Hindustan Times - Forever

FOREVER SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

LEADING THE CHANGE, AGAIN

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The Hindustan Times has been at the forefront of innovations in newspaper design from the day it started. This one is for new India.

Vir Sanghvi Advisory Editorial Director

Those of us who have been involved with the running of the Hindustan Times over the last decade like to think that we made many revolutionary changes. Well, perhaps we did. But increasingly, I get the feeling that we give ourselves too much credit.

Let’s take the example of the new design. We are proud to have Mario Garcia redesign the paper. Mario has an old association with the paper. Eight years ago, he came in to redesign HT City and our supplements.

Mario’s design for the paper supplants the one created by Michael Keegan, the designer from the Washington Post who did two separate designs for the main paper over the last ten years. Though there was a phase, a couple of years ago, when we did silly things to Michael’s design (yes, I know; we are not perfect), it was strong enough to withstand any mistakes we may have made.

I remember when Michael first came to Delhi to look at the paper. And I

remember banging heads with Mario as we tried to explain to him what I wanted to do with HT City.

But I suspect I was wrong to act as though I was doing something new or different. Looking through the HT’s archives, I was startled to discover that the paper’s reputation for design innovation dated back to long before my birth.

On November 21, 1935, the HT ran an announcement on its front page.

Headlined “To Our Readers,” it read: “Today, the Hindustan Times appears in an enlarged form suited to the growing traffic of news and the modern conventions of journalistic appeal. Started eleven years ago, The Hindustan Times has tried to serve the country as an institution devoted to the correct presentation of news and exposition of public opinion...”

These were no idle boasts. The HT was at the forefront of innovations in newspaper design almost from the day it started.

In the 1920s, all Indian papers followed the British tradition of putting advertisements on page one. The news stories were inside the paper. (In England, such papers as The Times stuck to this tradition well into the 1960s).

American papers, in contrast, pioneered the style of news presentation we still follow to this day. The news began on page one with bold headlines.

The HT ignored the British tradition and went with the American pattern forcing all Indian newspapers (including the two colonial market leaders of that era: Delhi’s The Statesman and Bombay’s The Times of India) to follow suit. (The last to make the change was The Hindu and The Times of India took many, many years to come to terms

with 20th century design).

A second important design innovation was the reduction of column width.

Designers will tell you now that if a column is too broad, it is more difficult for the eye to follow the text. I have no idea how the early editors of the HT worked this out but they changed column width (again in accordance with the American pattern) and forced all other papers to follow suit.

Nor were these changes limited to design. We pride ourselves at the HT on the prominence we give our journalists these days. Unlike some other papers where they are treated as minions who write the stuff between the ads and regarded as secondary to spacesellers, the HT’s journos are treated with pride and dignity. We recognise their roles as stars, give them bylines and carry their photos as often as we can so readers can put faces to the stories.

But in doing this, we are only upholding an old Hindustan Times tradition.

The HT has always made much of its journos. In 1944, when Durga Das joined the paper as Special Representative (a position somewhere between today’s Special Correspondent and Chief of Bureau), the HT bragged about his arrival on page one.

The story, which included a photograph of Durga Das’s unsmiling visage, complete with spectacles and toothbrush moustache, was headlined “India’s News-getter No. 1 joins The Hindustan Times.”

The story outlined Durga Das’s career and noted “although not a scoopmonger, Mr Durga Das has a record of big stories...he has travelled widely in India and Europe.”

Would newspapers brag about their Special Correspondents today? I’m not

sure. Editors, perhaps. But correspondents? In this respect too, the HT was ahead of its time.

Then, there’s the honours list of HT editors. In all honesty, I must concede that we’ve had a few duds, but we’ve also had some real stars, the biggest journalistic names of their times: Khushwant Singh, B.G. Verghese, Durga Das (he rose to the post eventually), the legendary S. Mulgaokar, Prem Shankar Jha and Devdas Gandhi. Others left before they reached the very top: Sham Lal who went on to become the best editor The Times of India ever had; Chandan Mitra who now edits The Pioneer, Aditya Sinha currently Editorin-Chief of the New Indian Express and Bharat Bhushan who edits The Mail Today.

But, apart from the odd exception, the HT’s editors have never been windbags and bores unlike many editors of other papers. This too is part of the tradition. Khushwant Singh saw no contradiction between editing India’s most powerful paper and writing an entertaining weekly column (which still appears every Saturday in the HT). And the current editor, Sanjoy Narayan, writes the best rock music column in the business (on Sunday in Brunch).

This tradition goes back to the 1920s.

When the HT came out, editorials in other papers were long and verbose.

Often they occupied an entire page. It was the HT that introduced the shorter — and often wittier — editorial to the Indian media. Integral to the HT’s style was that early and later editors tended to be multi-faceted persons who did not take themselves too seriously.

S. Mulgaokar was a celebrated gourmet and a champion bridge player.

Khushwant Singh was never less than entirely readable.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SOUMITRA GHOSH

hich brings us back to the thought with which I started out. How much that is new or innovative have any of us, who have been editors more recently, really done?

My conclusion is that we have not done that much that is out of keeping with the traditions of the HT. There is something about the atmosphere at the paper that makes us want to be slightly irreverent, more focused on what is happening in world media and eager to try and create a paper that showcases the best Indian journalism.

God knows it isn’t always easy. There have been two big changes in newspaper reading habits in India over the last 20 years. The first is that post the 1991liberalisation, our readers became consumers of all the goods that were suddenly available in the shops, and advertisers became more significant contributors to our bottom-line. The HT took a little longer than it should have to come to terms with this change.

But when we did accept that the needs of our readers had changed, I’d like to think that we coped with the transition better than many other papers. We still have content; we still treat our readers as our primary constituency; you can’t buy your way into the HT; every word that appears in the main paper or in such supplements as HT City or Brunch is edited and vetted with the same attention to detail and ethics. As far as we are concerned, whether we are writing about the prime minister, a new restaurant or a cricket match, we will still give each the respect and attention it deserves.

The second major change has been the growth of new media. The reality is that many, if not most, of the people who pick up the HT each morning

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already know what the big news stories are. If they haven’t watched TV news then they have probably surfed the Internet. The challenges before a newspaper are to a) look as sleek and glossy and modern as global TV and b) to convince readers that there is still something left to say.

The content has not been a major problem. Because of the excellence of the HT’s journalism, because of our obsession with local stories that are often ignored by national electronic media, and our continuing effort to develop original voices with a fresh perspective on the world, there’s always something new to read in the HT. The appearance issue is slightly more difficult to resolve, at least partly, because we have ourselves set the bar so high by consistently hiring the world’s finest designers. The only way to achieve a level of design excellence that is always contemporary is to continually update the design, to go back to global graphic geniuses and to ask them to better their work.

It’s going to sound slightly boastful but I think the HT is now not just the best paper in India but it is also the country’s first 21st century newspaper.

It reaches millions: it influences events; it can dictate policy; it doesn’t just analyse the news — if often makes it; it’s well written and intelligently edited; it can be trusted because nobody can pay his way into our pages; and now it looks even better than before.

The best thing about all this is that all of it is entirely in keeping with our traditions. For just under a century the HT has always set the trend and changed the rules.

And we intend to keep doing exactly that.

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SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

REFLECTIONS

‘THERE’S A FOG AROUND CONSCIOUSNESS’ IN THE QUIET ENVIRONS of his house in the Capital’s upmarket Golf Links area, Hindustan Times former editor Prem Shankar Jha takes Kumkum Dasgupta through the ups and downs of the nation’s political and media history between 1960-90.

( ) In these times, the best way forward is not in trivialising things but strengthening analysis.

Journalists should not see the Internet as a threat but as a resource.

After studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and a stint in the UN, Prem Shankar Jha returned to India in 1966 and entered journalism as an assistant editor in the Hindustan Times where he worked till 1969, and returned as its editor in 1986. n the 1960-70s, newspapers were dowdy with poor layouts, three different typefaces and italicised headlines. Investigative journalism had not appeared in India yet and the relationship between the government of the day and journalists was based on mutual trust. The first cracks in this relationship appeared with the SinoIndian tensions of 1960-62. Journalists felt betrayed by the government and certain decisions of the then defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon, like sending troops to 17,000 ft in tennis shoes and cotton uniforms, were criticised roundly by the media. In this, the Hindustan Times took the lead and questioned decisions taken by him.

