#ForgottenThings3


         Among things forgotten are some Indian newspaper tabloids which were a craze in the period independence to the 80’s, but have gone into oblivion with the death of their owner editors.
          Among them are …

BLITZ – The "free, frank and fearless" and the most popular weekly in India at that time, published by Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia  or “Russy Karanjia” as he was popularly known.
          
                  


                      Blitz, a weekly tabloid was published on ordinary newsprint. Its focus on investigative journalism could be said to be courageous and a little titillating with the pin-up girls on the last page. It was fun reading the Blitz which regularly gave scoops and entertainment.

                          Young and old alike, even in the remotest parts of India, used to queue up before newspaper stalls on Friday evening or Saturday (which depended on when it reached that place depending on its distance from Bombay) to buy their copy of Blitz. If you missed your copy, there was no chance of getting it later, such was the demand - in lakhs.

R K Karanjia
                                          
          Blitz started publication in 1941 and ended I believe in the 90’s. But during the time it was in circulation it performed a journalistic blitzkrieg, week after week, with its sensational news reports.

CURRENT – another weekly newspaper tabloid. It started publication in 1945 and ended sometime in early 70’s. Its owner editor was Dosoo Framjee Karaka or D.F Karaka. He wrote several books too.
                         
           Current was printed on better quality paper. It was worth reading though it never reached the popularity or sales of Blitz.

           Russy Karanjia and DF Karaka (both Parsis) were said to be good friend in their private lives, but publically they were ragging each other all the time through their respective newspapers, with Karanjia mostly getting the upper hand.

MOTHER INDIA –   Mother India started some time in early 50’s and stopped publication in mid 70’s. Baburao called it the “right magazine with the wrong name”. It was more political in nature although it contained film reviews. Readers lapped up the caustic comments written by Baburao, he getting away with all of it. It was also tabloid sized, the same as Blitz and Current, but used much better glossy paper.

MOTHER INDIA the magazine
                              

helen_textiles
 Baburao’s caption for the Helen photograph
            Mother India (Formerly called Film India) had one of the most wittiest columns and was published much before the present film magazines started.

FilmIndia magazine
              Its owner editor was Baburao Patel, a famous editor, publisher, journalist, film-critic, film producer, writer, film director.

Babu Rao Patel
      No tributes are enough for these colourful personalities who were  editors of these once famous and immensely popular magazines.

Comments

  1. Anonymous5 March 2013 at 10:41

    very good write up.Purane dino ki yaad dimag mein tazi ho gayi.Please write about other magazines too...Sun....JS......etc
    You have a store of such precious info.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. marfordisreEverett27 May 2022 at 02:35

    marfordisreEverett Jason Bader Here
    culilahed

    ReplyDelete

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