Originally published as the first of its kind film magazine back in 1971 (there were other film-y magazines but nothing as scandalous or gossipy as this!), for some strange reason the publishing house celebrated the 50th year of Stardust on Jan 28/29, 2023.
Now even our basic mathematics is bad but surely this is the 52nd year of the magazine in 2023, not 50th... A point that no other online portal or newspaper picked up... which is pretty much on brand; accuracy and verifiable journalism wasn't much of a thing for the publication. Publish now, apologise later (if ever) has been a long-standing unwritten motto of Stardust; the deity maker and breaker of the Indian film industry.
Sridevi has appeared in manyyyyyyyyyyyy Stardust covers over her illustrious career - until her tragic and untimely demise. We have but a few of them and a few notable gems are missing in our collection. Sadly, even the editors and writers who worked at the magazine don't have copies as today's news is tomorrow's trash - we are talking pre internet obviously. They didn't save copies, and didn't collect them with a fevered passion like we did.
What do I say about Stardust? Well, growing up, we were strongly discouraged from reading it - especially for the magazine's faulty English - the film rag was the first of its kind to introduce "Hinglish" to the common vernacular, and my parents were horrified. The merry hybrid of Hindi and pop culture English would be intolerable to any English teacher.
The copy was deliciously decadent; scandals galore, amoral stars and their tales of sex, drugs, alcohol, and extra-marital affairs, rape allegations, underworld links, gangsters, Mumbai mafia stories, drug-peddlers, drug consumers... there was no topic that was too taboo. And the pictures! Stardust was the first magazine to publish a Bombay starlet topless (Oh Mamta Kulkarni!) fake pornographic image of a Bollywood star on the cover (Pooja Bhatt!) to talk about the ills of the internet! It published scantily clad men, women, starlets, it spoke to mistresses, it was the Indian version of Page 3, Hello! and Playboy.... well, without the nudity, but the words... we blush!
The magazine was high octane on cover tags, they were all screaming; Caught! Confession! Red-Handed! Rape! The words were all bold-faced and bold-type. It really had a knack for bringing down any celebrity with an outsized ego and planting them firmly down to earth. It was gossipy but it was fun - otherwise it wouldn't have been the best selling film magazine in a nation of nearly a billion!
The rag had its own share of controversies and lawsuits; Dharmendra arrived at the office to threaten writers and editors, Amitabh Bachchan didn't speak to anyone from the magazine for nearly a decade, Saif Ali Khan had a few select abuses for one of the scribes, Rekha and Shabana Azmi sued the publication for defamation (nothing came of it), the Anupam Kher and Mithila Kulkarni (sister of Mamta Kulkarni) molestation allegation was an ugly chapter in all their lives, Mahima Chaudhary spoke about how an editorial had her spiral down into depression... The magazine never held back and punched down and high with equal fervor.
Many stars tried to ban it, but the Bollywood boycott didn't work - if anything, gave the magazine new lease while several other newsstand rags and the magazine's poorer cousins (Showtime!) came up.... (and petered away...).
Sadly, as much fun as it was - and it was gloriously campy fun - the end of Stardust as we know it is neigh. The internet and social media, where images and info are distributed free and faster, is slowly choking the magazine out of relevance.
The publishing house needs a cash cow or go whole hog as an online Bollywood behemoth - but Pinkvilla seems to have that position already.
Ah Stardust. Thanks for the nostalgia. And Good Luck babe. You're going to need it.
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