When Indira Gandhi took over in 1966, the relationship between the media and the government became antagonistic, though I must admit that an antagonistic relationship between the government and the media is a

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healthy situation because questioning the government in the interest of the country is the primary role of the media.

The reasons for this antagonism were the 1965 war with Pakistan, the future of economic policy and the bitter struggle between the Left and the Right on economic policy. Most of us felt strongly on issues like growing corruption and the government’s involvement in it. Mrs Gandhi took tough decisions but also raised hackles and a strident debate ensued between the government and the Press on the abolition of privy purses in 1969.

The editorial pages were heavy and still read by people, though not by all.

In those days, however, analyses were key and the media anticipated crises, and did not swoop down like vultures after the incident as we do today. Most editors were well read and writing a column was a prestige issue, with many of the best journalists not even getting

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Prem Shankar Jha edited HT from 1986 to 1987.

a chance.

A good example of how the media worked and anticipated crisis is best illustrated by the monsoon crisis of 1966.

When the rains failed that year in the Gangetic Plains, India’s food bowl, the first signs of a drought became visible.

By October, it became clear that a famine was on its way in the most heavily populated parts of the country. Bihar was the worst affected and Jayaprakash Narayan sounded an alarm. We at the Hindustan Times realised what was coming and I was sent to Bihar along with photographer Kishore Parekh to document what was happening.

The stories and excellent photographs made a huge impact and forced the government to react. They also pushed civil society to send money to JP after he opened various relief camps in Bihar. Other papers did follow-ups

SONU MEHTA/HT

and sent their correspondents too. This ensured that the government reacted immediately to the developing crisis and crucial funds reached the intended beneficiaries. This business of covering well in advance and following it up helped the country avert a major crisis.

Sadly, nowadays, no early reporting happens and the media only arrive after the event or catastrophe like vultures.

There are several reasons behind this disconnect between today’s media/journalists and rural India: first, most of today’s editors/journalists have no family connections with rural India, thanks to urbanisation; second, we were always sensitive to the fact that we lived off PL 480 (Public Law 480, also known as “Food for Peace” is a funding avenue by which US food can be used for Overseas Aid.); third, today’s papers

are more dependent on private ads and not government ads.

The next big news story of this era was the Emergency. The Hindustan Times, like other papers (except the Indian Express), remained complacent, though one must add that there was a collective turning away from the government. HT published a seven-page interview with Indira Gandhi while the Times of India reported as if the government did not exist. In 1977, elections took place and we all knew that Indira Gandhi would lose.

The 1980s were the most difficult times for HT. The Congress was losing control and the more laws it broke to stay in power, the more difficult it became for the paper to support it. The turmoil in the country, as Congress dominance unravelled, was reflected in the editor-owner relationship.

The day I joined as the editor, a bus was stopped in Punjab and Hindus were gunned down. I wrote my first editorial and it became my first head-on collision with the Congress. Senior Congress leader Buta Singh saw Akalis, not Khalistanis, as foes. I felt that the government must ensure the loyalty of the Sikhs to India and since we needed a democratic alternative in Punjab,

THIS IS HOW WE HAVE CHANGED Launched on September 26, 1924, HT was first an afternoon paper with a paid subscription of 20 copies. The masthead was printed in a Roman Gothic style, in sync with the prevalent design

Feb 25, 1929: The first change in the masthead.

By this time, the paper had earned a loyal readership in the north, and was fast emerging as the mouthpiece of the nationalist movement

June 14, 1967: HT goes in for a new look, to consolidate its leadership in the north. It was also the time when the media and government were not particularly at ease with each other.

May 10, 1980: Media were still recovering from the censorship that gagged them during Emergency. Socialist India was slowly starting to embrace the idea of a market economy

Feb 22, 1981: The 1980s saw the rise of middle class and consumerism.

In 1982, the country hosted the Asian Games.

The next year Indian cricketers brought home the world cup

Train to Multan— a journey with HT

Feb 21, 2001: From today, this look becomes a part of HT’s history.

Eight years ago, it marked a culmination of changes in technology and style that reflected India of the 1990s

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Then came the transition B.G. VERGHESE recalls a critical period in the life of the paper that changed it forever. he Hindustan Times echoed the Congress point of view, as did other “nationalist” papers, until Independence and some years thereafter through a fading honeymoon. A number of new newspapers began publication in the post-Independence period to widen the spectrum of editorial opinion. But HT continued to wear the label of a “Congress paper” although it was not uncritical of the government on certain issues.

As Delhi’s leading paper, it had a dominant position in advertising, especially with regard to the classified columns. If you wanted to get married, rent a house, sell a car or acquire a pedigree pup, you were well advised to advertise in the classified columns of the HT. Among the more distinctive features of the HT during the 1950s were Shankar’s cartoons. Large cinema display ads filled a whole page. Most newspapers carried syndicated columns from British and American journals, strip cartoons and crosswords.

Edit Page columns were carried under pseudonyms, a hangover from the pre-Independence mystique. Among the HT’s best-known pseudonyms was Insaf under which Durga Das, latterly the paper’s editor, wrote his Political Diary.

The content of the HT as of most other papers was heavily political, governmental and parliamentary.

The Planning Commission, then the country’s leading think-tank, got a lot of space and Nehru was reported at great length. Local news and sport found space but business and the markets were confined to a single page as the licence-permit raj left little scope for private initiative.

Social issues received short shrift

L.C. Jain, a Gandhian, who has seen HT evolve over the years.

B.G. Verghese was the editor of Hindustan Times from 1968-1975.

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SANJEEV VERMA/HT

as did rural coverage. HT, like its competitors, largely catered to an urban middle class readership, including “mofussil” readers who were reached through dak editions.

In 1967, the HT masthead was redesigned for a modern look. Other typefaces were changed accordingly and page and feature headings introduced. The Sunday section was also completely redesigned and HT acquired a totally new appearance that many readers acknowledged.

An HT stylebook was produced by Rupa Jansen. By this time, newspapers had begun to switch to seven-column formats and before long this became a standard eight columns.

A major change also took place in content. Rural reporting came into its own with a pioneering fortnightly column “Our Village, Chhatera”, a hamlet of some 1,500 souls in Haryana 25 miles from Delhi. This ran for about seven years until 1975 and opened a window to country life and farming and rural development, with the HT as its mentor and diarist. The feature was skipped by some but developed a devoted readership among others and produced a breed of young journalists who were deeply influenced by the experience.

Then, in June 1975, Emergency was declared…

RONJOY GOGOI/HT

L.C. JAIN, a former member of the Planning Commission, was born a year after this newspaper was founded. His association with HT was also the beginning of his political career, when as a 17-year-old, he smuggled a message from its editor, Devdas Gandhi, to freedom fighters jailed in Multan. andhiji went on an indefinite fast in early 1943. My parents were both arrested in Delhi. My father was taken to Multan Jail, my mother to Lahore Jail. They never kept the prisoners in their own city because they might have contacts among prison staff.

Devdas Gandhi sent for me and said “Look, we want you to go to Multan (now in Pakistan) and somehow smuggle the news to the prisoners inside that Gandhiji is on a fast in Delhi and they could do a sympathetic fast to exert pressure.”

I had never done a 54-hour journey by myself but I said, “Yes.” He gave me a note for a Congress leader/lawyer, Keval Krishan, but added, “It is likely that he is also under arrest.”

So I boarded the train and it went on forever. When it neared Multan, I got panicky. “If I land there and look lost, then the police will become suspicious.”

I decided I must confide in somebody. There was a tall young man in my compartment. I asked him where he was from. He said, Multan.

I said, “I’m going to Multan, too.”

Then he asked me the million-dollar question, “What are you going there for?”

So I told him, “Look, Gandhiji is on fast. I have been asked to give this news to the jailed freedom fighters. How do I contact them?” He said, “Don’t worry…we’ll see what we can do.” I trusted him. At that time the question of not trusting him did not arise.

