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| From Bandra Kurla, the CHIP office moved to Taj Building, on Dr DN Road |
In part 1 of this story, I’d written about joining CHIP magazine, which was then based in Bandra Kurla, finding a hostel in Bandra as temporary accommodation and learning to get around the city. In this chapter, the story continues below.
Within 2-3 months after I joined CHIP, the management decided to move CHIP’s office from the Bandra Kurla complex to another one of Jasubhai Media’s office locations – this one on the 3rd floor of the Taj Building on Dr Dadabhai Naoroji Road (or DN road, as it’s more popularly known), in the Fort area, near VT station (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus). Situated between Crawford Market and Flora Fountain, Dr DN Road is steeped in 19th century history and is home to a whole lineup of colonial-era heritage buildings – grand old structures that have stood the test of time. Some of these buildings are clean and well-maintained while some others could do with better upkeep. While the exterior facades have not been changed, the interiors of most buildings have been modified to accommodate modern-day shops and offices. Taj Building, when I worked there in 1999, was in reasonable shape, though its ancient wooden staircases were age-worn and a bit creaky, while the tiny elevator – which was equally ancient and still had a lift operator (!) – could only accommodate 2-3 people at a time. It remained closed for about an hour during lunchtime, because the operator went on his lunch break and you weren’t allowed to operate the elevator on your own.
In any case, the Taj Building office was much bigger than our old office in Balarama Building and the team had more space to sit and work. The test centre team, which carried out all their hardware and software testing for the magazine, got their own separate room that became the new CHIP test centre and they were quite happy about that. I got a little cubicle to myself, one cubicle away from Gourav’s cabin. Getting to Taj Building meant taking a local train from Bandra station to Churchgate, from where DN Road was a 10-minute walk. Every day, while going back to Bandra, I looked forward to the walk from Taj Building to Churchgate because the road was lined with streetside booksellers, who stocked an excellent selection of new and old foreign magazines that I absolutely loved reading. Computer and technology magazines, motorcycle magazines and bodybuilding magazines from the US and the UK, many of which I used to buy every month. On some days, instead of stopping at Churchgate and taking a train back to Bandra, I used to keep on walking for another five minutes, reach Marine Drive and walk along the promenade. Sometimes, I’d buy some bhel and eat it while sitting somewhere on Marine Drive, looking out at the Arabian Sea – its gentle waves always had a calming effect on me.
In addition to its proximity to Marine Drive, the other great thing about Taj Building was that it was surrounded by a whole array of eateries – all kinds of big and small restaurants, offering a vast repertoire of flavours and cuisines, at a fairly wide range of prices. Parsi, Keralite, Mughlai, South Indian, North Indian, Italian… and whatever else you fancied. For me, choosing wasn’t too complicated – in the first one or two weeks of the month, when there was at least some money in my bank account, I could eat whatever I fancied. Some evenings, I’d even go out for a chilled beer or three. After the 15th of every month, the graph would go down, sometimes quite sharply, and I’d be reduced to the more basic fare of dal-chawal. A colleague of mine at that time, Naintara, who was part of the writers’ team at CHIP for a few months, sometimes took pity on me when I was flat broke. We would often walk around the Fort area in the evenings, after work, and she’d sometimes buy me a beer and pay for my dinner. Sometimes I’d borrow money from her – we’d walk down to the HSBC Bank, near Flora Fountain, where she had her account, and she’d withdraw some money from an ATM there and give it to me. I always made it a point to pay her back on the 1st or the 2nd, as soon as I got my salary.
In the meanwhile, my time at the KCA hostel in Bandra was coming to an end and the manager gently reminded me that I had to vacate my room soon. Finding a new place to stay was a big challenge. I did not want to share a room with anyone and wanted a nice, clean, accessible place to myself. Preferably one where the rent would be less than Rs 5,000 per month. Even in the Bombay of the 1990s, this could be a tall order. But in the end, I did find a place in Mahim – a one-room paying guest accommodation for the princely sum of Rs 4,000 per month. The house belonged to an old lady who worked at the Hinduja Hospital nearby. The room itself was about three times the size of the room I had at KCA, was neat, clean and airy, with large windows, and the bathroom was spotless. Matunga station was a 10-minute walk from the room, and from there I could get a local train to Churchgate. Of course, getting into a local train at Matunga at around 8 a.m. was an absolute nightmare – the crowds were just unbelievable. Somedays, I chickened out and took a cab to Taj Building, which I think cost around Rs 80. On other days, I braced myself and somehow – I don’t know how and don’t want to think about it – forced my way into the damn train and got on with the journey. The people of Bombay sometimes romanticize the daily routine of travelling in local trains. I don’t know about them, but I never liked it. Sure, it was economical, but the incredible crowding, the heat and the humidity made it an almost unbearable experience. Afternoons, when the trains weren’t that crowded, were fine. But travelling in local trains during rush hours – morning and evening – was pure punishment.
At work, in office, things were quite action-packed. CHIP was going from strength to strength – the design and production quality were a few notches above other computer magazines available in India at the time, and CHIP had the added advantage of providing a free multimedia CD-ROM with every issue. Yeah, it was the 1990s, remember. The Internet wasn’t that big back then and CD-ROMs filled with free games and software were a bit hit with computer users. These were usually freeware or trial versions of the real stuff, but that was enough to get buyers very excited – a magazine and a CD-ROM for Rs 100? Bring it on!
