|
Ladies Special
 Education was secondary for women in the past but times have changed. Today's
women are well educated and are proving themselves in various fields and are achieving as much as men are.
The field of Journalism is a difficult one and requires long man hours. It was mostly run by men, but today it is a different ambience
altogether. Many women have entered this field and have achieved success.....Vasanthi,
Anuradha Ramanan, Manjula Ramesh. Girija Raghavan has planted her feet firmly in this field and is the Editor of 'Ladies special', a monthly magazine which she has been bringing out successfully for the past seven years.
As to why she chose an English name for the magazine, she answers that she chose the name because her first
television programme was telecast under the same title.
"There was a lean period between 1997-98 for the monthly magazines for women. That was time when the thought
struck me....Why not start a magazine under such circumstances for women.......with the experiences that I had, I started Ladies special"
reminisces Girija.
Today the magazine is a success. She was previously a freelance journalist and her articles were published in popular
magazines like Junior Vikatan, Mangayar malar, Raajam, Anandha Vikatan and Kalki.
She has presented many programmes in private
tv channels and her 'Ladies special' in Raj TV was telecast for 52 weeks. She came to the limelight through this
programme.
Nearly 25,000 editions of her magazine are being sold today, Girija says proudly. Her magazine is tradition bound and she makes it a point to focus on such aspects. She is steadfast in her principle that her magazine will not demean women or show them in poor light.
Initially she was working in a government bank but her interest to achieve something on her own lead her to resign her job and follow her ambition.
 She has spoken and held discussions on various topics like women's progress, women in domestic life, how to become a
women entrepreneur etc..., through various tv channels and has imparted an awareness and self confidence among women.
An additional news is that she is also the vice president (programmes) for Win TV. She has also participated in many radio programmes, has also worked as an announcer and news reader in All India Radio.
Though it is believed that reading habit is on the wane, the number of weekly, monthly magazines and newspapers is on the increase, which proves that there are no dearth of readers around.
"Our magazine reaches our readers without any advertisement on our part. We receive appreciations from various
quarters. We can say that it is our victory without any doubt" says a proud
Girija. She is also into producing television progarmmes and runs an advertising agency too. She runs a forum to offer
suggestions to women on how to deal with daily problems that they encounter, offer self-confidence, courage and motivation to women in need. The forum helps them by showing the way to be independent.
About freedom for women and how far it has reached them, she replies, "The liberty is within themselves, it is not
necessary to take it from others, in my opinion, a woman should understand herself, every woman should know who she is, what her duties are and where she stands then, her mind will attain clarity". She feels that women have attained freedom to some extent.
"Changes are imminent. First it was the stage dramas, with the advent of cinema, drama took a backseat, but one cannot say that Internet has affected the progress in the field of printing as internet has not reached every class in the mass, persons who are interested in reading cannot flip pages in Internet, but with books, one can read when ever one feels like flipping the pages" says Girija about the advantage that the
books have.
Books are here to stay, they are
indestructible. As long as there are readers, there will not be shortage of magazines too. The large scale selling of
books in the recent Bookfair held in the city is a standing proof of this fact.
Girija, who is multi-faceted personality says that her main aim is to share her experiences with women and motivate
them to stand on their own feet.
'Wife - a home manager' is a book written and published by her recently.
KT
Sri
Translated by Radha N
|