We went to his home, a pavement dwelling. He said, “Mother, this friend will stay here.” So, as mothers are, she said, “First have a bath.”

While I bathed, the boy went in search of Keval Krishan and was told by his assistant, “They’re being moved to Ferozepur jail. They have been taken to the railway station.”

He came rushing home and I said I must go back to the station right

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Akalis would be our best bet.

But that did not go down well with Buta Singh. I wrote in support of Sikhs even when many saw them as traitors.

As Editor, I gave space to Sikh writer Patwant Singh to write in HT and there were screams from the Congress camp.

The Bofors scandal was also a trying time.

In India, the 1980s saw the rise of the middle class and urbanisation of large parts of India. This was reflected in the media as well. New magazines hit the stands and harped on the positive image of the country. The end of Emergency also saw an explosion in journalism. At the same time private programming in TV was started and HT, too, started producing TV programmes. Along with this began lateral recruitment in the media and newspapers diversified into leisure, real estate, and the Sunday magazine supplements, which focused on serious issues. In the media world, predatory pricing became the name of the game and marketing began to take over editorial. By the end of 1980s and 90s, manager-journalists were much in demand.

In these times, the best way forward is not in trivialising things but strengthening analysis. Journalists should not see the Internet as a threat but as a resource. In this information-oriented world, people have a tendency to move away from issues because they simply don’t have enough information/analysis. There’s a fog around consciousness.

Everyone wants to interpret the world so that he/she can have a grasp over his/her future and this is where the print media needs to play an important role. But unfortunately the Indian media is moving towards more noise and less understanding.

( ) ...many of the Delhi prisoners in the train had written one line each for their families because they had been unable to communicate with them.

away. At the station the porters said, “That is the jail train going to Ferozepur, it will go in four hours after it is linked with another train.”

Then I thanked the boy, “Your mother is waiting. You have given me what I wanted.”

I then walked along the far side of the train. Suddenly, whom should I see at a window but my father! I stopped and wrote, “Gandhiji is on a fast. All of you must go on a sympathetic fast.” Just one line, and then I pushed the paper almost in his face and walked away.

When I walked by again after some time, I saw my father looking out for me. When I came near his window, he pushed the paper in my hand. It said, “Got the message.”

Below that many of the Delhi prisoners in the train had written one line each for their families because they had been unable to communicate with them.

So I took that paper and walked away. The police were having tea, chitchat, on the platform, because it was a jail train and nobody could come out. I made one more round to see if they had more messages.

My father pushed another paper in my hand. He spoke (for the first time): “Police ko shak ho gaya hai, bhaag jao.” (The police are getting suspicious, run away).

Then I made haste to reach Delhi and the HT office, to inform Devdas Gandhi. He was very happy and said, “Well done!”

(As told to Meher Ali)

FOREVER THE REBIRTH SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

LOOKING AHEAD

OF THE NEWSPAPER MORE, NOT LESS. That is the key to creating a news experience that will transcend time and technology

Samar Halarnkar Managing Editor hy?As long as you ask this, the long-announced death of the newspaper is exaggerated.

It won’t happen in India, not in my lifetime.

The newspaper will change though — and the paper you are reading is the first step on a long, exciting journey of transformation that redefines our approach to the news: From who, what, when, where and how — to why.

As we continue on this journey with you, dear reader, we will together visit the new lands and opportunities that beckon us all.

When I say newspaper, I do not mean only print. It is already available, in a pretty coarse avatar, on the Internet and on your mobile. It will continue to move to electronic devices and media that we cannot as yet comprehend. Will you be able simply ask for the news from thin air? Perhaps. Will your newspaper become a hologram that follows you around? It’s not improbable.

As a teenager, I devoured the stories of great science writer Isaac Asimov, who provided his readers with a compelling vision of a future that no longer seems distant. His stories graduated from centering around clunky, mechanical robots to omniscient, even universestraddling, networks that eventually encompassed all global knowledge.

Don’t scoff.

When I was reading the great stories of Asimov — I’m talking of the 1980s — I did not think we might one day carry phones in our pocket. So, things will change with a rapidity that will transcend our ability to be astonished. Don’t we marvel at how adept children today are at handling cellphones and computers? They can text before they can cycle.

Yet, as information becomes more widely available, someone is going to have to make sense of all that is available. Right now, there’s so much information that it appears people want less of it. Young people are actually switching off, tending to want only what they seek. There is little that surprises them.

Or so we are told.

Newspapers and television news tend

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The right chord: Good old-fashioned journalism, tuned to the complex needs of the brave new age SANJEEV VERMA/HT

to bore readers because they are getting caught in a vicious cycle of readership numbers and TRPs (television rating points).

And so the cry goes out: Dumb it down! Dumb it down!

Well, of course, we do need to dumb it down. Can we possibly continue writing stories that begin like this: “Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday clarified that contrary to the general impression, he had already laid out a roadmap for reining (sic) in the fiscal deficit. Meanwhile, his officials explained why the divestment route had not been used to bridge the deficit this year—as things stand, it can’t be used for that purpose, though steps would be taken to change this situation.”

And then we wonder why younger readers are fleeing newspapers. Even I couldn’t make sense of the grandsounding passage above, though I am a newspaper editor — albeit not the smartest. I must tell you that the passage I quoted is, thankfully, not from this newspaper, though we have been equally complicit in driving our readers to boredom.

This will — must — change.

As I see it, the newspaper has to interpret, make meaningful, lend perspective and yes, bring back the excitement into news. This does not mean we at the Hindustan Times will dumb it down.

Instead, you will see greater depth and analysis to all that we present to you, whether that concerns the transformation of India or that of your body.

But it will be presented in a fashion that in visually pleasing, with every attention-grabbing device — from headlines

to photocaptions — being refined and deployed so as to attract our ever-shortening attention spans.

What we will increasingly offer to you is a layered approach to the news.

If you want to scan and surf the pages, so be it. If you want to dart in and out of the news, reading no more than photocaptions and blurbs, that’s fine too.

We will provide you the devices for a short and long newspaper-reading experience. If you find something that grabs your attention, great. It will be our task to pull you in further (and further, and further) so you get the greatest understanding from things that (a) interest you and (b) excite you.

In the months ahead, we hope to bring the excitement back into newspapers. In a sense, what we are attempting is some old-fashioned journalism, topped off with the offerings of the new age.

When I pick up the Hindustan Times from the 1940s, I am startled by some similarities with our so-called new objectives: long headlines and kickers that give you a one-glance summaries of the story; crisp and descriptive writing; great photography.

And as the newspaper evolves into whatever form it is destined to, we will always be there to tell you why, to answer the big question: So what?

We will sink more resources into news gathering, not less. Our reporters and editors will log more miles to bring you stories of hope, change and aspiration; we’ll bring you more perspectives from the outside; invite you to be involved in transformational ideas.

The journey starts today. Please hop on.

CALLING READER 2.0 TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED the way news travels and is received. If you have a relevant message, someone somewhere is ready to listen. Trick is to get it right.

Vijay Jung Thapa Editor, New Media n 1961, Arthur Miller wrote: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” I’d like to re-jig that a bit. “A good newspaper is when a nation’s citizens start talking and sharing with each other.”

Welcome to the connected world.

To understand the future of news, one needs to delve into the past. How did people get their daily news fix just 500 years ago in a world where there was no TV, no radio and … no newspapers? Simply put: by word of mouth from their relatives, friends and the

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community. Everyone was a receiver and transmitter of news.

But with the advent of technology (like the printing press) everything changed dramatically. Suddenly news — in the shape of a newspaper — was being generated by a small set of people for a much larger audience. They named it mass media. Information only flew one way and the audience could be best described as placid “news observers”. Radio and later TV too amassed their own faithful followers, getting a monopoly of attention.

No longer. There’s a relatively new kid on the block — and it’s called the Internet. Today we are witnessing the chaos of a huge shift from the disconnected to the connected. And we are just beginning to understand the consequences. The lessons are immense.