Jasubhai Digital Media (JDM), which had brought CHIP to India in association with Vogel Media of Germany, was on a roll and was adding new magazines to its portfolio. So, in addition to CHIP, the Group soon launched Network Computing for enterprise computing users, and Computer Reseller News (CRN), a trade publication for IT channel partners and solution providers. There was also Computer Arts, for illustrators, animators and other creative professionals, and a series of CHIP Specials, each of which focused on a specific aspect of computing for specific use cases. The office was a hubbub of activity, what with new editorial staff being added for each magazine – it was a young, vibrant workplace full of high hopes and a lot of energy. As with any such workplace, we also got our share of people who weren’t well suited to working at JDM – people who did not adapt to the culture, people who weren’t willing to conform to basic editorial ethics, people who simply did not want to work hard and people whose quality of work wasn’t acceptable. Gourav, who was now Editorial Director at JDM, was quick to eject such people from the company – swiftly and, some felt, ruthlessly. Firing people was messy work but it had to be done, and someone had to do it. Such is life.
In all of this, I made some great friends, some of whom I’m still in touch with today, twenty-five years later. There was George, who was the editor of CRN. G.V. Sreekumar, the head of design at CHIP. Marco, Sumod, Mohit, Hakim and Varun – technophiles who worked in the CHIP test centre. Gulnar, the features editor and Radhika, the copy editor. From the writers’ team, there were Bertram, Naintara, Arjun and Brian. Vinay, who was in charge of the library. Vanita, Kiran and Kabir from the multimedia team. CP Thomas, who was head of editorial at CHIP. And Sridhar, the editor of Network Computing, who became one of my closest friends. The way we first met was a bit funny. I mean, it seems funny to me now but probably didn’t seem all that funny to either of us back then.
A few months after our office had moved from Bandra Kurla to DN Road, the company had provided accommodation – shared apartments in Nerul, New Bombay – to some of us, especially those who had, like me, come to Bombay from other cities in order to work for CHIP. I had been placed in a two-bedroom apartment where I had one room, and Akhilesh (who was in the circulation department) had the other room. Things were all fine until one day a girl from HR walked up to us and said we’d be sharing the apartment with one more person. We protested, saying there were only two bedrooms in the flat and we – Akhilesh and I – had one room each to ourselves. All she said in response was that we’d just have to manage somehow. We cursed her behind our back, bitched about this mystery third person who’d supposedly be joining us soon and then, after a day or two, forgot all about it.
Over the weekend, Akhilesh and I were in the flat and it was late in the evening when the doorbell rang. I went to open the door and a tall, thin man was standing there, suitcase in hand. ‘Hi! I’m Sridhar,’ he said. ‘The HR lady from JDM gave me this address and said I’d be staying here.’ I was very upset and very angry – not with Sridhar, but with the HR girl. But since the HR girl wasn’t around, an unsuspecting Sridhar became the unfortunate target of my ire. Instead of greeting him or welcoming him into the house, I turned my back on him and, without saying a word, walked away. Akhilesh (who passed away a few years ago in a road accident – may God bless his soul) wasn’t as rude, thankfully. He got Sridhar into the house and asked him to put his suitcase in one of the bedrooms – the room that Akhilesh was using. Sridhar and Akhilesh started sharing a room, while I still had my room all to myself. Today, I know my behaviour was petty and inconsiderate, and I’m ashamed for the way I behaved. But back then, I just didn’t see why I should have to share my room with anyone, when I’d been promised a room to myself in that shared apartment.
In any case, Sridhar had joined JDM as editor of Network Computing and was in a more senior position than I was. I was a rookie in comparison – he had, at that point, ten years of work experience as a professional journalist and he was also about 9-10 years older than I was. He was an affable person, a good conversationalist. Well-read, always ready with a laugh, and did not seem to hold a grudge against me for my misbehaviour when I first met him at the apartment. He did not have background in tech journalism but very quickly learned the ropes and did a great job of managing Network Computing. We started talking and soon became the best of friends – we ate together, travelled together, went to watch movies and, at work, bounced ideas off each other. We had a very high opinion of each other and enjoyed each other’s company. Soon, given his seniority, he was given a separate apartment by the company – he had the entire place to himself. And he was kind enough to ask me to come and stay with him, and I did move in with him.
In the evenings, we’d finish work and take the local train from VT station to Nerul, which took about an hour. We’d get off at Nerul, walk to one of the many restaurants near the station, have a quick, simple dinner and then take an autorickshaw to go to our apartment. On Saturday evenings, after work, we’d often go to Colaba (a five-minute cab ride from office), catch a movie in one of the old theatres there, have a beer or two, and eat at some fancy place – a nice change from our daily routine of dal chawal at one of the dhabas near Nerul station. Sridhar would tell me about his wife and kid, who were still in Bangalore and who’d be joining him in Bombay shortly. I would tell him about my dreams and aspirations and what I wanted to do in life. We’d sit somewhere near the Gateway of India or sometimes on Marine Drive, and talk till late in the evening.
Back at work, in the office, the winds of change were beginning to blow again.
To be continued in part 3
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