My Current Favourite EDM: Madis - Cracow Sunset

Listen to this on a good pair of speakers or headphones. On my Edifier R1700BT, this sounds crazy!

 

Born in Krakow, Polish composer and electronic music producer Amadeusz Małkowski – or Madis as he’s popularly known – makes some terrific music. He says his music is characterised by ‘modern sounds combined with the sounds of old-school electronica.’ Madis is well-known for his remix of the movie Interstellar’s theme music, and his single Desert of Lost Souls, which is inspired by Jean-Michel Jarre’s music. His debut album, Sea of Tranquility, was a big hit with his fans and one track from the album – Carrying the Fire, has amassed more than nine million views on YouTube.

Dancing With the Devil: One Week with the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R

The seven days I spent with the Kawasaki ZX-14R were some of the most memorable days of my entire life. I love this bike so very, very, very much!

 

Back in school and college, I was obsessed with buying and reading car and motorcycle magazines. Indian magazines that were available in the 1980s were Car & Bike International, and the Indian Auto Journal. These I bought and read every month, but what I really waited for was to get my hands on hard-to-get second-hand copies of foreign motorcycle magazines. Since there was probably not much demand for these, such magazines were only rarely available, but when I did find copies, I would buy as many as I could with whatever money I happened to have at that time. American magazines like Cycle and Cycle World, British magazines like Bike, Performance Bikes and Superbike, and the Australian magazine TwoWheels. New copies simply weren’t available in Lucknow but I was only too happy buy old copies, which were also reasonably cheap.

1970s-80: My Earliest Memories of Lucknow

Playing in the front lawn of my grandfather's house in Mahanagar, Lucknow. I guess I must have been around three years old when this photo was taken

I was born in Lucknow in January 1973. That was half a century ago and compared with what it is now, Lucknow was a very different city back then. Quieter, calmer, less frenzied, with way less traffic and with a more laidback pace of life. The best part, perhaps, was that there weren’t any high-rise apartment complexes back then (at least none that I know of) and even middle-class families lived in row houses. Actual, independent, standalone houses, perhaps with a small garden up front, maybe a small kitchen garden at the back and an open courtyard somewhere where one could sit in the winter afternoons, or summer evenings. Compared with how things are now, most residential areas in Lucknow back in the 1970s and 1980s had relatively much lower population density, which I believe makes a very, very big difference to the living experience.

The Day I Drove a Ferrari FF

Back in 2012, my dear friend (and former colleague from Business Standard Motoring) Murali K. Menon gave me an opportunity to drive the mighty Ferrari FF and write about it for Man’s World magazine. Murali, or MKM as we call him, was Managing Editor of Man’s World at that time and he spoke to Ferrari’s New Delhi dealership and arranged for me to drive the FF. That car, along with two Maseratis – the GranCabrio and the Quattroporte – had been brought to Jaypee Spa Resort for an event of some sort. All I had to do was, go to the Jaypee Resort, which was just 2km from my house, pick up the car from there and drive it as much as I wanted. Could this really be happening? Could it be real? On that day, it was. A dream come true.

A Song I Can't Stop Listening To: I Wanna Know, Cliff Wedge Remix

I Wanna Know, Cliff Wedge remix

 

Everyone once in a while I come across a song on YouTube, which I simply can't stop listening. Well, the obsession usually lasts for a few weeks before fading somewhat, with a new song then taking its place. Currently, it's this one - I wanna Know, Cliff Wedge remix. It's from Stockholm Nightlife, an international electro-pop project based in Sweden. This song has been written by M. Paulsson and F. Wahlin, and the vocals are by Erika Selin.

Do yourself a favour: If possible, don't listen to this on your phone or on your PC's or laptop's built-in speakers, which often sound cheap and tinny. Listen to this on a good, powerful pair of speakers and it'll be magic!

Golden Rules for Magazine Editors

From 1998 till 2017, I worked with various magazines as a writer/editor. These were mostly automotive and technology publications based in Bombay, Pune and New Delhi. Also wrote for newspapers and websites during this period. Over the years, I was fortunate enough to have some great bosses – fabulous Editors – who taught me some valuable lessons in journalism. Of these, one of the greatest was Gourav Jaswal, Editor of CHIP, who hired me to join his editorial team in Bombay, in 1998. Gourav, who is now based in Goa, is an amazingly well-read, outstandingly brilliant person. Smart, articulate, all-around knowledgeable and sharp, he’s someone whom I’ve always looked up to. He’s the one who gave me first break in full-time journalism, which allowed me to go to Bombay and work there for many years – it’s what helped me build my life and do whatever little that I’ve been able to do.

Back in 1998 or 1999, he gave me a list of some ‘golden rules,’ which he said every magazine Editor should follow. While journalism itself has changed a fair bit since that time, I find that GJ’s rules are still as relevant as ever. And hence, I present that list here in the hope that some young Editor(s) will read this and, perhaps, benefit from these rules.

June 1998: Goodbye Lucknow, Hello Bombay!

I had one of those side, upper berths in a second-class railway compartment, travelling from Lucknow to Bombay on the Pushpak Express. Had boarded the train earlier in the evening and, after an early dinner, had clambered up to my berth to read. Probably an automotive magazine or maybe a computer magazine, since those were the things I found most interesting back then. I read whatever I could get my hands on, buying as many Indian and foreign magazines as I could every month.