For one, the new digital natives aren’t interested in being placid consumers of news anymore — they want to create and communicate their own version of news. While TV or a newspaper may still hold their attention — it doesn’t monopolise it. They share information and trust what their friends and peers are saying more than any mass media organisation.

Social networks, Google, Flickr, Twitter and a host of other technolo-

gies are allowing people to do just that.

It’s like an ancient wheel that’s coming full circle. Today everyone is a news producer — uploading videos, blogs (there’s a new one on the Net every 0.13 seconds) or pictures and sharing them with everyone. If you have a relevant message, someone somewhere is ready to listen.

So how do these momentous changes affect us at hindustantimes.com? To my mind in at least two main ways. One — you can no longer send the same content through a delivery system to millions of people. No one’s interested.

The diversity has to be immense — and the need of the hour is for customised content. The way to achieve that is to allow your audience to be part of the news generation process. They have to believe that news in the Hindustan Times is a two-way street and that we are not only voicing their concerns but allowing them to upload their real stories.

Secondly, we are going to see an implosion of digital content. It’s like a huge tsunami wave rushing in to consume us. How does one make sense of it? What is garbage and what is relevant? What do I pay attention to? So a key task for a relevant news organisation in the future may not be the generation as much as the filtering of content. To make sense of it, to contextualise and put it in perspective for everyone.

If we do this effectively, the future is ours.

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Make me read you: GenNext is eager to learn but wants it packaged just so!

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SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

TOTAL RECALL

HALF A CENTURY, ONE TRADITION

YOUR HT, YOUR VOICE HT HAS ALWAYS HAD a lively dialogue with its readers, whether it was the time they wrote in to thank the newspaper for enclosing a replica of the Tricolour two days before Independence, or during the 2004 elections, when voters wrote in to hail the working of the world's largest democracy. A few samples from across the decades…

Thanks for the Flag I cannot sufficiently thank you on your grand idea and patriotic act of distributing prints of the Indian National Flag to your readers.

This has deepened the admiration we have for you. It was an unbounded joy to us to receive the long-awaited emblem of India.

Abu is such a place where we only see Union Jack and flags of Princes and we are glad as now we will be able to hoist our Flag on all Government buildings here.

We request you that A Flag of the size of your paper be distributed to your readers with one spare copy in each on August 15 and, if necessary, the cost of the paper be increased that day.

— R.C. Jain (August 13, 1947) I was looking for an exact impression of the National Flag and I could not find it till I saw the H.T. Flag Supplement.

— B.L. Bhatia, Bombay I am an Englishman about to leave your great country. But not till I have seen your glorious Flag being hoisted. May I say how much in the fitness of things it was for your paper to distribute these very handy emblems of the nation to its thousands of readers. A most appropriate gift of the occasion.

— Tom Levers, Army, Poona

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N. Lakshmanan goes over the headlines one more time, as his mother, daughter-in-law, son and grandchildren look on.

MOHD ZAKIR/HT

Famine relief

THE LAKSHMANANS have been HT subscribers for over half a century. Now, three generations fight over their favourite sections every morning Piyusha Chatterjee ■

piyushachatterjee@hindustantimes.com

t’s Sunday morning. Time for family breakfast at the Lakshmanans' plush apartment at Mayur Vihar in East Delhi.

At the head of the large table sits patriarch N. Lakshmanan (76), surrounded by his wife, son, daughter-inlaw and two grandchildren.

In the centre of the table, beside the steaming hot idlis, sambar and tea, is the day’s worn copy of the Hindustan Times.

This is how it has been at the Lakshmanans’ for 51 years.

“I bought the paper on my first day in Delhi, and I have been a subscriber ever since,” says Lakshmanan, his chair placed beside a pooja corner with incense burning before photographs of Hindu deities.

That first day in Delhi was way back in 1958. Lakshmanan had come to the Capital from Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu after passing the civil service exam.

Over the years, he worked his way up from stenographer to private secretary to the Power Secretary in the

I

A July 1958 edition of Hindustan Times. This was the month N. Lakshmanan first picked up HT. ■

Central government.

Through the years, he says, he saw the paper change to keep pace with the changing times, introducing more pages, colour printing, and separate supplements for classifieds and news you can use.

“But one thing never changed,” says Lakshmanan, “HT has always given me the news I need, in a way that I can relate to.”

Every morning, there's a scramble for each family member's favourite section of the paper.

“I’ve grown up on HT ,” says Lakshmanan’s son L. Shankar (51), who works with Indian Overseas Bank.

“Now, I can’t imagine starting my day without it.”

For Shankar’s younger son Anuj (13), a Class 7 student at Amity International, the sports section is a must-read.

“Grandpa lets me read it first, if I promise to tell him the scores of each player as I read,” he grins.

Anuj’s elder brother Arvind (21), who has just completed his B Tech, says the business pages are where it's at.

As for Lakshmanan, it’s a family joke the way he reads the paper.

“He has to have Sun TV on, and All India Radio playing at the same time,” says Shankar. “Then he sits back, sighs and opens the paper. You usually can't get through to him for the next half hour.”

Shankar’s wife Radha (46) says no one can read the paper after his dad has read it.

“He folds it over several times as he

From bromides to QuarkXPress,

one man’s 42-year journey AT 64, MADAN LAL HIND is Hindustan Times’ longestserving employee. He came in as a proofreader; today he chronicles the changes he has been witness to ■

mhind@hindustantimes.com

he Hindustan Times has changed radically in the 42 years since I first walked in as a proofreader.

We’ve gone from messy carbon offsetting, which would cover our clothes and hands in black, to bromides and finally computers.

With computers, one person could now do the job of a lino operator, reporter, proofreader, sub-editor and researcher.

But all the changes have also contributed to the alienation of the average worker. Everyone has a kind of cubicle to themselves. People hardly talk to each other now.

The Hindustan Times office used to be a very noisy, lively place when I joined. Everything is so peaceful today.

Good or bad, who can say. It just takes

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Hind joined HT in 1967, and never left.

RAJ K. RAJ/HT

some getting used to.

Earlier, there was real action in the newsroom, where journalists and nonjournalists jostled to finish the job. They would argue, tempers would flare.

I still remember the night one of our sub-editors asked a compositor to change a headline three times. The compositor was enraged, called the sub incompetent and slapped him. B.G. Verghese, the then editor, tried his best

to bring Jha to book but failed because of strong union pressure. Sharma couldn’t bear the insult and resigned.

Verghese helped him get a job with another newspaper.

I have worked for about a dozen editors. Some of them came and went without leaving an impact. But there were some whom it is not easy to forget.

S. Mulgaokar was a man of many moods, and foul-mouthed. His pet word

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( ) I bought the paper on my first day in Delhi, and I have been a subscriber ever since. HT has always given me the news I need, in a way that I can relate to.

N. LAKSHMANAN (76)

reads each tiny column,” she smiles. “By the time he’s done, the paper looks like it has been in some dreadful battle.”

Lakshmanan hates the full-page advertisements on the front page, and the flaps.

“They make reading very difficult,” he grumbles. “I like to wake up in the morning and see headlines, not advertisements. Ads should be on the back page, at most.”

So what have his favourite sections been, through the years?

“I love Kushwant Singh’s column,” he says, “and the spiritual column…

Inner Voice. Across the paper, both language and content are good.”

And what would he change about the paper, given the choice?

“There should a regular cartoon on the front page,” he says. “You should find somebody to do that for you.”

News from south India is a problem too, he adds.

“There are just a couple of people writing from south India. It is not enough.” was ‘bugger’. Whatever he wrote, wrong or right, he would never let anybody change it.

To add insult to injury, he would make it the style of the paper. He once misspelt Bharatiya Jana Sangh (now the BJP) in a headline. When someone pointed this out to him, he insisted the Hindustan Times would follow his spelling from then on.

Ajit Bhattacharji was a gentleman par excellence. He wouldn’t hurt even a fly. On budget day, he would be in the newsroom to see the edition through.

Most of the headlines on page one would be his. This he would do every year, religiously.

