hobby: Reading

Part 4: Adding to the list of eminently readable material

Sometime in the late seventies, I began engrossed in reading magazines, besides the craze for books. And, at the same time, there would be great fun in writing Letters To the Editor, entering competitions, and so on.

Letters to the editor: It was such a delight, after waiting between magazine issues, to get a new issue and quickly go to the letters page to see if my letter had been selected. And, added bonus, if it won the best letter prize. This happened a number of times, and, soon I was writing around to around 40 magazines and newspapers every month. Made a lot of good friends  courtesy this very inspiring hobby, including editors of some magazines, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting. (that is a topic for another day).

The magazines would be everything from youth mags, to travel mags, from movie mags to readers digest… the one topic I strictly avoided (unless there was humour), was politics..let me recount some of the mags of those days, many went out of publication as the internet picked up in the nineties.

Youth: the Weekly Sun(My favourite, for letters and competitions – won so many audio / Video cassettes, posters, etc, in competitions like caption contests, spot the ball, identify the movie stars from the pic(pic would have a mix of two stars’ upper and lower face), identification from stars eyes, movie quizzes and so on.. then, there were Upbeat(another favourite- I visited their Mumbai office and met the editorial team once), Jetset, Vibes, Young Media.

Movies: Filmfare(going strong even now), Movie, Cine Blitz, G with it’s tabloid format, Star & Style, Screen(The newspaper, with hundreds of movie ads every week). Stardust , Super.

Lifestyle / city magazines: Citadel(Pune – a special mag, this one, I was with their team for three days), Bombay(another favourite), Society(Met the Editor at their offices, once), Glad Rags.

Politics(for non-political section): India Today(going strong today also), the Week, frontline.

Will update the list soon, as I keep jogging my memory.

There are four spiral bound books containing snips of each letter/ prize won in the past, so glad to have been able to preserve most of the letters, and, to read them and reminisce every now and then.

How many of you used to follow my Letters to Editors  in those days?

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