What are you talking about? I think SAIndia does a fine and worthy job of representing Indians. I don't know about you but I'm thrilled to be represented by a fine and classy production like that, the barrage of Bollywood stars featured makes me aspire to be brighter and lighter, the content is written in a way that appeals to me and my 95-year-old granny and I love the opinion columns, they're the best evah! Hmmm? Relevance you say? SALES I say, yep, I want to read about Aishwariya and Shah Rukh Khan and I love the sari adverts. Truly a magazine for the community!

Do you truly think 1,1 million Indians is a "community".

SA India might work for you love, but for those of us who aren't so caught up in the "community" but still acknowledge where we come from and where we're going, something upmarket and professionl might be nice. And enough with the Indians are so wonderful at everything myth SAIndia propogates. I want some real journalism on my sector of the population. We're human, and I want to hear about it. And God spare me from airhead Bollywood "beauties". How about featuring women such as Padma Lakshmi, Sarita Choudary, our own Nadine Naidoo, Sureshnie Govender etc?

I agree 100% with Anne. We defintely deserves an Indian magazine that will show case the male and female talent, enteprenuerial skills, fashion, music, movies,food, community events and all things proudly Indian. I mean, if black woman can be on covers of Bona and True Love,surely we deserve the same. We are SA woman too and contribute to the economy and diverse culture of the country. 1 million readers is nothing to be scoffed at. That's 1 million readers that won't be buying a whole host of "westernised" magazines. It will defintely get the industry to sit up and take notice. If there's a project that wants to brain storm such an idea, count me in!

SA India is feeble.It lacks quality content or heart - the layout is sloppy, there are constant spelling and grammar errors and information is blatantly incorrect - a lot of times! Even articles/snippets are irrelevant, boring and outdated. The magazine has little respect for its largely Indian readers and therefore can't seriously be considered as a contender.

yup - i agree

aside from it's low-class looks, it has no understanding or even acknowledgement of the greater South Indian SA Indian population, and has about as much journalistic credibility as Jacob Zuma's spin doctor. No content relevent to my life as a working woman, not addressing the effects of rapid and sustained westernisation on the Indian population in SA, no south African Indians featured. you wonder why the owners just don't pack up and leave for Mumbai, it seems they're all pining for it and assume we are as well instead of acknowledging that most SA Indians are in SA to live, work and build a future for the country.

anyway - enuff SAIndia bashing - the topic at hand was an Indian women's magazine. I do agree - we should start addressing these complaints to the people who can change things. the editors. so who wants to submit an open letter on Bizcommunity? No point being miserable on this forum.

I also wonder if having race/culture specific magazines might make women's magazine staff a little less vanilla?

Definitely, but how about something a bit more meaty as well - Eastern mosaic is pure lifestyle, other women's mags on the shelves actualy have some worthwhile "real people" journalism in them inbetween ads for lipstick and celeb gossip. I don't think it's asking too much to have both - a pure lifestyle mag like Top Billing and another magazine - maybe more like Marie Claire? So our kids see real SA Indians instead of just celebs all the time?

SA India?????

it's cheap and nasty and badly written. I'm worth more than an ugly magazine printed on newspaper. If Indians are so bloody wonderful surely we deserve more? If British and US Asians can have a decent looking magazine - why can't i?

SAIndia is like the SA Indian version of Heat. I'd really like to see Aishwarya's cellulite featured though!

I had a look at its tagline - SA's premier Indian news, lifestyle and Bollywood magazine

Premier - not a synonym for only....
News - i don't think so - the extra and post do a good enough job of ghettoising Indian's stories.
Lifestyle - who's exactly - Bollywood stars? the editor's?
Bollywood magazine - definitely - if fawning adulation is your thing it does that perfectly - granted with very low quality.

i have never seen stardust - but i think it might be better quality - anyone know? It is imported as well isn't it?

SAIndia is a low-brow celeb rag - for Bollywood celeb lovers. it's fills a niche (comfortably if not with much class)

there are loads of other niches for magazines for indian people to be exploited - surely?