B. G. Verghese was, to my mind, the best editor we ever had. Highly conscientious, he was courteous to a fault.

Every day, he would come in at 9 a.m. and leave at 9 p.m.

He would gracefully accept his fault, even to his most junior colleague. If you wrote to him, he would reply the same day. At times he would go to the press, sit in the proof room and read every word that went into the paper.

He instituted awards for best headline, best story, best interview and the best page one. Each winner would get Rs 75 — a big amount in those days, a bottle of Old Monk rum cost just Rs 45.

Mr Verghese set some very high standards in the profession.

He sent a note to the HT desk not to print anything about his son who had topped the CBSE exams that year.

When the desk protested, he amended his note: “Take only what the news agencies say. But no Hindustan Times correspondent should interview him or write anything about him. No picture

Sir, As you have sounded in your letter of September 28, money is not food. Unless the Government releases its hoards or provides transport facilities, no amount of money sent to Bengal can stop starvation there. Even transport facilities will not call a halt to the “food anarchy.” Other provinces have not much to spare. Wheat is selling in our province as three seers a rupee. If we export it to Bengal, we shall begin starving in turn.

The crux of the problem is that the Government is making too great a demand on the slender resources of the country. Lakhs of prisoners of war have been introduced into the country as our forced guests. Troops from all parts of the Empire (Americans included) are here in large numbers. Millions of tons of grain have been sent to the Middle East theaters of war. Even neutrals like Iran and Iraq have to be fed from India. India is not Ali Baba's Treasure Trove from which you can draw as much as and whenever you like.

— (Mrs.) Priyamvada Jindal, Meerut (October 8, 1943)

Public School Fees Sir, Educating children in public schools for middle class people

of him either.”

On the flip side, he was ignorant of the point system that goes into the making of a headline.

And his spelling was poor: He could not differentiate between fare and fair!

Years later, he admitted all this in an article he wrote for Vidura, the journal of the Press Institute of India.

We realised only in 1975 that working for a newspaper can also be a nightmare. After the declaration of Emergency, smiles and laughter vanished from the face of the average journalist in the office, especially at the desk.

At 10 every evening, a sinister voice from the Press Information Bureau (PIB) would ask for the chief sub.

The chief sub would pick up the phone, hands trembling. There would be an eerie silence on the desk.

The PIB man, with apparent politeness, would take all the details about the chief-sub and then tell him: “You will not take the picture of the demonstration before the Coffee House today.

The picture of Sanjay Gandhi with Lalit Maken will go on Page One. No picture of Ghatshila mishap, please.”

These instructions had to be followed, or else! One night Mr T. N. Nair, the acting chief sub-editor, did not carry out the PIB instructions.

The result: He was taken off the desk.

He was in the doghouse after that. He was denied a promotion even when his juniors were made news editors. He had to go to court, fight his case for 14 years. Nair retired a broken man.

Like any organisation, the Hindustan Times has also had its share of stars and non-performers.

Legendary photographer Kishore

has been getting harder. The school fees have shot up alarmingly in the past few years. In the early 60's we used to pay onethird of the fees that parents now pay for some junior classes. Now the average monthly fees for one child nears Rs.100. The first question a child is asked is “which school do you come from?” it is also true that public schools provide better facilities, and better equipment, but all these at exuberant prices.

— RC Nayar, C-14, Nizamuddin East, New Delhi-13 (September 1, 1975)

Mirror image Sir, the nuclear euphoria witnessed on this side of the border has been mirrored on the other side, in the last few days. This proves two things. One Indians and Pakistanis, as we do know, are remarkably similar. Two, it is pathetically easy to fool masses of people — even (supposedly) intelligent ones — and whip up the nationalist passions. Just as we perceive the threat from China, Pakistan views us as a threat — especially after the traumatic separation of East Pakistan.

But are these threats real? Or, are these the creations of politicians. It is easy to explode bombs — it is enormously difficult to remove illiteracy and eradicate poverty. These should be — but unhappily are not — our absolute priorities. In both the countries, we should concentrate on real issues: roti, kapda and makaan, drinking water, health… not invent bogeys and play with dangerous, useless and unusable toys.

— Prof. Somnath Dhar, New Delhi (June 9, 1998)

India Votes Whatever the result of the Lok Sabha elections, the people will be the real winners. When over 650 million people can use their democratic right to choose their government in free and fair elections, it is tremendous credit to India's democratic institutions. A 50 per cent turn out is a tremendous achievement.

A 21 per cent turnout was recorded in Srinagar despite terrorist attacks. There was violence elsewhere too. But no power can stop the Indian democratic process — a ‘shining’ example for all developing countries — Vipul Thakore, London (May 1, 2004)

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The building in Connaught Place where HT had its offices when Hind first joined.

HT FILE PHOTO

Parekh was HT’s contribution to Indian journalism. Parekh heralded a new era in photo-journalism and changed the way the work of a photographer was perceived.

Seema Mehtani was a clerk in a sister publication of HT. After the magazine ceased publication, she was made a sub-editor.

Once, she was doing a story sent by a state correspondent. He had written, “All is well that ends well”. She subbed it as: “All is well that ends into the well.”

It appeared like this in the next morning paper. She was asked to quit.

On balance, HT today is more organised, more professional. It has better language, crisper headlines. We have fewer mistakes.

Earlier, HT did not practice competitive journalism. Perhaps because there was no one to compete with.

FOREVER

SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

IN BLACK & WHITE

THE STING IN THEIR INK

POTTED HISTORY? Ask the political cartoonist, who takes his line for a walk right into the heart of all matters happening here and now. Has Government goofed…again? Are our neighbours being less than friendly? Is our society boiling over in some meaningless fury?

Here’s a slew of views from some of the sharpest nibs to have spiked HT’s pages with their wit and vinegar.

SEPTEMBER 11, 1945. The Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, they bombed Nagasaki. This cartoon potrays the devastation caused by the bomb and America’s bewilderment at Japanese reaction. They perhaps expected the Japanese to be grateful for freeing them of one of the Axis powers. By Shankar AUGUST 29, 1935. Sir James Grigg was the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament from 1934-1938. This cartoon mocks the ways he adopted to allow Great Britain to drain India of its wealth. By Shankar.

MARCH 16, 1976 Budget cuts income tax for the first time in a decade.

By Sudhir Dar.

APRIL 17, 1963 A dig at the Congress’ claim of being secular.

By Rajendra Puri

MARCH 1, 1981 R. Venkataraman’s budget increased call rates. By Sudhir Dar.

FEBRUARY 20, 1963 railway budget was presented by Swaran Singh.

By Rajendra Puri.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1970. Indira Gandhi put an end to privy purses (grants) and privileges given to rulers of princely states in 1971, through the Constitution (twenty-sixth Amendment) Act. The changes were proposed in what was called the “Privy Purses Abolition Bill” that was defeated by one vote. By Sudhir Dar

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FOREVER

VIII

SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

NEWS YOU CAN USE

URGENTLY SEEKING...

WHAT FILMS ARE RUNNING at the theatres near you? Where can you find a new home on rent? The Hindustan Times news you can use sections — matrimonials, realty, entertainment and consumer goods — have always drawn readers The ads and classifieds changed with time, so did the readers and their taste. From parents seeking grooms for teenagers to women working abroad seeking a well-settled mate, from large plots on sale in the outskirts of the Capital to matchbox-

sized homes in the metros, offering privacy to yuppie newly-weds… as India evolved, so did the tiny voices in the box-sized articles. HT takes a look at 85 years of weddings, new homes, films, and the brands that have survived it all

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A DLF ad from 1953 offers spacious homes in Rajouri Gardens, complete with front and rear courtyards, for a downpayment of Rs 8,200.

realtybytes

Home truths

htmatrimonials

FROM REBUILDING lost cities to making matchbox-sized dream homes for GenNext couples, real estate has come a long way

That’s the way love goes A LOOK back at 85 years of matrimonial ads tells the tale of a country that has changed, grown, evolved

Arnab Hazra ■

arnab.hazra@hindustantimes.com

rom a young republic struggling to house its refugees to a superpower-in-the-making with a massive middle class dreaming of homes in the ’burbs, it’s been a long journey. And HT has tracked that journey, and continues to do so, now boasting a dedicated supplement that tells readers what’s new in the multi-crore realty business, what’s up, what’s down and when to buy.

