PlaneMad hits the national magazine

Aerial view of the Adams bridge. Taken during my flight from Chennai to Colombo

Yes, yes, calm down. Nothing sensational, just that this month’s issue of frontline carries the name PlaneMad.

I found out that my pic a pic taken by me was used in  last weeks’s cover story on the ram sethu. I have seen my pics and maps used plenty of times but mostly for presentations, research etc. But was a little peeved to have the country’s national magazine (or so they claim) take a photo off wikipedia and just use it in their article without so much as informing the author, or even crediting me, after all the magazine is not some charity organisation who have to depend on contributions from good hearted souls.

I decide to rattle them by writing a letter, but i realize that 12 years of learning english in school has been lost on me ( the grammatical murder of english in this blog is a case in point). I manage to string together a couple of sentences and send it over to frontline hq.

I never expected any reply, but my mail must have made sense to someone, cause an enquiry was launched and i received apologetic responses from three level of editors explaining their fault, and well, being the good soul i am, have decided to forgive them. The responsiveness of the magazine over the matter must be commended tho, i expected neither a reply or any action, but ive got both. I would have prefered my real name on the mag, but they wanted some proof that i was planemad, and well, im not quite sure how ill be able to proove that. I bet the readers think that someone hacked the site when they read “Photograph by PlanMad”

So what has now been learned over the experience?
1) if you want things to work, you have to sound like a bully, none of that “Dear Respected Sir” nonsense please. With a little more effort, i could have ordered a reprint of the magazine.
2) It can be difficult to explain what “by PlaneMad” is doing under your work, to your dad.
3) Sitting in a window seat on the right side while travelling Chennai – Colombo and experimenting with your new camera can get you some unexpected pics.
4) People care a rats ass when your name appears in some obscure online edition of a magazine.

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