I agree with Anne about one mag for all Indians. we are diverse ourselves - lets not perpetuate the old apartheid idea that all Indians are the same now shall we? if nothing else it hurts us more than anyone else. no one else really gives too much of a damn about a squalling if visible minority. we honestly sometimes sound like afrikaners. a minority convinced of their own superiority. When I look at mags like SAIndia I constantly see the father from my big fat Greek wedding – who goes around saying everything’s of greek origin to mask his own inferiority complex brought on by being largely irrelevant to his family.

our desperation to prove how amazing and successful we are is a textbook inferiority complex - but who are we trying to impress? And why are we so irrelevant, why are we such an unknown quantity on the south African marketing landscape? Maybe because there are only just a million of us – and with the boost from AA and EE, seem to be doing alright for ourselves. We aren’t the problem child so we get overlooked.

it's called SA India

There used to be a magazine called I think Indigo published locally. Because the market was so small it didn't make money and in fact wouldn't pay jounalists - asked me for something for free. The answer is probably making the bigger women's mags more rainbow as we should all be interested in all kinds of South Africans.

Cosmopolitan magazine alone has 20 000 female Indian readers. another 10 000 - and with more and more indian women entering the corporate world - it's not that difficult - a magazine for Indian women would officially be a niche market mag.

Indigo was on the market about five or six years ago? Long before BEE started making any difference to Indian women's lives. Have you seen what JHB looks like? The Indian yuppie is here to stay.

I don't understand why this concept scares people. And why other posters on this forum think SA India is the best we can get.

Hi

Just briefly sccaning through the posts, I would like to add my line of throughts on this issue. I, personally, think it is a brillant idea and something that we should seriously consider. Think about this, who are we, what is our identity, where have we been born? I would think that all questions, directly or indirectly lead to relevance of a South African "Indian". We were not born abroad, but here in SA, we may have ancestral links to India, but being born here gives us a unique identity which is South African. Yes, we may be a small population (1,1) or community, but is that only the justification for us to create or establish something that will be beneficial to us all, either from a scoial or pscylogical perspective. I strongly believe, that we are, in all fairness, very dysfunctional as we are alway to quick to be descrediting, negative and non supportive when in comes to initiaves that will bring the community together as well as enhance our identity and visibility from a recognition perspective. We are, self destructors, by being self immensed and focused, we are allowing ourselves to ensure destruction and disintegration of our own culture and values; uniquely South African.

I fully support this initiative and will be more that happy to be actively involved in getting in of the ground.

anne - get some people together, do research, prepare your pitch and do it!

Now I'm hoping a demand for it rather than my lone voice in a CEO's office will make it happen.

Unless someone's got R5 million to start an Indian media company - (like the ones that produce Nirvana (US) and Asiana (UK) (among others) - and put their balls on the line to produce a product that looks critically at our population, or the big magazine companies pony up the cash to do it - I think we'll have to put up with mediocre rubbish like SAIndia, which for want of anything better, leads the Indian media market.

And a magazine that targets all one million indians is asking for trouble. the science of communication and marketing make good arguments for segmenting the market - right now -in my opinion - the 25 -35 year old Indian woman is the one who's most appropriate to pitch a decent product at.

trying to talk to all indians on the basis of their race alone is a smug assumption that we are all the same and happily feeds into a stereotype. one that mags like SAIndia seem happy to buy into to make their money and put their (numerous) degrees and initals on the front of.

but like snarkella there says - it makes her want to be lighter and brighter. maybe all Indians are just stereotypes and why should I care. Lets have our population become the poster child for cultural loss and degeneration into its worst components here in SA. let us laager ourselves against the greater Africa and South Africa until an SA Idi Amin decides we add nothing to his land but a smug self-serving materialism and kicks us back to the motherland. lets consider ourselves good Hindus and Muslims because we adorn our Mercerdes Benz with AUM And 786, after Allah and Rama want us to be rich and that's all that matters right? God forbid we have opinions, try to understand our roots, culture and religions to benefit us and generations to come and ever ever expand our conscious like our religions demand we do.

