The Equator Line - April - June 2015

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HER EARTH – MAULED AND BLOODIED

One lingering habit from my journalistic days is peering almost simultaneously at the headlines on half a dozen front pages along with cups of morning tea. Among the papers scattered around the desk is Dainik Jagran, which I always read for a whiff of the heartland – the tremors and turmoil in the political nerve centres of a continent called UP. Recently, the heading of a story stabbed me into a terrifying numbness: Ladkiyoko samjhao, na samjhe to Ganga dikhao (Persuade the girls, if they don’t listen, kill them)! Chilling in effect, every letter came off the yellowish newsprint with murderous intent, like hooded executioners in Macbeth. That was the diktat of a Khap panchayat in an area in western UP where kisan leader Mahendra Singh Tikait once held absolute sway. The death order was for the girls who dared tinker with the so-called caste injunctions in the matter of marriage. Unsettled by the suddenness of the assault, I saw the gathering clouds of a war – the woman’s war – taking precedence over everything else around us. News of attacks on women, intimidation, harassment, molestation, institutional discrimination –tearing down a tradition known for its celebration of womanhood.

The Equator Line Magazine Description:

The Equator Line is to India what The New Yorker is to America, Cicero to Germany and Granta to England: cerebral, incisive and entertaining as well. TEL revives an old tradition of journalism which combines new writing with a close account of the fresh developments in areas like business, culture, cinema and lifestyle.
The great periodicals of the past threw up new writers and triggered fresh debates about many issues. With the advent of 24x7 television periodicals lost their predominant position in intellectual discourse, in benchmarking our culture. A ‘breaking-news’ fever swept through India. The beauty of good writing was no longer recommendation enough. Newspapers carried more pictures and less copy. News magazines readjusted themselves to the television era with a new snappy, sharp look. And in the deluge of visual news the sensitive, sharp, upwardly mobile man seemed lost. Nothing was put into perspective for him. Nothing really tested his intelligence. The delight of surveying an altogether new horizon across the serried lines of good prose was missing!
The Equator Line is a journey to rediscover the glory of the written word. Promoted by Palimpsest Publishing House, the monthly magazine offers a brilliant spread – clinical analysis of trends, new fiction, deep examination of political events, latest in diplomacy, spirituality, diaspora, the remote and exotic captured through a sensitive camera, news from the world of books, all that and much more. When repetitive surface news grates on your nerves The Equator Line takes you on a trip to the land of good writing with an impressive line-up of well-known writers.
Waiting for your flight at the airport or in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, the latest issue of TEL will help you rediscover your world in a new light.