In about an hour, I finished reading whatever magazines I’d bought (as always, from the Wheeler’s book stall at the Lucknow railway station) for the long, 24-hour train journey from Lucknow to Bombay, and settled down to try and get some sleep. Gradually, as the occupants of the compartment finished eating dinner, lights started getting switched off, loud conversations declined to muted murmurs and eventually tapered off altogether, and things became quiet. Lying there on my small, not very comfortable berth, I drifted in and out of languorous stupor, quietly cursing the cloying heat and humidity in that tightly-packed, non-AC railway compartment.

‘You’re a road test editor?! What on earth is that??’

That's me, 'testing' the 2003 Honda City. BSM lensman Param clicked this photo

I got married 21 years ago and one funny incident from back then has remained in memory. During one of the pre-wedding ceremonies in my wife’s hometown, Jabalpur, someone from her side of the family asked me – as is inevitably asked during such times – what I did for a living. Having asked this all-important question, this gentleman, who had a triumphant smile on his face (for having coming up with the most original of all questions, no doubt) and other relatives from my wife’s side of the family eagerly awaited my reply. Doctor? Engineer? An MBA who’s in sales or marketing? Lawyer? Architect? Any one of those replies would have, I’m sure, elicited nods of approval all around. So, when I said I’m a journalist – more specifically, a road test editor with Business Standard Motoring magazine – it’s hardly surprising that my response was met with blank stares and uncomprehending faces.

What’s a ‘road test editor,’ people wanted to know. Did I test roads, someone ventured with a nervous chuckle. Clearly, some mistake had been made. How could the bride’s father have deigned to give away his youngest daughter’s hand in marriage to someone who tested roads? What future could such a man have? And how much could he possibly earn? On my part, I did not have the courage to say I tested and reviewed cars, not roads, for then that might have triggered suspicions of me being a mechanic in a car workshop. And, of course, there was no question of mentioning the fact that a lot of my work was driving the aforementioned cars, for then I would have been someone’s chauffeur in people’s minds.

In any case, the wife-to-be soon arrived on the scene and in her usual gentle and graceful manner, steered me away from the conversation, averting the social disaster that was almost certainly in the making. Little did I know back then that this was only one of the many occasions when she’d end up rescuing me from socially difficult situations. In the meanwhile, on that fateful day, the group of people interrogating me ultimately went back to their drinks and paneer tikka, and all was well.

Back then, automotive journalism was a somewhat unusual profession. Today, it has been cheapened and commoditised. But that's a different story, which I'll save for another day. 

Life Lessons: Takeaways From My Many Months of Unemployment

 

Back in 2017, I was working as Executive Editor with Auto Tech Review, a New Delhi-based automotive-technology magazine, a leading B2B monthly. The work was interesting and the pay was not too bad. However, due to certain difficult circumstances, I had to leave this job at the end of October 2017 and was not been able to find work for many months. Months of unemployment, zero earnings during that period, almost complete isolation from friends and family, and having to deal with depression and anxiety.

Were things difficult? Yes. Did I regret leaving my old job without first finding other work? Yes, I made a mistake with that. Did I give up hope for the future? No. And you mustn't either, if you're ever in a similar situation.

Here, I've put together some thoughts that might be useful reading for those who are either thinking of leaving their current job (without already having accepted another job offer first) or those who've recently left their job and are currently looking for work.

Times Keep Changing but the Music Must Never Stop

 

From the beginning of time – well, at least the beginning of my time on this planet – music has been one of my most favourite things. Everything, from Hindi film music to ghazals to English Pop, Rock, Disco, Techno, EDM, House, Latin, Reggae, Rumba, Flamenco, Salsa… and probably more. I started off with listening to the radio and have since then worked my way through LPs, cassettes, CDs, MP3s and FLACs. In fact, I’ve never taken to streaming music platforms like Spotify etc., and still listen to MP3s and FLACs using Winamp. Otherwise, it’s YouTube. But I guess that’s how it is for each generation of listeners – we’ve all had our own different ways of discovering new music, buying it (or acquiring it otherwise, via means that may or may not be entirely legal) and playing it on different devices.   

For my 16-year-old son, ‘music’ is all about streaming his favourite tracks on Spotify. He discovers and plays all his favourite music on Spotify – that app being the centre of his musical universe. Other elements in that universe include his Android smartphone, a pair of Bluetooth headphones, an Amazon Echo smart speaker. As far as I can remember, he’s never heard music played on a CD player. In fact, he may not even have seen a standalone CD player and might never have seen an actual music CD. Music cassettes had more or less disappeared from mainstream use a decade or more before the time he was born. And as for LPs – vinyl records – I suppose most kids of his age won’t even recognize those, and most would’ve never seen a turntable in their lives. Theirs is a generation accustomed to choosing and immediately playing any track, from any artist in the world, immediately, at the mere touch of some kind of a screen on some digital device or the other. For them, to have to muck around with actual physical media – flipping through stacks of CDs, cassettes or records, finding what they want to play, putting it on the player, and then going to the trouble of fast-forwarding or reversing through the tracks – may well be quite unimaginable. And maybe that’s a good thing. This generation will not need to know the heartache caused by spools of tangled magnetic tape and scratched CDs or LPs.