Because to do that would require effort and intelligence.

It's disturbing that (well I see it anyway) there isn't a white or a black poster on this forum. It's as if we are a law unto ourselves. the world out there doesn't dare try to understand us for fear of offense - depsite the fact that we're people too. all SA knows about Indians is we were saris, eat curry, listen to Bhangra and watch Bollywood and are good at Maths and science.

When will we acknowledge we are real people?

Simply brillant, I could not have put it any better!!! Touche'

hey anne - i am xhosa, just by the way.
i find ur culture quite interesting, ours has lots of similarities to urs, and we all need to preserve our cultures.
i watch eastern mosaic almost every week-end, and quite enjoy indian movies.
i dont know if you know the magazine blink - typically aimed at your upmarket black guy aged 25-40 (i stand corrected). those guys had an idea, got funding, and got it off the ground.... they've had their issues and shortcomings, but they got support from the public cos people like to read about others like them.
as u said you are rich, am sure u could organise funding and get ur idea off the ground.
personally, i look forward to see ur idea in action, in say 2 yrs or so, or however a project like this would take.
goodluck!

know of it - and think it was a fantastic idea - a magazine for strong intelligent black men and enjoy reading it when i get my hands on it.

Honestly - the thought of raising funds to do my own magazine - is quite frightening- but who knows?

Re similarities between our cultures - I agree - i was amazed to discover that Xhosa women are dressed in clothes from thei husband's family during their weddings. Hindu brides traditionally do the same. I'm willing to bet that our similarities go deeper - and i'm convinced that an understanding of - and realsing that Black and Indian and Coloured women are facing very similar challenges - of becoming westernised and 'modern" so fast.

we are the people in whom the futures of all our cultures are vested. in fact - i'd go so far as to say - that our demands as women with strong cultural backgrounds that put family and spiritual life first is going to be a deciding factor in how SA's future corporate policies should be shaped - to be more socialist rather than aggressively capitalist.

(I'd just like to add - that when i talk about family and spiritual life - i am not referring to rigid concepts of these two ideas - a family and a spiritual life comes in many guises and tolerance for different ways of seeking such happiness is a result of your own maturity - just in case i get the "family values" and god squadders thinking i'm advocating for fundamentalism.)

The only publications directed at coloured folk are demeaning and seem to focus on local coloured slang. It angers me to think that there's not one publication that is directed to folk who are cultured and enjoy reading intellegent material. On the whole, publications such as Die Son just seriously further entrenches coloured stereotypes.

There's an Indian mag called SA India. When will there be a positive and classy publication directed at coloured women, let alone coloured folk?

but do you really want an Indian woman to be fighting that fight for you? Patronises you a bit doesn't it?

A friend of mine suggested that those of us tired of magazines that don't speak to us and that don't understand or often even acknowledge our cultures should start writing letters to editors and ask (demand?) that we see more magazimnes devoted to women of different races and cultures.

of course this opens up the debate about whether this will divide South Africa more - personally - I don't think so. I like reading True Love, and Move. It gives me some insight into my black colleagues lives - and I'm able to ask them questions about their culture that don't just amount to "so you're black - how's that for you?"

it's also a forum to examine our own cultures seen through our own eyes - as opposed to our lives seen through the eyes of white editors. There are fantastic stories about coloured and Indian women out there, and there are problems too (of course there are - to deny that our respective populations have probelems is to deny our own humanity) - personally I'd rather we do the critical analysis of those problems rather than a white person who's not lived our lives, nor understands our cultures from the inside out.

I TOTALLY AGREE, S A INDIANS NEEDS A MAGAZINE OF THEIR OWN, SOMETHING THAT WOULD TEACH & GUIDE THE YOUNGER GENERATION. ITS A BRILLIANT IDEA & LOTS OF LUCK.

Eastern Mosaic mag not bad idea at all

You're not the only ones left out.