Maxim Targets India's New 'Metrosexual Male'

[Guest guest]

"Is Primetime Priyanka Too Hot to Handle?" Forgive me for pondering

the merits of Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood starlet and former

winner of the Miss World beauty pageant.

 

But this is the burning question asked of us by the inaugural Indian

edition of Maxim - the British "lad mag" which has just made its sub-

continental debut with a pouting Priyanka plastered across its glossy

front cover.

 

Readers are also promised information on "100 Things You Never Knew

about Women", a "how to" guide on professional begging, and a must-

see article on the police inspector in Uttar Pradesh Panda, who

fervently believes that he is the incarnation of the Hindu Goddess

Radha.

 

'SIZZLING EDITORIAL'

 

There are health and survival tips.

 

'Spend, spend, spend; enjoy, enjoy, enjoy' would appear to be its

unofficial motto

 

Two bikini-clad models helpfully demonstrate how to perform the

Heimlich manoeuvre (handy if you have a piece of food stuck in your

throat).

 

Other parts of the magazine are a masala-like blend of men, motors

and models.

 

Readers back in Britain will recognize the recipe. For audiences in

the subcontinent, it is sizzling editorial.

 

The publishers of Indian Maxim have clearly calculated that 20-

something men in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad are just as

puerile and inane as their counterparts in London, Birmingham and

Manchester.

 

More curiously, they believe they have identified a new demographic:

the Indian Lad.

 

So who do they have in mind?

 

Apparently, a call centre employee who is earning more in his mid-20s

than his father was being paid in his mid-40s; a young man with small-

town roots but big-city ambitions.

 

A social climber keen to sample the best food, wine, clothes, movies

and machines; an image-conscious trend-follower with enough

disposable income to afford the latest gizmos and gadgets; a guy with

his finger closely on the pulse and the latest mobile phone in his

palm.

 

It is the personification of the new, metro-centric India.

 

SEX SELLS?

 

Of course, it is not the first time that Indians have been exposed to

sex.

 

This after all is the land of the Kama Sutra - a country, as others

have written, where the sculptures at its holy temples are often more

explicit than its men's magazines.

 

What has changed is Indians' willingness to talk and read about it

openly.

 

It is no longer a matter of shame or embarrassment to have a magazine

like this in the home.

 

If anything, it has become something of a glossy status symbol.

 

But the flesh quotient of the magazine - which, on its front cover at

least, registers lower on the "bare skin scale" than the Indian

version of Cosmopolitan - explains only part of its appeal.

 

In many ways, Maxim is less about beauties you can ogle than things

you can buy.

 

It is about instant consumption and instant gratification.

 

CASTE-LESS

 

Absent from its pages are articles on personal finance, offering tips

on how best and cautiously to invest and save your money.

 

"Spend, spend, spend; enjoy, enjoy, enjoy" would appear to be its

unofficial motto.

 

Also absent from its pages is any mention of caste.

 

Seemingly, it is a magazine for men who want to be defined by a

lifestyle they are prepared to work and pay for rather than the

privileges they have inherited or the caste-based grievances they

have grown up nursing.

 

The publication of the magazine has sparked fairly predictable

debates about the Westernisation of Indian culture and the

permissiveness of its youth.

 

What it is has singularly failed to do is to generate much genuine

outrage.

 

"Where are the VHP protesters burning copies in the streets?" asks

Maxim editor Sunil Mehra, referring to the hard-line Hindu

nationalists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who have long viewed

themselves as the guardians of Indian morality.

 

By capturing the aspirational mood of the times, Maxim looks almost

certain to be a commercial success. Its first print run of 80,000

copies sold out in 10 days.

 

It seems be generating much more awe than shock.

 

SOURCE: BBC NEWS: Magazine targets the 'Indian lad' By Nick Bryant

Maxim wants to appeal to India's image conscious men BBC News, Delhi

 

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4633216.stm [with photos

and reader reactions]