I pull a wheelie as part of my 'work' at Motoring, as Shumi, who was then head of two-wheeler content at the magazine, looks on. The pic was clicked by the indefatigable Param
In an earlier post, I wrote about moving on from TechTree to join Motoring, an
automotive monthly magazine which was, at that time, published by the Business
Standard group. The story continues here.
On my very first day at work with Motoring, the team was heading out for
a photoshoot of the Mitsubishi Pajero, an old-school SUV powered by a 2.8-litre
diesel engine. The hulking vehicle was parked outside the Motoring
office, which is on PB Marg in Lower Parel. Editor Bijoy handed over the keys
to me and asked me to drive. There were other cars parked one inch ahead and
one inch behind the Pajero and I slowly, carefully, manoeuvred it out of the
parking slot, silently cursing the morons who had parked their cars so close to
the Pajero, leaving almost no space for the massive SUV to move either forward or
back. Thankfully, after a lot of twirling of the steering wheel and inching the
vehicle forward and back, I was finally able to get it out of its parking slot.
The team trooped in and off we went to the photoshoot location. My first
drive/shoot for Motoring went off without any incident and we were back
in office by afternoon. After a quick lunch of sambhar and masala
dosa at a nearby joint, I spent the rest of the day just sitting around and
talking to the team, trying to understand how Motoring functioned and
how things worked in the office.
The Motoring team wasn’t very large, but each person had been carefully selected by Bijoy and did something – at least one thing, and in some cases more than one thing – very well. Bijoy really cared about quality of work and whether it was writing or photography, each person on the team felt motivated to deliver his best. Back then, in the early-2000s, print was still king and we had the liberty to keep all our focus on the magazine. I mean, unlike how things work today, there was no pressure on us to create ‘content’ for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, some of which hadn’t even been invented back then. There were no videos to be made, no reels, no shorts, no tweets – all we had to do was produce well-researched, well-written articles for the magazine. Advertorials weren’t as big a thing as they are now but, yes, there were sponsored articles every once in a while. Editorial team members who wrote these advertorials were paid for that separately, which doesn’t quite happen these days. Overall, the Motoring team worked as one tightly-knit unit, like a reliable, well-oiled machine – each person knew what was expected of them and they delivered accordingly. Bijoy sometimes threw parties for the team, which he hosted in his apartment, which was in Thane. The parties were held on the building’s rooftop, and the music and the food were always great.
I was 29 years old when I joined Motoring, and my parents wanted me to get married. I wasn’t averse to the idea either and felt it was time I got married and settled down to a life of domesticity. Some relatives had put my parents in touch with a family from Jabalpur. Details and photographs had been exchanged and I quite liked Poonam’s (that was the girl’s name) photographs. She belonged to one of Jabalpur’s well-known business families and her father wasn’t too sure that I’d be a suitable candidate for marrying his daughter. He had no idea what automotive journalism was all about and didn’t really understand my work. However, the rest of their family persuaded him to come to Bombay to meet me. And so, Poonam’s parents and one of her uncles travelled from Jabalpur to Bombay to see me. They first came to my apartment in New Bombay, which was pretty basic and sparsely furnished. I lived there alone at the time, though my mother was there with me for a few days when Poonam’s parents came to visit us for the first time. I don’t remember much from that first meeting, though I do remember her uncle asking me if I smoke or drank. I told him I did not smoke, but did drink once in a while and he was a bit taken aback at that. Sure, I did drink occasionally at that time and thought it was only fair that I tell him as much. I mean, I thought it was perfectly fine to have a drink or two once in a while. What’s wrong with that?
The next day, Poonam’s parents and her uncle also came to the Business Standard office, perhaps to check if I really worked there. I met them in the reception, politely told them they could not go inside and escorted them to the office canteen instead, where we continued to talk over cups of tea and plates of poha and upma. After this meeting, they must have been at least halfway convinced, because they spoke to Poonam, who was in Indore at that time with her elder sister and brother-in-law, and asked the three of them to come to Bombay the next day, so that we could all meet up. My father, who was working with the Jaypee Group at that time and was based in Rewa, said he would not be able to come to Bombay for this due to prior work commitments, but my mother would be there. My sister and brother-in-law, who were based in Pune at that time, also agreed to come to Bombay for this meeting.
At the given time on the day of the meeting, all of us arrived at Gaylord, a popular restaurant very close to Marine Drive. We had reached before Poonam’s family and were waiting for them when they arrived. I saw Poonam come out of the cab but she did not look at me directly, and I thought she was arrogant and perhaps a bit stuck-up. At first, all of us (this time, Poonam’s elder sister and brother-in-law were also there) sat down at one table but I soon realised it would be impossible to talk to Poonam if we continued to sit there, so I asked her to come and sit with me at a separate table so we could talk freely. She wasn’t expecting this and looked quite surprised, but got up anyway and we proceeded to another table. I quickly realised she wasn’t arrogant or stuck-up, just very shy. We sipped our coffees and made random small talk, and I suggested that we should step out and go for a walk on the nearby Marine Drive. She agreed but said we’d first have to take ‘permission’ from her father. I did not say anything but internally smirked at the idea – I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone for any permission, I’d only inform them that we were going for a walk.
