Why I Love To Hate <i>Outlook</i>

For my generation, which had grown up reading Junior Statesman, Illustrated Weekly, Sunday and India Today, Outlook was a refreshing change from predictable weeklies. In a sense, it was a throwback to the heyday of Sunday Observer which managed to dazzle and impress week after week even when there wasn’t much happening. I guess Vinod Mehta could do that with any paper he edited.

What set Outlook apart were its amazing ability to come up with unpredictable covers and a sizzling mix of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ stories. Also, no other publication ever gave so much space for feedback, most of it harshly critical and mildly abusive.

That was till Vinod acquired ideological baggage and began seeing himself as Rodin’s Thinker, a Lutyens’s intellectual. The man who had a healthy disregard for niceties and was irreverent of authority suddenly became a Janpath acolyte.

There was a time when I would eagerly await the next issue of Outlook to surprise me. I don’t feel that way now. Maybe it’s my cynicism. Maybe Vinod and his successor regime do not believe in having fun anymore. Or, Outlook’s outgrown the intellectual inadequacies of its once avid readers.

(Kanchan Gupta, Journalist, political analyst, activist)

Outlook invites readers to take part in its 20th anniversary celebrations. Send us your bouquets and, more importantly, your brickbats. E-mail your entry to editor [AT] outlookindia [DOT] com