1,500, & counting...
It is Sunday morning and at the Senior Citizens’ Home in Chandigarh, 70-year-old Narinder Banwait is getting impatient. He is waiting for his copy of Spectrum, the weekly magazine of The Tribune. No sooner does the paper arrive than he flips straight to his favourite page — the one with the Caption Contest results. A slight disappointment crosses his face; his entry hasn’t made the cut. Undeterred, he scans the selected entries, comparing them with his own, and gets down to this week’s challenge, scribbling clever one-liners. This has been his routine for more than a decade, ever since a family argument led him to participate in the contest.
“I’d been facing multiple medical and family issues when an argument broke out with my brother,” shares Banwait, who worked with the Chandigarh State Cooperative Bank. “He (Sewa Singh, Delhi) boasted how his entries often made it to the winners’ list in The Tribune Caption Contest, which irritated me enough to send my entry. That first Sunday, my joy new no bounds when I saw my name among the winners. Over the next few weeks, more of my entries won. I loved this mindgame. It gave me a fresh lease of life. Every Sunday, I wake up looking forward to participating.”
As the Caption Contest reaches a milestone — number 1,500, there are many like him who cherish this decades-old contest which had a rather mischievous start to it.
It was the autumn of 1984. In The Tribune’s magazine section, a two-person team handled the weekly edition. While the boss was away on vacation, the playful junior came across an unsolicited photo from a reader, Arun Nirula of Faridkot. What caught her eye was the picture of the dog in a shirt and tie with a cigarette dangling from the corner of its mouth. “Perhaps, the expression reminded me of a familiar demeanour,” she recalls, with an unmistakable hint of naughtiness. She rushed to the Editor-in-Chief with a proposal: invite readers to submit captions for the photo, with a prize for the best two captions out of the 10 selected. The idea was approved. And on September 9, 1984, The Tribune’s Caption Contest was born.
Two weeks’ time was given to submit the entries. Hundreds poured in. The first published results had a chiding for the readers too: “The Caption Contest, introduced in the issue of The Sunday Tribune dated September 9, 1984, evoked overwhelming response. But most of the captions, suggested for the photographs, seemed to have been dashed off without adequate thought. Some others had unnecessary political overtones.”
Caption Contest 1000, February 22, 2015
“For us, this contest is more than just a fun exercise — it’s a badge of honour,” says Surendra Miglani, a businessman from Kaithal who has participated for more than four decades and won more than 200 times. “People recognise me because of it, even strangers know my name! My first winning caption was published on March 24, 1985. I was 28 then. But even today, each time my caption entry gets selected, it’s a celebration at home. This wonderful therapy keeps my grey cells from rusting.”
Agrees 86-year-old KL Noatay with a distinct address: VPO Sadwan, Nurpur district, HP. Among the earliest participants, this retired Director (Legal), BRO, finds the activity just as thrilling. “I’ve never missed The Tribune, no matter where I was posted — Arunachal, Leh or Srinagar. And I would religiously participate in the contest. Even in the most remote locations, I made sure to send my captions by post. When the submission window was reduced to a week, it was disappointing for those in far-off places. But thanks to The Tribune epaper, I can participate instantly, though I send my entries by post as well.”
For some, the contest has been much more than a test of wits. It has helped forge new bonds. Chandigarh’s Gopal Krishan Juneja (70), a former professor of law, and Panchkula’s Narendra Sharma (80), a retired Chief Engineer at BBMB, met while hand-delivering their contest entries.
“Every week, we call each other to fine-tune our captions,” shares Juneja. “I met with an accident once, and it was Sharmaji who took me to the hospital and stayed by my side.”
Many contributors have passed on this love to the next generation. Shimla’s Harshita Jain (22) and brother Ishaan (17) got hooked on to the contest as their mother Reena Gupta, a professor of biotechnology at HPU, has been an avid participant. Nalagarh school principal Adit Kansal has inspired many students to participate, as has Ludhiana’s Guru Nanak Dev Ji Institute of Suchajji Foundation.
Caption Contest 1, August 15, 1993
Week after week, The Tribune’s Caption Contest tray continues to receive envelopes and postcard entries from across the region. Vineet Gupta (Jagadhri), Anju Bhandari, Sanju Panicker, Yashi Aggarwal, Usha Gupta and SP Chopra (Panchkula); Alisha Chandra, Meenakshi Sharma, Sahib Singh, Saubhagya, MS Johar, Neeraj Sabharwal, Lalit Kalia, Shalu, Sahil Kumar & Ranjana Kumari (Chandigarh); Seema Rani, Davinder Kumar & Deeksha (Jalandhar); Rajinder Bansal, Balvinder Kaur & Jasbir Singh (Karnal); Sandeep Daniel (Shimla); Karnail Singh (Kharar); Mohinder Singh and Aruna Bhatia (Patiala); Romesh Chandra Malhotra (Mohali); Sudesh Kumar Sood (Moga); Sri Gopal Kaistha & Arafat Alam (New Delhi), and many more, diligently keep posting their entries.
The epaper has helped expand the reach. To name a few: Rajiv Arora (Mumbai), Anil Chambial (Kangra), MR Virdi (Pathankot), Ankur Garg (Panipat), Dhruv Bansal (Dhuri), Rajiv Sharma (Amritsar), Neeti Kansal (Sangrur), Sanjeev Kumar Kush (Pehowa), Sanjeev Trikha (Faridabad), IPS Anand (Manimajra), Dharuv Patwari (Dinanagar), etc. NPS Sohal shares his entries from Ohio, US. The list is endless.
But for a brief pause during Covid, the contest has remained a constant in readers’ lives. Since its numbering began on August 15, 1993 — nearly a decade after it started — more than 1,500 contests have been officially recorded, though the actual number is much higher. For thousands of The Tribune readers, this is more than just a contest — it’s a tradition, a legacy, and, for many, a lifeline of joy
