We’ve reported, written, edited, designed, printed and then it’s out there, winging its way to our loyal subscribers, but also held up by a hawker at a traffic junction, with a cover hoping to entice you into a purchase. And then, there’s the verdict of the bazaar—sometimes reassuring, at other times puzzling, but always interesting. As evident from this list of our best and worst selling issues.
| Boomed | Bombed | |
| 1995 | ||
| Oct 18 Where Errors Reign, Kalashnikovs Bloom First-ever opinion poll in Kashmir had 77 per cent saying there is no solution within the Indian Constitution | Nov 1 The Charade Ends: Suspended Animation The ouster of Mayawati, the country’s first woman Dalit CM, left UP in a fluid state | |
| 1996 | ||
| Sept 11 Sex in the '90s: Uneasy Revolution Pre-marital relationships; marriage and thereafter; oral sex; homosexuality; masturbation; multi-partner sex. The issue vanished quickly from the stands. | Oct 2 UP Hung Assembly: Can BSP Blunt Saffron Edge? Two years in a row, a UP cover bombed. Readers were not curious about the state. | |
| 1997 | ||
| June 11 India’s Worst Kept Secret The defining investigative cover on match-fixing; a much-remembered story. | June 18 Missing in Action: Where is the Prime Minister? The PM in question being I.K. Gujral, but few cared | |
| 1998 | ||
| April 20 The Big Fashion Hoax: Hip Hyper Hollow We said what many thought about Indian fashion, but didn’t have the guts to say | Oct 5 The Battle for Bihar: Suspended Animation Despite the Laloo-Rabri shenanigans, readers didn’t bite | |
| 1999 | ||
| Jul 26 The War: Did we Really Win it? We went beyond patriotic claptrap and raised uncomfortable questions on Kargil that came to be widely discussed and debated across the country | March 15 Murdoch’s Last Gamble The world's most predatory media magnate Rupert Murdoch has plans for India? Riveting story, right? But apparently, not for Outlook readers. | |
| 2000 | ||
| Oct 16 5th Anniversary Special Outlook revisited the places and tracked down the people it had written about | March 27 Sangh Shock The cover examined the newly resurgent RSS under K.S. Sudarshan | |
| 2001 | ||
| Dec 24 A Nation Outraged (Attack on Parliament) In-depth story on the terror attack struck a chord | May 28 9 Lives of Amma The magnitude of Jayalalitha’s victory in TN elections stumped everyone. But our readers weren’t. | |
| 2002 | ||
| Feb 4 The Death of a Great City (Mumbai) Vanishing urbanity, fewer jobs, packed trains, overburdened infrastructure and a secular fabric torn asunder | Apr 29 Mr PM, What about your Rajdharma? On the two faces of Vajpayee, post his defence of Narendra Modi at the infamous Goa conclave | |
| 2003 | ||
| Sep 15 Best B-Schools This annual listing of the best B-Schools is amongst the most widely-read, year after year—it’s a finger on the pulse of a young India. | Dec 29 God (Rahul Dravid) A celebration of Rahul Dravid after his match-winning innings against Australia in Adelaide | |
| 2004 | ||
| Jan 12 The World’s Youngest Nation We called them the zippies—54% of the Indians below the age of 25—and devoted an issue to them | Mar 29 Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest (Elections 2004) On how a ‘great democratic spectacle’ was reduced to entertainment in television studios and tamasha in party offices | |
| 2005 | ||
| Jan 10 Why Happiness Matters The feelgood appeal was apparently irresistible. Left the readers smiling. | Jun 27 The Royal Hunt On the individuals who take perverse pleasure in killing near-extinct animals, nawabs, filmstars and all | |
| 2006 | ||
| Jan 9 Heroes to Hell A special issue featuring faceless, everyday heroes | Sept 25 After them who? Musical legends, their successors, and the future of the Hindustani classical tradition. Too niche perhaps. | |
| 2007 | ||
| Jan 15 The Taste of Small Town A gastronomical survey of India sent reporters tracking flavours from Karaikudi to Kohima, Bikaner to Burdwan | Apr 2 India's Cup of Woe India crashed out of the World Cup after just the first round, a first since ’92. Too ‘feel-bad’ for the already distraught readers. | |
| 2008 | ||
| Jan 14 My India Story Everybody has one. Here, we had Patrick French, Taslima Nasreen, Jan Morris, Ian Jack, and many others telling their India stories. | Oct 13 India Goes to Bollywood Few takers for a serious exploration of the over-Bollywoodisation of our lives. Surprised? | |
| 2009 | ||
| Jan 12 Thank God It's Over/My Native Place Looking back, shortly after 26/11, at one of the worst years in recent times, but also, touching evocatively at the idea of the native place | Jul 6 Aren't we Racist Too? As the public mood turned anti-Australian after attacks on Indians Down Under, we took stock of our own racial prejudices. Too uncomfortable a mirror to look into? | |
| 2010 | ||
| Jan 11 Uncovered India's National Dish No, not butter chicken | Feb 22 Bloodbath in Bastar Tribals in Chhattisgarh, marginalised not just by the state but by our readers as well | |
