It has no glossy front page or flashy photographs to make you turn pages, but what Elders has is 1,800 strong readership, many of whom immediately call its office in Anna Nagar if they fail to receive a copy of the issue.
The monthly journal of the Tamil Nadu Senior Citizens’ Association is in its 14th year, with its editor and publisher D. Rajasekaran still going strong at 80. “I never thought it would generate so much interest. From daily mails to calls from readers, Elders keeps me ever so busy,” says Mr. Rajasekaran, general secretary of the association that works towards empowering elders.
Launched in 1999, Elders became a channel to communicate with seniors of the association, whose members were growing in number. When the association was started in 1987 by T.N. Lakshminarayanan it was called West Madras Pensioners’ Association. As its strength grew, the name was changed to West Madras Senior Citizens’ Association and invitation was extended to non-pensioners, including bank officials and civil servants. It has today evolved into the Tamil Nadu Senior Citizens’ Association and has over 2,200 members living in various metropolitan cities.
From health notes, jokes, activities of the association and an obituary column, Mr. Rajasekaran, who had a brief stint with Deccan Herald, squeezes them into eight pages.
K. Aludiapillai, former vice-chancellor of Madurai Kamraj University, is the only regular contributor and his articles on the main page have quite a fan following. “I ensure the content chosen interests senior citizens,” says Mr. Rajasekaran, who retired as Joint Commissioner of Income Tax. Even the advertisement in the journals cater to the elders.
“In fact, we have been able to sustain without taking any money from the association thanks to advertisement. I make it a point not to fill the pages with ads or else people would complain that they have little to read,” he says, flipping through the pages.
Nearly 1,000 copies of Elders are circulated to different neighbourhoods of Chennai. Mr. Rajasekaran wants to jazz it up further. “ Elders is a humble start. I plan to increase the number of pages and add more photographs,” he says.
To read Elders online, visit >www.tanseca.com . The editor can be reached at 2621 3908, 2621 3850.
