‘કળશ’ – Divya Bhaskar, Ahmedabad issue of 23rd November, 2011 – Part I

Almost all articles in this supplement of the Ahmedabad edition of the Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar are excellent in terms of the theme, content and presentation in their respective fields.

In the past, each issue of ‘કળશ’ had some articles that went much beyond the normally high standard of this supplement, but the present issue is unusual for its high proportion of articles of a very high standard. Nearly all columns can also be said to rank among the respective authors’ best.

I am able to visualize to a large degree the kind of constraints you and your editorial team of કળશ would be grappling with in planning each issue by balancing the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the top management’s concern for absolute circulation numbers as well as relative market share, both on a macro level as well as for the daily issue; the supplement’s competitive positioning vis-à-vis other supplements within the unit, group, industry peers as well as other formats of the publishing industry; your team’s and each individual columnist’s urge for defining ever-higher standards of creativity and performance; recognition within the industry as well as at an external  professional level on the basis of an odd individual issue or article as well as on an overall evaluation of its design and content.

It is really creditworthy that કળશ has carved out a distinct identity on all of these parameters and has excelled as far as most readers’ expectations are concerned.

If I have to raise but one concern, it would be this: I really fail to understand the usage of a sprinkling of English words in an otherwise lucid, flowing Gujarati, in a publication of the caliber of ‘કળશ’. This should be avoided even our day-to-day colloquial exchanges, except for those words which are far more easily understood in English rather than its Bhadrambhadra-style / text-bookish / ‘pure’ Gujarati. ‘કળશ’ has already attained a stature where it can easily influence the habits of Gujarati readers, along with other equally popular magazines, such as, say, Chitralekha. These have the requisite mass reach.  Of course, whether your management or your editorial team should or should not take on this altruistic goal of improving the jarring, avoidable use of English words in Gujarati usage is not what has prompted me to share my views. The extremely innovative topics, very well-planned content and use of very lucid language in your supplement are the factors which prompt me to do so, and your editorial team and contributors do deserve compliments for very refreshing Gujarati reading fare, delivered with very high professional journalistic standards, every week.

My views on the individual articles would be a little lengthy, hence I will state them in a following post…