Some things never change, though. We didn’t seem to have enough land back in 1947, as millions of desperate families poured over the newly rent border.

We still don’t seem to have enough space, our cities grappling to go vertical to accommodate the hundreds that pour in every day.

It began in the first four years after Independence, as non-Muslims from Pakistan began to drive the population of Delhi up. ‘17 lakh nonMuslims… cross over’ a Hindustan Times headline screamed on September 16, 1948.

Back then, homes were not really a priority. How could they be, when we had lost entire cities to our new neighbours in the North?

With Lahore, the capital of the truncated state of Punjab, left behind in Pakistan, India decided to build a new city. ‘Inauguration of Chandigarh: Landmark in Punjab’s History’ said the HT headline on October 7, 1953. A supplement tagged ‘Birth of a Capital’ gave the country a glimpse into what remains India’s best-planned city.

In April 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation of Bhubaneswar, an ancient city reborn to help house the thousands of refugees pouring into Bengal and Orissa every day. As modern architecture began to emerge around ancient temples, HT reported how Nehru tagged the effort ‘a great reconstruction programme’.

Meanwhile, the growth of Delhi continued unabated — and largely unplanned. Then came DLF, today one of the world’s largest realty developers. Then just three years old, it was DLF that first began advertising plots and houses for sale in Delhi, and later, strategically placed plots in neighbouring states that would eventually become part of the prime National Capital Region.

Certain that the refugees would one day want nice (if modest) homes of their own, DLF founder K.P. Singh acquired land from farmers on the promise of future profits, borrowed money and began to build what were then comparatively small homes.

Then, one sweltering afternoon in May 1980, K.P. Singh was sitting with a farmer on his charpoy in a Gurgaon village when a white Ambassador came to a halt outside.

The engine had got overheated and, as it cooled down, out stepped Rajiv Gandhi, to stretch his legs.

Singh went up to the son of the then Prime Minister, introduced himself and his company, DLF. For two hours, the men discussed Singh’s dream of building lakhs of affordable

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A file photo of dancer Yamini Reddy and husband Kaushalya, also a classical dancer. Today, confident women are seeking grooms who share their interests and ambitions and are looking for an equal partnership.

HT PHOTO

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Kamayani Singh ■

kamayani.singh@hindustantimes.com

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Wanted Suitable match for a Brahmin graduate virgin aged 22.

Handsome and well versed in household affairs and music. Brahmins preferred.

■ Punjabi Captain 27 wants highly connected bride.

■ Delhi based reputed Gupta Medico family seeks alliance for their beautiful, fair, smart, slim, N.M. daughter 23/5'5, MBA (U.S.). Pursuing C.P.A. from U.S.A. and working in reputed bank (U.S.A.). Looking for tall, handsome below 28 years, well placed professional. Preferably qualified (IIT, IIM and PG Medico). Match from Status family only. hat’s India circa 1930, 1960 and 2009. And, oh, how things have changed. HT’s matrimonial section has been around since the 1920s. And, over 85 years, they have traced a society changing, evolving, renewing itself.

A look back shows how a caste fixation gave way to concerns about education, then the yearning to travel the world, and finally, a sense of parity: Educated women who wanted educated men, and vice-versa.

As society opened up, it wasn’t just the content of the matrimonial ads that changed. The volume changed too.

Matrimonials went from being seen as an embarrassing last-ditch effort to the smart way to replace the local gossipy matchmaker — with one that could reach out across a nation.

From occupying a small space on the classifieds page in the 1920s and 1930s, matrimonials now run into several pages of the four-page Sunday classifieds supplement.

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HANDSOME, HEALTHY, VIRGIN In the 1930s and ’40s, matrimonial advertisements were short, straightforward and to the point. ‘Handsome, healthy, virgin’ was the typical description of the ideal bride.

And highly educated women were frowned upon. ‘Wanted suitable match for 25 year old Khatri Sikh bachelor…’ says one 1940 ad. ‘Western fashioned, highly educated need not approach’.

A matrimonials page from 1985.

Volumes were already picking up.

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By the 1950s, though, smart men began to look for smart women, and educational qualifications came second only to looks in terms of importance.

By the 1960s, as the Government of India grew in size and strength, so did the demand for grooms in government service. The next best thing was ‘family with connections’, a demand in several matrimonial advertisements like this one: Punjabi Captain 27 wants highly connected bride (September 18, 1960).

THE ‘FOREIGN-RETURNED’ CRAZE As international travel gained popularity — Hindustan Times at this time begins to get flooded with advertisements by travel agencies and airlines — ‘foreign-settled’ and ‘foreignreturned’ became the tags to have for grooms-to-be. ‘Wanted a beautiful girl for a Punjabi boy aged 27.5 years,’ says one ad from 1965. ‘Holding respectable position in a reputed private firm.

Monthly income in four figures… visited Europe twice on business trip.’

The obsession with foreign-returned boys continues, and the tag had become a common boast in most ads by the 1990s. Today, it'’s becoming a big plus for women too.

CONVENT-EDUCATED ONLY The working girl — including doctors

and engineers — came to life in the matrimonials from the 1970s and ’80s. The archetype ‘fair, tall, homely and convent-educated’ began to make its presence felt.

“The matrimonial space reflects social aspirations,” says Mumbai-based sociologist Nandini Sardesai. ‘Conventeducated’ meant the girl could speak English.”

By the late 1970s, as India Inc began to stumble to its feet, government jobs were suddenly not so popular any more.

‘Suitable match for slim, fair, accomplished B.A., M.B.A. Arora girl,’ says one ad from 1975. ‘Middle class family. Engineers, Doctors, Industrialists preferred.’

This trend would continue, and by the 1990s, advertisements for grooms in government service were very few indeed. Most parents wanted their daughters to live in the relative luxury of an engineer, doctor or MBA’s home.

THE NRI BAHU By the turn of the millennium, the NonResident Indian had become the most sought-after groom-to-be.

“Social status since the 1990s has been determined not by caste but by education, where you own a house etc,” says Poonam Sachdeva, CEO of Connexon.H, a marriage bureau in Delhi that was started in early 1970s. “And

economic status precedes even social status now.”

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE… The most marked difference in the ads from 85 years ago and the ones printing today, though, is the age at which women are married.

While it was perfectly acceptable in the 1920s for parents to invite matches for girls in their early teens — ‘Wanted matches for two Agarwal Vaish respectable and handsome girls one aged 13 Hindi knowing and the other aged 14’ says one ad from 1929 — the average age is now up to the mid- and late-20s and going up further.

Despite the changes, though, much has stayed the same.

“The ‘handsome and healthy’ of the 1930s has given way to ‘fair, tall and beautiful’,” says Sardesai. “Our definition of beauty has changed but physical attributes are just as important, if not more so.”

And though the nuances of caste have changed, it is still extremely important to many that their daughters marry into homes of the same clan, as it were.

The stress today may be more on finding familiar ground in a big, flat world than an inherent bias against other castes, but, as Sardesai puts it: “Some things just don’t change.”

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HT’s ‘Birth of a Capital’ supplement, commemorating the inauguration of Chandigarh (October 7, 1953)

homes, and how archaic laws were stifling the private sector.

A series of meeting later, Rajiv agreed to start a pilot project in Haryana to test Singh’s theories on urban development. Despite much bureaucratic opposition, Gurgaon was born. Finally, the demand-supply gap was beginning to narrow.

But homes were still far from being affordable, as an editorial in HT on January 4, 1983, pointed out.

“Though the problem of urban land prices is a simple one of the tremendous gap between supply of and demand for land,” it said, “the solution is complex and cannot be attempted in isolation.” The editorial advocated “making more land available for housing”.

Soon, the government was pushing to make houses affordable too, starting with the 1987 budget presented by Rajiv Gandhi.

Society had changed too, over the years, and new, nuclear families were snapping up matchbox-sized homes that offered proximity to urban workplaces and some much-treasured privacy.

