NEWBORNS. 1995
The summer of 1995, I quit India Today to join the soon-to-be-launched weekly news magazine Outlook led by the unconventional and brilliant Vinod Mehta as editor. The magazine followed a radical policy of designating its editorial heads as Associate Editors instead of naming them separately by their departments. As head of the photo department, I was now one of the four Associate Editors along with Padmanand Jha, Sandipan Deb and Tarun Tejpal.
It was exciting working in a start-up, which is what Outlook was then. With little resources and lots of enthusiasm, we operated from two suites in the Lodhi Hotel, determined to be the kick-ass of all the existing news magazines, especially India Today. As the senior most person from the visual department, Vinod informally tasked me to oversee the look of the magazine along with design consultant Pranab Dutta, art chief Bishwadeep Moitra and cartoonist Ajit Ninan. Together we formulated a look for Outlook befitting its new-kid-on-the-block image: bratty, irreverent, unconventional and ready to break rules. Being a liberal-anarchist at heart, Vinod was happy to play along.
Together we formulated a look for Outlook befitting its new-kid-on-the-block image: bratty, irreverent, unconventional.
The launch issue of Outlook, the menu for which you see scribbled in my notebook, with its cover story on Kashmir created quite a storm. Soon we were a force to reckon with in the media. Two years later, our closest rival India Today had no option but to follow our lead and was forced to convert from a fortnightly to a weekly magazine. For the launch issue of Outlook, I worked with writer Soma Wadhwa on a story on female infanticide in Bihar. Our sources were the Dais (midwives), traditionally tasked with killing the babies, who were now being organized by an NGO to help curb this social evil. Using a doll, one of the Dais, Phool Devi, demonstrated how they strangled the newborns at the very spot where they usually threw the dead babies. Storm clouds gathered overhead, the wind tugged at Phool Devi’s sari as she tightened a string around the doll’s neck making for a powerful and disturbing image that is reproduced here.
(Excerpted from Prashant Panjiar’s book, That Which is Unseen, published by Navajivan Trust, 2021)
