Sudha is online!

Sudha and Taranga were two most popular Kannada magazines when I was growing up in 80's Bangalore. I don't know how popular they are now. I wouldn't be surprised if their sales have been adversely affected by the preference for everything English among the general Indian population these days, influenced for the most part by the ever-popular English medium education.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Sudha magazine is also available online! Although that link will take you to the homepage of the magazine, you will have to use the "Direct Access Click here" link on the homepage, to actually peruse the magazine.

I checked out every page of the latest edition online, although I did not read every page fully. It is nice to know that the basic format of the magazine has not changed in 20+ years. It has all the sections which made it a holistic family magazine - a cover page article on a topic of general interest, other assorted articles and stories, humorous articles, ongoing fiction series, interesting photos (including the customary fully-clothed 'girlie' picture), entertainment "news", interesting news bits from around the world, seasonal recipes, reader-submitted poem, reader-submitted questions, a kids' section, a jokes page, and even a comics page with... get this, Phantom comics series!

It was very pleasant to read this magazine first thing on a Sunday morning, just like I would have done all those years ago when I was a school kid and read my uncles' copy in my grandmother's house.

The homepage of the magazine invites us to "access the TRIAL version of your favorite magazine sudha and its Supplements now for FREE." That might give you the impression that you need a subscription to access the full magazine and archives. However, that is not the case. I was able to access all the pages of the latest edition as well as the archives by using the "Direct Access" link. I hope they always keep this available online.

The archives page indicates that the online edition was started in March 2006. However, the oldest three archives dated March 16th, June 29th and July 27th 2006 don't load. Looks like those were sporadic first attempts. However, since September 2006 onwards, there are regular weekly editions available online. I am gonna access each one of them just to read the Phantom comics! Woo-hoo!

Be warned though, the interface is very old and clunky. The homepage even says, "Site best viewed in IE 5.5"! 5.5, for god's sake! That version of IE was outdated even before March 2006, when Sudha seems to have attempted to go online! Anyway, if you have problems loading the online magazine, just close the browser, re-open it and try again.

If you use the 'Next" link on the top right corner of the magazine page to go to the next page, you might come across some blank pages with the message "Page not available at this time". Don't worry. A page with content has not gone missing. It seems to be just a blank page that's interspersed among the content pages for some strange reason. Possible bug in the system. However, if you come across two or more blank pages in a rows, you need to close and reopen your browser.

Once you get past that bad interface, it is the same old Sudha magazine. Enjoy!