Puthusu Kanna Puthusu

Offlate, FM radio and Tamil channels keep chanting "Puthusu kanna puthusu", meaning "New Dude New"...all about new look of Kungumam - a local Tamil magazine from journalistic household of Dayanidhi Maran. Similarly, the famous Tamil Magazine - Ananda vikatan - also promised its readers a rehashed, new "aalaiyay asathidum Ananda Vikatan". Not to be left behind, the other famous Tamil magazine Kumudam also brought new sections....

After a couple of motnhs of these re-launches where do they stand actually in terms of freshness?

Ananda vikatan is now more of Kumudam flavour in it with 3 page articles on how an actress spends her day (more in line of usual Kumudam's taste for glamourous actresses photos), little bit of religion, over dose of cinema, images bordering light yellow porno, spy vs spy rehashed as vetty-karaivetty, and the likes...Ananda vikatan lacks creativity and adds dashes of Sutti Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Kumudam, Sakthi Vikatan and the likes....

Barring stuffs like 'Katrathum, Petrathum' by Sujatha, 'Hai Madan' by Madan and a few more, to me, today's Ananda Vikatan reminds me of Kumudam, and not much of their uniqueness in also writing a lot of non-cinema, non-glamourous articles.

Then, one can ask what happened to Kumudam and its unique flavour...well, Kumudam now resembles itself more like Kungumam, when Kungumam used to publish a scoop or exclusive every week, which will turn out to be not much of scope for scoop anyway. Kumudam also lacks depth in the articles. Though Kumudam used to be splashed with lot of articles based on people from cine field, those articles used to be different. Now, they are like Kungumam, which they write something.

If Ananda Vikatan is Kumudam and Kumudam is like Kungumam, then what about Kungumam? Wasnt it supposed to be a "puthusu kanna puthusu"...frankly speaking nothing puthusu in it including their ADMK bashing. Kungumam churns out articles lifted straight from filmfare etc, and also some dramatic invention about Jeyalalitha's aatchi. Nothing more than that.

Technically all magazines have upgraded their printing quality, and use nice paper, so that one cannot miss even the sweat on Aiswarya Rai's cleavage...but, to a person craving for good reading, what have they brought on? ZERO....

So, what new sections can be added? My twenty paisas....

1. None of these magazines cover anything about advertising field...to start with they can have something like ET's Brand Equity feature - Bekaar & Best ADs...

In Tamil, vilambaram means AD. Maybe something like WOWilambaram and Uvvaylambaram...

2. Next, instead of writing junk about internet and websites, and republishing forwards, they can publish blog posts every week with an intro about the author of the post, and some URLs...

3. Explaining science - and sceintific things happening around. Instead of Demi Moore's boobs in close-up and Aishwarya's Rai's half-clad dress with half-cleavage, mags can translate nice articles from net and take science and inventions and innovations to common man who would be delighted to hear about such stuffs...(first give them, then decide whether they like them or not)

4. I remember lot of good travelogues by Sivashankari and Manian in Vikatan, Kumudam etc...Why not start some of them?

5. Original humor as in Devan, as in Madan, as in Ess. Vee. Vee, as in Packiam Ramasaamy - why not search for such good humor writers and popularize them?

....
the point is "guys, get really new...dont be such somberi copy cats!! If not possible to invent, atleast innovate"