And so, we stepped out and strolled down Marine Drive, walking slowly by the sea. I think I did most of the talking, while Poonam only responded to my questions in her soft, gentle manner. After some time, she suggested that we should turn back, and we did. On the way back, there was a Baskin Robbins outlet and I asked her if she’d like an ice cream. She wanted one, and chose strawberry, her favourite ice-cream flavour at that time. Smiling shyly, she took the proffered ice cream and we proceeded to walk back to Gaylord, where our respective teams were waiting anxiously. Once we sat down at the common table where everybody else was also sitting, our respective mothers looked at us and asked what we’d decided. Both Poonam and I said ‘yes,’ and just like that, less than an hour after we’d first set our eyes upon each other, we agreed to get married! I know, younger readers will probably find this impossible, unbelievable. How can two people meet for the first time and agree to marrying each other after just 30-40 minutes of talking to each other? How can that even be?! I agree, in this day and age it sounds quite unbelievable, and even I don’t really know how Poonam and I made up our minds so quickly. But we did, and that’s just how it was. And today, more than two decades down the line, neither of us regrets making that decision.
Back in the office, the team had been planning a special event – the One Lap of India – where all the automotive magazines in the country were coming together to drive two Mahindra Scorpios across the country – 26 states in 26 days. The drive, which had been meticulously planned by Bijoy and Srini, had been organized as a farewell tribute to Deepak Tolani. Deepak, Motoring’s photographer and a beloved member of the team, had passed away in an unfortunate road accident a few months before I joined the magazine. The Motoring team wanted to do something meaningful by which they could pay a tribute of sorts to Deepak and his family. The One Lap of India event, which happened in collaboration with Mahindra, was a step in that direction. The drive would be held in stages, with team members joining up in different cities, completing their part of the drive and leaving, with other team members replacing them for the next stage. I was on the very first stage of the drive, which was from Bombay to Jammu, with two stopovers on the way. From the Motoring team, Param and Shumi were also there for this particular leg of the drive, which went off quite smoothly. From what I remember, I drove from Bombay to Baroda (or maybe it was Ahmedabad), where we stopped for the night, and from there to Jaipur the next day.
The four-lane highway had been newly built, the tarmac was perfect and the two Mahindra Scorpios were smooth and powerful – I remember I quite enjoyed the drive. There was a small incident on the second day, when lensman Param spotted a yet-to-be-launched Hero Karizma motorcycle and took some photographs of the bike. The bike, which was being ridden by Hero Motors’s test riders, was mildly camouflaged and was probably undergoing pre-production testing and evaluation. When our Scorpio stopped at the next stoplight, one of the riders – who had seen the photographs being clicked – got off his bike and came charging towards us, banged at the doors of the vehicle and, very aggressively, asked Param to delete the photographs he had taken. In a fit of anger, I abused the rider and we all got into a heated argument. We were on the verge of coming to blows when Shumi intervened and calmed us all down. The Hero Motors riders explained that if the photographs came out, they may lose their jobs. In the end, we deleted the motorcycle photographs from the camera and moved on.
On the third day, when we got to Jammu, we found that we’d been put up in a very nice hotel, which had a massive lawn at the front. It was a bright, sunny day and the weather was great – Shumi slept off in the room, while Param and I sat out on the lawn and had a couple of chilled beers, happy to have completed our leg of the drive. The next day, I had to fly from Jammu to Jabalpur, via a stopover in Delhi. Poonam and I were getting engaged on 7th February and there was barely enough time for me to make it to Jabalpur for the ceremony. Inevitably, the flight was delayed and I reached Jabalpur at the last minute. Things were a bit chaotic but I did manage to put on a suit and a tie, which my parents had brought for me, and Poonam and I were engaged that day. I had to be back in Bombay the very next day – had to be in office to file my story, since it was issue closing week. With so many relatives and their arrangements to take care of, everything was rushed and Poonam and I barely had any time to ourselves before I had to rush off again.
Back in Bombay, it was business as usual – cars to drive and stories to file week after week. While I could not talk on the phone during the day, when I was in office, Poonam and I continued to send text messages to each other throughout the day and, when I got back home in the evening, we’d often talk on the phone for at least an hour every day. If I remember correctly, outgoing calls were charged at Rs 4 per minute in those days, and text messages cost Re 1 each. Incoming calls were also chargeable at around Rs 2 per minute. Smartphones hadn’t arrived on the scene yet and there was, of course, no Whatsapp. But we proceeded to spend thousands on phone calls and text messages over the next few months. Our wedding was scheduled for 20th May, but in the meanwhile I had hit another big milestone – I was buying an apartment in New Bombay. My parents and I quite liked Raval Tower, the building where I’d been staying in a rented apartment for the last few years. The building had stunningly beautiful views of the Vashi creek, from the drawing room and one of the bedrooms in every apartment. My mother had suggested that I should take a home loan and buy an apartment in Raval Tower whenever there was an opportunity. Quite unexpectedly, an apartment did come up for sale in the building and we quickly made a deal with the owner, a rich Gujarati who used to live in Dadar. He sold the two-bedroom apartment to me for Rs 13 lakh. My parents gave me half of that amount as a gift, while I took a home loan from HDFC bank for the remaining amount. The EMI for the loan would be a few thousand rupees more than what I was paying as rent for my earlier apartment, but I was confident I would somehow manage.
My mother came to stay with me in Bombay for a few weeks and while I went off to office every day, she was the one who got all the work done in the flat that we had purchased. While the apartment was in good condition as it was, there was inevitably some work that had to be done and my mother took charge of that, following up with the contractor every day and pushing him to get things done before we left for Jabalpur for my wedding. Eventually, the work was completed on time and I moved into my new flat a week or two before I had to leave for Jabalpur, for my wedding. One the day I moved in, I sat out on the terrace for a long time in the evening, and thought about my first few days in Bombay. I had arrived in Bombay in mid-1998, with a suitcase, a bag and a few thousand rupees, to join a company that had hired me at Rs 9,000 per month. In mid-2003, I had bought a 2BHK apartment in New Bombay and was soon going to get married. Things had worked out just fine.
To be continued
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