Winner of Femina’s Reader’s Letters

February 25, 2008

For three years from 2004, I subscribed to the Femina, a women’s national magazine in India. I occasionally wrote letters for the “You to Us” section on issues that I felt strongly about. Being an ardent Formula One fan, I felt hurt when the October 2006 issue ran a feature on Fernando Alonso, that year’s world champion and also the year Michael Schumacher retired.

It was just before I left for the delivery of LG that I wrote a letter to them. I forgot all about it and in the months that I wasn’t here, a pile of Femina had gathered that I neatly stacked away on my return to read later. There are still about 10 unopened issues. This Saturday, with V away for a haircut and LG sleeping, while cleaning up the cupboard I saw this stack of Femina and set aside the bulky 48th Anniversary for reading. Within minutes, I was lying on the couch browsing the magazine. A few stories later I was in the You to Us section reading Reader’s letters (wondering who reads that?). Before moving on to the next feature, I took one last glance at the winning entries as I usually do. Nothing seemed familiar. Then I see the name spelt exactly as mine and what a coincidence I thought to be from Pune as well. It all came back to me; I vaguely remembered sending a letter before I left for my delivery - this was over a year and half back. I re-read the letter and realized it was mine - the passion for Schumacher and apathy for Alonso was unmistakable. The letter had appeared 2 months after I had submitted and was awarded a Mexx watch which obviously never reached me.

I’ve tried reaching Femina in vain. Doesn’t matter - it’s been too long to even follow up now. But I’m happy and that’s what counts Every time I see my name in print, it’s like scoring cent percent in school.

Random Posts

Filed Under Writing

Comments

One Response to “Winner of Femina’s Reader’s Letters”

Gayathri on July 31st, 2008 5:18 am

Ya,The Happiness which we get when our name is published in print(I mean newspapers and magazines) is heavenly.I recognised it when I wrote for early bird entries of scrambelled words in Business line.

Leave a Reply