Then liberalisation came along and boosted the growth of the middle class. Competition between banks saw interest rates dip.

Today, more people can afford their own homes than ever before.

Couple that with the population growth and it's not hard to see why HT recently reported that, in 19912001, the supply of homes in Delhi had only managed to meet one-third of total demand, leaving a gap of nearly 5 lakh dwelling units.

“The country has seen massive growth in residential and commercial developments, but infrastructure development has not kept pace,” says Pranav Ansal, vice-chairman and managing director of infrastructure development company Ansal API. “There has, however, been this great evolution of architectural landscapes, from the era of the Red Fort to the steel and glass of modern-day malls and penthouses.”

FOREVER

SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

IX

NEWS YOU CAN USE

timelessbrands

Born of effort, not just age A HERITAGE BRAND STATUS does not automatically belong to a brand with enough years behind it, but to one that continues to offer an edge to consumers over competitors, year after year

Anita Sharan ■

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anita.sharan@hindustantimes.com

onsumers constantly seek new products to add value or pleasure to their lives. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are ready to jettison old brands.

In a cluttered market place where it is often tempting to question the very idea of brand loyalty, there are a number of brands that have stood the test of time, surviving across generations of consumers to achieve heritage status.

Amul is as relevant today with its ‘Taste of India’ positioning as it was at its inception as a significant cooperative movement in 1946.

As is Raymond, which cuts across three generations of Indian consumers without losing appeal.

While its brand articulation of ‘The

C

(Left) A Nescafe ad from 1965 promises 100% pure coffee. (Above) Amazing what a pat of Amul butter does to a chapati, says this 1968 ad.

Complete Man’ came only in the 1990s, it has retained its appeal ever since its inception in 1925.

Colgate Dental Cream has been around for generations and still carries a lot of trust and credibility.

A heritage brand, normally understood as one that is more than 50 years old and still going strong, carries a sense of relatedness with the consumer that accords it a cultural authority approved by the consumer.

Certainly, the brand needs to continue to innovate to remain relevant, but its basic DNA prevails over time.

So while Lux, which was launched in India in 1929 and positioned as ‘the beauty soap of the filmstars’, has reinvented itself through new formulations and product extensions, it has stayed

WHEN A BRAND CONSISTENTLY INNOVATES AND CAN OFFER AN EDGE OVER NEWCOMERS YEAR AFTER YEAR, IT EMERGES INTO A HERITAGE BRAND with that core positioning.

And Lifebuoy, born in 1895, evolved from a carbolic soap with the promise of a powerful germicidal and disinfectant to a milder, more upmarket soap for the entire family, but retains hygiene as its core promise.

Even a powerful heritage brand needs continuous innovation.

As Nabankur (Nobby) Gupta, founder and CEO of Mumbai-based consultan-

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For many, Bata is still the ‘happiest thing that ever happened to feet’, as this 1963 ad puts it. Here, a pair cost just six rupees.

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A 1958 ad for Colgate toothpaste promises to clean teeth, stop bad breath and prevent against tooth decay. Sound familiar?

Nearly four decades after this 1971 ad, 5 Star remains the energy bar. Of course, it’s not Re 1 any more.

cy Nobby Brand Architects and Strategic Marketing Consultants, points out: “When a brand consistently innovates and can offer an edge over newcomer brands year after year, it emerges into a heritage brand.”

Gupta was CEO of Raymond Limited before setting up his consulting company.

What sustains a heritage brand, he adds, “is a consistent perception carved out of performance, leading to trust, pride of ownership and recommendation, and consistency. A heritage brand will never compromise on quality.”

And it is not true, he says, that only expensive brands are heritage brands.

Parle-G, Fevicol, Dettol, Amul, Rooh Afza, Lux and Lifebuoy, all heritage

brands, are testament to this.

While innovation and reinvention are a part of staying relevant, reinventing has to be purposeful, not just an exercise to attract attention.

So when Britannia decided to change its logo, the new one saying ‘Eat Healthy, Think Better’, the purpose was to extend the existing perception of Britannia as a biscuit brand but also to encompass a large spectrum of food products, opening up much larger opportunities for the brand in today’s times of health-consciousness.

Change for the sake of change is not good enough.

It has to have a purpose and, for a heritage brand, has to be strongly linked to the DNA that consumers identify with.

HT FILE PHOTO

filmnation

An endless joyride CIRCUS ADS CAUSED UNTOLD excitement in the 1930s. Then came the glamour and glitz of the talkies, and finally, entertainment 2.0, courtesy digital TV Meher Ali ■

meher.ali@hindustantimes.com

arlekar Grand Circus came to town one October in 1929, after an absence of 15 years.

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It set itself up near the Red Fort — a popular place for circuses to install their grand, rainbow-coloured tents.

News of the circus appeared in a 200word advertisement in Hindustan Times, in the column ‘Delhi Day by Day’ alongside other reports of the day — a dacoity in a village (present-day Shahadara) and a newly launched campaign against gambling.

In today’s age of iPods, satellite TV and YouTube, it is difficult to imagine, but the circus was the most exciting event of the year in the 1930s.

From 1929 till ’39 there were prominent ads for circus in HT. On January 11, 1934 HT had a standalone photograph of Captain Bernard’s air circus, the first ever to be held in India, on the front page.

Three years later, when a lion escaped from a circus near Calcutta, it made

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An ad for the Karlekar Grand Circus, which arrived in Delhi amid much fanfare in 1929.

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A Soviet circus troupe performs high-plane acrobatics in Delhi in 1986. As India fell in love with the talkies (top right), the circus slowly faded into oblivion.

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front-page news in Delhi.

The 1930s and ’40s were the golden era for circus in India “when very good international artists were part of the show”, says Ashok Shankar, owner of the famous Gemini Circus.

But if circus was experiencing a high at this time, cinema was not far behind.

There was an “explosion of cinema in the 1930s,” notes Ira Bhaskar, Associate Professor of Cinema at Jawaharlal Nehru University, with the release of the first sound film (Alam Ara, 1931).

It was also a time when the freedom movement was just about peaking and “cinema was a popular form through which these messages were communicated,” says Bhaskar.

Cinema also offered variety — from adventure, Ali Baba and 40 Thieves (1944) to family drama Chhoti Bahu (1944) to historical films like

BY THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, DIGITAL TV HAD REDEFINED ENTERTAINMENT. THE IDEA OF TIME AND SPACE HAS BECOME IRRELEVANT Chandragupta (1945).

The growing popularity of cinema contributed to the decrease in demand for the circus. Every big-ticket release would be preceded by dramatic fullpage advertisements in HT, each one vying to outdo the others and showcase the scope of their offering — a sensual dancer poised with a dagger, against a backdrop of a Arabian castle (Lal Pari, 1954), a valiant prince carrying a damsel in distress (Shah Behram, 1932) and our famous Gabbar being choked to death by hero Jai (Sholay, 1975).

Guide (Vijay Anand, 1965)

As modes of entertainment changed, so did the way HT reported them. In the 1930s, “entertainment” was not even a part of media vocabulary. But by the 1940s, the concept of entertainment took a definitive shape. Films, theatre and cultural events began to find a fixed slot, separate from news and other advertisements. In HT, the column was called ‘Today’s Engagements.’

Meanwhile, television had arrived on the scene and was slowly gaining ground. “Two hours of television entertainment will be offered every evening to Delhi citizens by the end of May,” the Information & Broadcasting Ministry said in a news item at that appeared on April 30, 1965.

Ads for TV sets began to pop up — ‘Prices have not yet been fixed but a small TV set will be sold for about Rs 1000 and a big one for Rs 1400,’ anoth-

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Razia Sultan (Kamal Amrohi, 1983)

er report said.

In the 1990s, we could access dozens of channels in the wake of the economic liberalisation programme that allowed entry of private and foreign broadcasters and widened the choice for viewers beyond Doordarshan.

The family event that also signalled the coming of winter — the circus — gave way to individual spectatorship in accordance with individual tastes.

By the turn of the century, digital cable TV had redefined entertainment.

The idea of time and space has now become irrelevant — we can be entertained anytime, anywhere.

