My family and.... etcetera (4): the illustrated weekly of India

 My family and.... etcetera (4): the illustrated weekly of India

One of my early memories is of getting The Illustrated Weekly of India, each week, edited by the famous Khushwant Singh. We would also get the weekly Blitz with the column by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas. The Weekly cost about 70 paise in those years of 1968 to 1970. We would purchase it on the Thursday or Friday that it came out before the datelined Sunday.

I would usually go to the news agent with my uncle, Shantaram, I would profit from that. For, on Thursdays or Fridays, the Times of India would also release the Indrajal comics issue for the week -- Phantom, Mandrake or Flash Gordon. That would be a delight. 

The Weekly would first be read by my grandfather who would sit on a wooden long bench on the balcony of flat #18 at Narulla building. My father did not like it if I had gotten my uncle or grandfather to buy something for me. So I would sit up beside my grandfather and read up the Indrajal comics while he would read the Weekly. Later, the both of us would stack up the issues below his wooden long bench. 

I would complete the reading of the comics within 30-40 minutes and therefore had more time to explore the stack of Illustrated Weekly issues. I can still remember some of the excellent articles mainly by Khushwant Singh and some others. He took big issues and catchy headlines on the cover. 

There were many well known authors in the issues and my grandfather would relate some of the articles to the news articles in the Times of India. On some days, my stack of comics were disturbed in their order as I had placed them. I had a strong suspicion that my grandfather was also a keen reader of the comics. 

Bharat Bhushan 

bharatbhushan@yahoo.com 

9 September 2022