Everything auspicious in most Hindu families  is  initiated post  Makar Sankranti. Up North Lohri is celebrated to bid farewell to winter and welcome harvest. It marks the transition of the sun into the zodiac sign of Capricorn.

As a little girl I have vivid memories of my mother preparing a large plate of til ka laddoos  that we children polished it off in no time. She always drew a swastika at the door on this day and hung a fresh flower toran on the main door.

My father encouraged us to start a new chapter in our school studies and extra-curricular activities. “Whatever you begin today will be accomplished without  interruptions”.

I have remembered that and always started a new book or project on this day. Most people do that, celebrating the festival in different regions by different names. Poush Sankranti in Bengal, Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Magh Bihu in Assam and Makar Sankranti in North India.

This year I am going to explore the stories behind the many Indian festivals, the origin, the customs and the significance. Watch this space for more…

I remember the title of the cover but I will share it here. I don’t want to open old wounds and revive painful memories. If the actor wants the bygone to be bygone then so be it. Rekha being featured on the cover has to be justified however and all I will say is that it was a difficult phase for the actor. When things go wrong, they go terribly wrong and then the horror stories grow and grow. Speculation, conjectures because nobody knows the truth.

There were pressures on me to opine on what had happened, analyse, I did not. I preferred to wait and maybe that is why she chose me to make her one and only public statement. It was brief, guarded but from the heart and honest and I believed her. The stunning closeup for the cover is shot by the one and only Gautam Rajyadhaksha.

After ‘jumma chumna de de’/ Hum Kimi Katkar was the new glamour star on the block and big banners planned mighty proposals featuring Bachchan and her but Kimi shocked all by announcing that she was quitting films post marriage. Insiders said that Kimi’s fiancé, photographer Shantanu Shorey did not want her to continue acting and. Kimi offered no explanation.  I was surprised when Shantanu Shorey agreed to do an interview discussing Kimi and their relationship. 

The fabulous cover picture with streaming sunlight against palm leaves was shot by the much in demand Rakesh Shreshtha at his newly launched studio. This was probably the last photo session Kimi Katkar shot for the tabloids.  It is now 33 years but nobody has ever seen Kimi Katkar in all these years.

Our premier issue featured Amitabh Bachchan on the cover and we desired to feature him on our anniversary cover as well but Bachchan was not speaking to the media those days so getting through to him was not easy. Our office sent him a copy of the anniversary issue though and he surprised us with a congratulatory note.

This was the time Parveen Babi had resurfaced after a long exile and was lambasting Bachchan in every tabloid and magazine. I asked Bachchan if he was open to the idea of an interview with me and he agreed spontaneously. There is a possibility that he was deliberating a truce with the media for some time and I was the catalyst. Whatever the reason I was the first journalist he spoke to.

To make the cover picture special I sought ace cameraman Ashok Mehta but still photography was not his forte and the pictures were not up to the mark. The cover was a sell-out though and now all the stars wanted to shoot their family pictures with us.

In the 70s and the 80s film magazines were described as yellow journalism because they elaborated on the private lives of film stars. In 1989 Chitralekha dared to launch a glossy magazine that was not only different in size but also in spirit and content. Superbly designed by artist PG Ghawali the magazine was a dream for all photographers and fashionistas. The overheads were enormous and our detractors gave us a year to close down. We sailed through 12 months and celebrated our anniversary with a big bash.

Come 1990 and we were the talk of the town. The biggest and the brightest stars opened their homes for us and we shot intimate portraits of family members. Anil Kapoor featured on our first anniversary cover and Sunita Kapoor designed his ultra glam jacket and the prop he held in his hand. It is the first time Kapoor wore blue contact lenses and the effect was magical. The cover picture was shot at Kapoor’s home by the very imaginative and my favourite Jayesh Sheth.

In the good old days when I went to school, everyone wore an identical uniform. There was
no difference in the fabric or the price. of our attire.  All the girls tied up their hair in a braid
or a pony tail without pins or fancy buckles. Nobody was allowed to wear fringes, bangs or
fancy haircuts. We never wore polish on our nails, never applied mehandi on our palms,
never strung flowers in our hair and never wore bindis on the forehead because the school
wanted no communal discrimination. All the students, the boys and the girls wore the same
type of shoes/ socks and carried almost identical lunch boxes and bags.
For eleven years we spent together, we never knew if our classmate’s father was an
industrialist or a telephone operator. Except Paul. Paul’s father, Diego worked as an office
boy in our school and often visited our classroom with a message for the teacher. Every time
Diego entered the class, all of us looked at Paul with pride and applauded. Diego was as awe-
inspiring for us as our teachers because he occupied the space of authority in our minds and
Paul was as much a part of our lives as the other classmates.
Our present-day students will never know the innocence of our times because they are fed on
discrimination as toddlers. It begins with the school admission interviews where schools want
to know about your father’s profession and mother’s profile. You have to fill in the location
you reside and also your annual income and last but not the least, who recommended you to
this school? The social media for the last few days, has been buzzing with video clips of the
annual celebrations at the Dhirubhai Ambani School in Mumbai and the only focus are the
star kids – Aaradhya Bachchan, Abram Khan, Yash, Hiroo Johar and Taimur Khan. I wonder
how the other parents feel about this.? They pay the same fees as the other celebrities, so how
do they deal with the recurrent preferential treatment to select children?
In my opinion the celebrity parents are not to be blamed be it the Bachchans, the Khans, the
Kapoors or the Johars because they are far from seeking the special treatment. My objection
is to inviting the influencers to such functions who make a mockery of the education system.
Do you agree with me, write in your comments.

My friend was going through her old albums and forwarded some pictures of her brother’s wedding to me on the phone. Her caption read, ‘Once upon a time we were young and beautiful’. The posted pictures were clicked in 1987 when I was editor, Movie magazine. 

I jogged my memory to recall if I had attended the wedding directly from work or had gone home to change but I drew a blank.  I enlarged the picture on my phone to take a closer look at my sari and jewelry. It all looked very familiar but I have no idea where it has all disappeared now.  So much has multiplied in the wardrobe ever since that it is impossible to keep a track of all.

What moves me about these old pictures is how old friendship has stood the test of time. Six of us( three missing in the picture) passed out from college sometime in the 70s and at that time  none of us knew what life had in store for us. We traveled our journeys and  more than 50 years later continue to be a part of each other’s lives. 

Back to the pictures and our expressions, it is amazing how innocent and simple it all appears. I guess when you are young, you don’t need reasons to laugh. It is not like I don’t laugh anymore. I do, but the feeling is never the same. That twinkle is missing in my eyes. Do you feel the same when you see your old pictures? 

I was talking to a young friend who casually mentioned her monthly expenses to me.

She said she spends rupees 10,000 a month at the salon and another 20,000 for the products and the treatment taken at the dermatologist. 

Rs 20, 000 every month are reserved for her personal trainer  and a minimum goes into hiring Ubers and Ola’s 10,000 as conveyance. 

She is in a job that requires her to be well groomed and therefore she is frequently shopping clothes, shoes , makeup on Amazon.

So are you saving any money at all? I asked a bit worried. “None what so ever because we are  out every weekend and partying in Mumbai is not cheap. Plus there is house rent and other stuff like electricity, wifi and phone”.

So why are you living in this city?  Why cannot you return home and look for a job closer to your parents’?

She sighed, “My parents ask me that every day.  But going back will be boring. At present, I am not saving any money but I’m living a life I enjoy”.

Foot note:

She is not the only one. There are millions like her in the city. Do you think she is doing the right thing?  Write me your opinion.