Ironically though, this freedom to control how we are entertained has also given way to boredom. So it may be our very saturation with “entertainment” that brings back the rainbow-coloured tents in winter.

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Umrao Jaan (Muzaffar Ali, 1981)

■

Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001)

FOREVER

X

SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

TRENDSETTER

A CARING, DARING

EYE

MORE, NOT LESS. HT photographer Kishor Parekh changed the face of Indian photojournalism. A recall by his photographer son, Swapan, and friend Mahendra Sinh

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Pakistan’s General Niazi surrenders in December 1971, after India is compelled to enter the war for Bangladesh

‘He disguised himself as a Pakistani soldier ’ Saroj Parekh, wife ■

letters@hindustantimes.com

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Kishor Parekh (1930-1982),the feisty journalist who wouldn’t hear a ‘No’.

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hen Kishore Parekh first picked up a camera at 19, newspaper photographs were used merely to fill in column space, often reduced to the size of postage stamps.

Issues such as human suffering and unsung stories of human courage were hardly ever covered. Newspaper photographers didn’t try and capture anything beyond the two-dimensional portrayal of an event.

Then along came this stocky man, armed with a degree in Cinema & Documentary Still Photography from the University of Southern California.

Bubbling with new ideas, he set out to capture what was essentially missing in Indian news photography.

He gave all of himself to the moment he shot, fought with fuddy-duddy editors, demanded — and got — eight columns for his pictures, right across the page.

His idols and inspirations were famous photojournalists of the time: Eugene Smith, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Margaret Bourke-White. During his career as chief photographer with Hindustan Times from 1961 to 1967, he also introduced the concept of ‘picture stories’, hitherto unknown to Indian newspapers.

Whether it was covering a war in India or an Indian expedition to Mount Everest, the Bihar famine, Nehru’s world or Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s last moments, he was there.

His stubbornness earned him a slap from Nehru — the then prime minister thought Kishor was being intrusive in a private and solemn moment of prayer at the Gandhi memorial at 5.30 one morning. An angry Nehru ordered him out. Kishor stood his ground.

Hindustan Times carried the picture the next day and Nehru’s office to request ten copies.

Arrogant? Yes. Sentimental? Very.

Kishor had a soft heart. He was a romantic, fought for what he believed in and believed in taking pictures because that is what he loved most.

e lived in Hong Kong then.

Kishor liked painting on the beach. But when the news came, he said, “My country is burning and here I am painting.” He worked with a magazine, then. They refused to assign him the job, though he pleaded with them.

His friends at work said it was too dangerous and he should think about his wife and kids. He returned home anyway and, with great difficulty, got to the Bangladesh border.

He had hardly any film on him. He stormed an army helicopter carrying news people, on the condition that once he was in Dhaka, he was on his own.

Once there, he found it quite difficult to penetrate into the action as a civil-

HE STORMED AN ARMY HELICOPTER CARRYING NEWS PEOPLE, ON THE CONDITION THAT ONCE HE WAS IN DHAKA, HE WAS ON HIS OWN ian. He even at one point wore clothes taken from a Pakistani soldier’s corpse.

The Indian army arrested him as a Pakistani.

With great difficulty, he managed to convince them he was an Indian, and the reason why he did what he did.

When his book, Bangladesh - A Brutal Birth, was born, the Indian government despite having hordes of cameramen shoot for them at length, requested 20,000 copies of what he had documented in just a few days.

■ (Above) War widows in East Pakistan; (left) Indian soldiers feed a child during the 14-day war.

A HOPE THAT WOULDN’T DIE Kishor Parekh went to Bangladesh with no presumption that he would annotate the genocide, or explain the exodus, or show the spirit of a people, or record the hallelujah of the homecoming, he went to find out why it happened, how it happened and, above all, to see for himself what strange hope drove a hopeless people on...

THEN HT EDITOR S. MULGAONKAR IN T H E P R E FA C E T O K I S H O R PA R E K H ' S B O O K O N T H E WA R F O R B A N G L A D E S H

SATURDAY | JULY 11, 2009

FOREVER

Lux

INSPIRING BEAUTY hat do Elizabeth Taylor, Hema Malini, Sophia Loren and Aishwarya have in common? They have all dazzled in Lux commercials.

Lux, since its inception, has believed in inspiring women’s eternal passion for beauty. In every decade, the topmost bollywood star has been the Lux star too. Beginning with Leela Chitnis in 1929, Madhubala in the 1950s, Waheeda Rahman, Saira Banu, Parveen Babi and Simi Garewal in the 1960s and ’70s; Hema Malini and Zeenat Aman in the ’80s, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri Dixit, Karishma and Kareena Kapoor in the ’90s and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra in the 21st century.

One of the most trusted brands in India, Lux was launched in the country in 1929. From a no-frills soap with the promise of soft skin, Lux has evolved with an evolving market, now offering soaps with strawberry, peach and honey extract, and even Swiss moisturizers, all for that extra-silky, glowing skin.

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A HISTORIC JOURNEY From 1929 to the late 1060s, the Lux soap remained simple — a white bathing bar.

The ads were simple too, depicting a beautiful star saying, in effect, I use this and you should too.

Then Bollywood went Technicolor, and so did Lux. The beautiful women were now surrounded with velvety rose petals, and held bars of milky white, pale pink and leaf green.

In 1989, Lux International came to India. Positioned as a ‘favourite of the stars’, it became soap every young girls had to have.

Then came liberalisation and cable TV. Soon, celebrities were endorsing soaps all over the place — everything from Palmolive to Godrej Ganga and Nirma. Lux decided to respond in kind, roping in Madhuri, Neelam and

Over the years, everyone from Leela Chitnis to Nanda, Parveen Babi, Saira Banu, Hema Malini, Madhuri Dixit, Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor have modelled for Lux.

Juhi — and offering alluring new packaging and a posh new fragrance.

By the mid-1990s, television advertising had become more imaginative and Lux was using the evolving medium to battle competition from the likes of Camay and Nirma Premium.

Sridevi, Tabu and Karisma promised to transport the Lux user into a fantasy world, complete with swirling cream, silken robes and rose petals.

In 1997-98, Lux International hit upon a slogan that sealed the deal: ‘Meri khoobsurati ka raaz? (The secret to my beauty?),’ the glamorous stars would ask, ‘Lux International.’

Project Diana, as it was called, now offered consumers a choice of Lux bars to suit their skin type.

In 2004, Lux went from tantalising consumers through filmstars to a new promise: Mujhme star jagaey (Awakening the star in me). Ordinary girls were instantly transformed into stars after a bath with Lux. In its 75th year, 2005, it was time celebrate. Lux launched two new variants: Aromatic Glow and Chocolate Seduction, special limited editions. Posters of the stylish and sexy Kareena in chocolate sauce rocked the market. And, for its AV ads, Lux brought together Hema, Sridevi, Juhi and Kareena — representing four decades of stars in one commercial. To top it all, there was Shah Rukh Khan too!

By 2007, the timeless soap was courting the new Indian woman, its models appealing to all women to give in to their playful side and revel in their own beauty. Then came a celebratory coffee table book: Lux: Inspiring Beauty chronicled beauty through the ages, via 75 years of Lux and Bollywood.

Lux circa 2009 comes at a low Rs 10, offering beauty to all sections of Indian society.

How beautiful do you want to be, Aishwarya and Priyanka seem to ask.

DID YOU KNOW? ● The brand name Lux has been derived from Luxury. ● In 1900, British soap manufacturer William Hesketh Lever re-launched Sunlight flakes as Lux for washing woollen fabrics. Lux toilet soap first appeared in 1925 in the United States and cashed in on the flakes' reputation. ● In 1926, Ginger Rogers, the dancing diva, was the first Hollywood superstar to appear in a Lux commercial.

Since then, everyone from Michelle Pfeiffer to Elizabeth Taylor, Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron have modeled for the soap. ● In the early 1970s, Jayalalitha, a prominent politician today but then in the prime of her acting career, featured in a Lux ad. ● The first bar of Lux to be made in India sold for the princely sum of two annas in 1934.

XI ADVERTORIAL