THE 2ND ISLAMABAD LITERATURE FESTIVAL HAD WRITERS, ARTISTS, PERFORMERS, AND JOURNALISTS COME TOGETHER TO OFFER A DISTINCT CULTURAL HUE TO THE CITY. FROM POPULAR PERFORMANCES BY DASTANGOS, TO SHORT FILMS BEING SCREENED ON POET AHMED FARAZ, THE FESTIVAL HAD SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE AND NOT ALL THAT WAS OFFERED WAS LITERARY. THERE WERE PANELS EXPLORING POPULAR CINEMA, DRAMA AND THE SMALL SCREEN, ACTIVISTS COMMENTING ON THE INCREASING GENDER DISPARITY WITHIN THE COUNTRY, AS WELL AS FORUMS DISCUSSING REFORMS IN STATE SCHOOLS. BOOKS LAUNCHES, DANCE PERFORMANCES, A MUSHAIRA AND A PLAY BY NAPA WERE ALSO PART OF THE MIX.
The recent influx of print magazines comes at a strange time for Pakistan, when print media all over the world feels threatened by the digital age of information and opinion sharing. Nevertheless, after Newsweek in 2010 and Hello! Pakistan in 2012, last month also saw the launch of OK! Pakistan, another localised version of a best-selling fashion and lifestyle magazine.
It made sense then, to hold a panel at the Islamabad Literature Festival devoted to print magazines, especially since it included one of the biggest names in the industry from across the border, Shobhaa De.
The panel also featured Amna R. Ali and Mehvash Amin of Hello!. The session was moderated by Asif Noorani, who has years of experience writing for and editing print magazines and it showed in the comfort with which he negotiated the conversation. A conversation which not infrequently turned to remembrances of Khushwant Singh, the famous and prolific writer with inexorable ties to Punjab and Pakistan, who died earlier this year and whose remains were brought across the border recently to be taken to his ancestral village.
But the session, titled ‘The Magazine Culture of India and Pakistan,’ inevitably started with an emphasis on De, who was asked to recount her journey through the magazine landscape of India. She recalled that when she first started in the field, magazines were rife with chamcha journalism, courting interviews with famous celebrities by filling pages with their praises, and talking only about the number of dogs they have and what car they had bought that month.
Then Filmfare and Stardust came along and changed celebrity and lifestyle reporting. In the first issue of Stardust she oversaw the cover story on film star Rajesh Khanna’s rumoured marriage which never actually went through, right down to a picture of the mother-in-law that never was.
Stardust was based on scandalous material and a chattier style of writing that used a lot of slang and which was essentially an evolution of drawing room gossip into print. This was a huge hit with the readership, even though the more established writers and editors preferred a more serious tone of writing and derided it for being cheap.
“But that was the entire point; we sold an issue for only 30 rupees back then.” In fact, she recounted, amusingly, that on a visit to Pakistan she found out that smuggled copies of Stardust here were selling for as high as Rs200, the exchange rate not being as lopsided at the time, prompting many at the magazine to wonder if they were selling it in the wrong country.
She also recalled that one of the best selling covers in the early ’90s featured a shirtless Imran Khan, whom she called “the first real item boy of cricket.” She said that Imran had been shy during the photo shoot but was reassured by his belief that nobody back home would ever see it.
“Little did he know that there would be smuggled copies being sold all over Pakistan. He later told me if he’d known that would happen, he would never have done it.”
De said that magazines in India became more about opining than reporting. They scrutinised the lives of prominent Indians and treated public figures with jest and irreverence. This resonated with the readership, which viewed celebrity with both awe and ridicule, often at the same time.
Ali echoed De’s sentiments that what set magazines apart from other journalistic publications was candid writing in popular vernacular. She also said that there was the lack of a ready-made celebrity market in Pakistan, which existed in the shape of Bollywood in India. She said that when they were starting up Hello! in Pakistan they were asked frequently by concerned investors that, “do you think you have enough celebrities?”.
But rather than be a hindrance, this helped the magazine branch out into wider fields of celebrity, even making celebrities out of ordinary people. She cited a segment in her magazine which gave space to regular people living regular lives who talked frankly about their hopes, aspirations, successes and failures, a segment which has gone on to be hugely popular. Amin talked a bit about her experience of 11 years working as an editor for Libas, which started off on very different terms, as an avenue for fashion designers and clothing houses to advertise and promote their works, and only slowly became a more conventional lifestyle magazine. De praised Libas as being a pioneering magazine in Pakistan, a totally homegrown endeavour which created and supported fashion brands. Noorani then asked his panel why some magazines were priced so highly in comparison to the rest. He cited Herald as only being for a Rs100, whereas the newer magazines like Newsweek, Hello! and OK! sell for Rs300.
The panellist replied that the space for print magazines in Pakistan has evolved since the days of the Herald, people are now willing to pay these prices for the newer content, they want to read about things other than politics or the economy, and that Hello! and OK! were already selling very well.
The panel also mentioned She as a magazine that started off as a serious publication but was now glossy and selling more than it used to. But all of them agreed on the point that magazine readership was shrinking worldwide due to digital publishing.
Shobhaa De, however, maintained that not all was doom and gloom, and that magazines in India like Vogue and GQ continue to make money, just not with print circulation. “The revenue model has shifted towards ground events and sponsorships, events like the GQ Awards make these people their money, and new brands flood their pages with advertisements.”
De felt there was something about magazines, in the quality of the paper, the colours, the contours and layout that would help them endure.
— Haseeb Asif