Kicking Up A Storm

An excerpt Prashant Panjiar’s book, That Which is Unseen

Updated on: 4 August 2024 7:41 am

From the Launch Issue: Photograph of Phool Devi demonstrating how dais strangled newborns in Bihar Photo: Prashant Panjiar

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.

The story list for the launch issue of Outlook scribbled in Prashant Panjiar’s notebook

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.

Panic Room: left foreground: Bishwadeep Moitra checks out Namrata Joshi’s DVD cache at the main desk, while Vinod Mehta reads the Riot Act; from the archive by Sandeep Adhwaryu - null

Once Upon A Time, In AB-10

BY Bishwadeep Moitra

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)