Mahakta Aachal: A digest or a healing drug?

 

November 1999 Edition of Mahakta Aanchal, Photo by @ababeelclicks

 When I was a child the first digest I was acquainted with was “Mahakta Aanchal”.  A digest that was famous among ladies so much. People were crazy for it and they still are. I can recall the memory when my aunt had many of these Digests, and I could say those were read by many other ladies. 

Mahakta Aanchal is such a drug that people fear if they start to read they will be addicted to it. There is madness for it. A person could forget everything for it.

If a person buys a copy of this digest it cannot be limited to that person, it will go into the hands of many people. If a person buys it, it will be read by a minimum of 10 people, and it will go minimum of 10 houses. I have 11 editions of Mahakta Aanchal, and I can say these have been read by everyone in my family, every friend or relative of my family members, who read it. People especially ask their knowns if they have old editions of these Digests. I have an edition of 1999 and mahakta aanchal lovers many times asked me for these editions. This digest is like a rolling trophy that everyone wants to take.

Mahakta Aanchal was started by a lady “Ghazala Siddique” in 1993. but she is not only editor and owner of this digest, in fact she and her husband, Khalid Siddique, also issue three more digests and magazines “Pakija Aanchal”, “khubsurat Andaz” and, “huma” under "Huma Publication".

 Pakija Aanchal is an Urdu digest, which is Asia’s most widely read and largest circulated women’s Urdu digest monthly. It is owned by Ghazal Siddiqui. “Khubsurat Andaz” and “huma” were owned by her husband, Khalid Siddique. Unfortunately, Khalid Siddique is dead now, and “Huma” has also been stopped.  

But the most popular among these digests is Mahakta Aanchal. Although, this is Urdu digest, but its script is in Hindi language, which is why also, it is widely read by such a number of people. 

Index of Mahakta Aanchal

  Mahakta Aanchal’s popularity lies in its simple and easy language. The language of this digest is Urdu but its script is in the Hindi language. Mahakta Aanchal have novels, novelty, stories, and short stories that are focused on love stories, and stories on day to day life of the Indian subcontinent’s people and their culture. If you want to take an idea of the stories of these novels, just recall the stories of “Qubool hai”, “Beintiha”, or other Urdu daily soaps. Many times these stories target social evils and very beautifully give a message against them. 

A still from Qubool hai 

There are many stories that run in series. The titles of these stories are also like these Urdu dramas, a very famous novel that ran in a series in this digest, is “Safed Duppata”, which I also loved. There were many novels that ran into series and people gave their love to these novels. Those novels were really amazing- a beautiful plot, a variety of characters, depth, and such great emotions.

These stories are much better than these drama stories, because, in a drama, the writer makes the change for the need of TRP, but in these stories, they don’t need any such TRP so they put great labour of writing in these stories. I would not be wrong if I said that people become addicted to this digest due to this series of stories.

A still from 'Beintiha'

There are no such colorful pages in this digest, and there are no such special illustrations related to stories in this digest, Page quality is also not so high but still, people are crazy about it.

Ghazal, shayri, quotes,also publish it it

 

 However, this is mainly a women's digest but this is not limited just to Muslims and women, it is read by people of every religion, every gender, and also every age. 

A special thing about this magazine is also the beautiful quotes which are published in this magazine. People recite these quotes and also apply them in their lives. One more special thing about this magazine is its encouragement to Shayari, they also started an initiative to mentor new Shayars by publishing their corrected Shayari.

The most important thing about this digest is that it has zero vulgarity. At the time, when other publications are using this nudity idea to make popular their magazines, Mahakta Aanchal made this non-nudity their strength. The reason for its popularity is also embedded in it.

Recently I read the editorial of mahakta aanchal where they were urging to buy mahakta aanchal separately and so to promote it among people. 

 But I think mahakta aanchal should start its digital website where people can get information about it. At this time, mahakta aanchal doesn’t even have an email Id, when I searched about Ghazala Siddique on Google, google gave me nothing about her and their publications. There are a lot of readers who use digital platforms such as “Kindle” to read the books. Mahakta Aanchal can be there, however, it all depends on the discretion of Ghazala Siddique.

But mahakta aanchal and pakeeja Aanchal are available at Amazon. I am attaching the link here if you want to buy it, but, it is available there at overprice.  CLICK HERE 

Below are cover pages of mahakta aanchal, and subscription information. If you want to get any other information regarding Mahakta Aanchal, just write in a comment.