Motoring: Days of Thunder

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.

TechTree: The Next Chapter

In the early-2000s, I was very into working out with weights, hence the posters you see on the walls in my apartment in Raval Tower, CBD Belapur

In an earlier post, I wrote about joining ITNation, where George and I started TechTree, an all-new tech website that featured hardware and software reviews, along with technology news and features. The story continues here.

While TechTree was essentially a small startup, there wasn’t a great deal of pressure on the editorial team to produce more and more content every minute of the day. The team did a reasonable number of articles every week and we prioritized quality over sheer quantity. In the evening, George and I were often among the last 5-6 people to leave office. Sometimes, we left together and walked down to Marine Drive, which was barely five minutes away from our office. We’d stroll down Marine Drive, talking about work and our lives, often stopping to buy sookha bhel from one of the streetside vendors there. George had an interesting perspective on most things – not just technology or tech journalism – and I enjoyed spending time with him. Sometimes, we’d stop for a cup of coffee at one of the fancy cafes nearby and watched the world go by. George, who lived in Mahim, would then catch a local train to go back home, while I carried on to VT and got on a train to Belapur.

TechTree: By George!

That's me in the TechTree office in Nariman Point, back in 2002. ITNation was a great place to work at and while I was there for less than a year, that time was quite memorable

In an earlier post, I wrote about having submitted my resignation at Indian Auto. With nothing to do, zero earnings and meagre savings, while still paying rent for my apartment (along with other regular monthly expenses), I wasn’t exactly in a very comfortable position. Had been writing to and calling up some people whom I knew, but nothing came of it. After a few weeks, I started getting a bit worried – if I did not get work, I might even have to leave Bombay and go back to Lucknow, and I really, really did not want things to come to that. But then I got a phone call, which helped put thing back on track. The story continues here.

One Sunday morning, about six weeks after I had left Indian Auto, I got a call from GV Sreekumar, a good friend and a professor at IDC, IIT Bombay. GV and I had earlier worked together at CHIP, where he headed the design team. After moving on from CHIP, I had gone to CNET India, while GV went to IDC, a prestigious design college which is a part of IIT Bombay. With a deep interest in typography and great love for high-end Apple computers, GV is a genial, soft-spoken gentleman and we got along very well when we were at CHIP. Both of us lived in New Bombay back then, and we sometimes used to meet up at a bar in Nerul for our favourite Old Monk rum with Coke and lots of ice.

A Big Accident and One Intense Year with Indian Auto

In a bid to spice things up at Indian Auto, we started featuring high-end foreign bikes in the magazine, which hadn't been done before

In an earlier post, I wrote about leaving CNET India and coming back to Jasubhai Media, joining Indian Auto. I was just about getting started at Indian Auto when tragedy struck. The story continues here.

When I joined Indian Auto as executive editor in mid-2000, I had no formal training in journalism. Before this, I had written a few tech-related articles for the Times of India (Lucknow edition) as a freelancer and had worked for two years with CHIP, as the head of writers’ team. At that time, my only understanding of what automotive journalism can or should be, came from having read dozens of car and motorcycle magazines – both Indian and foreign – every single month, for the last 15 years. That, along with my love for all things automotive, had me join Indian Auto and to this day I remain grateful to Maulik for having given me a chance to lead Indian Auto.

Back to Jasubhai, with Indian Auto

Indian Auto had become dull, drab and uninteresting over the years. My aim was to inject some excitement into the magazine with fresh design and vastly improved quality of articles. That said, this cover (March 2001) backfired and we got a lot of flak for not wearing helments for the cover shoot

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I had moved from CHIP to CNET India, lured by the prospects of being a part of the dotcom boom and a big jump in salary. However, things did not work out at CNET and Sridhar and I put in our papers within three months of joining the organisation. Sridhar soon found another job in Bangalore and left Bombay, while I was left to fend for myself and had to think about what I wanted to do next. The story continues here.

After leaving CNET India, I spent a week or 10 days in quiet solitude at home, only venturing out for meals. Sridhar had vacated his apartment in Raval Tower and had left for Bangalore. I had stayed on and had to take stock of my options. Going back to CHIP was out of the question – I never even thought about it. That chapter of my life was over and I had moved on, both mentally and physically. But there was this other thing. The Jasubhai Group had two media divisions back then – one was Jasubhai Digital Media (JDM), which had CHIP, Computer Reseller News (CRN), Network Computing and ZDNet India. This was the cool, new-age media house managed primarily by Maulik, Mr Jasubhai Shah’s son, with some inputs from Gourav, the outstandingly brilliant former editor of CHIP who was now based in Goa. The other division was Jasubhai Media, under which there were some of the group’s older magazines like Chemical Engineering World, Indian Architect & Builder and Indian Auto.

CNET India: Failure to Ignite

Right from the word go, CNET India was a non-starter and was the end of my dotcom dreams 

In an earlier post, I had written about how my friend Sridhar and I left CHIP together and joined CNET, which was setting up operations in India, in the first quarter of the year 2000. While CHIP had been a huge learning experience for me – that is where I learned the basics of journalism and learned to put together long-form stories for a magazine – it was time to move on. I was young and restless, saw the dotcom boom happening all around me, heard about the outrageous salaries being paid to journalists everywhere and felt the need to be part of this exciting new online thing. Sridhar felt the same way and since we’d both been hired by CNET India, we couldn’t be happier.

CHIP Thrills – The End

Earlier, in part 2 of this story, I’d written about CHIP moving from Bandra Kurla to DN Road, new magazines being added to the Jasubhai Digital Media (JDM) portfolio and a bunch of new people joining the fast-growing organization. I also wrote about Sridhar, my first meeting with whom was marked by my unwarranted misbehaviour with him but who later became one of my best friends in Bombay. The story continues below.

Learning to Live in Bombay: CHIP Thrills – Part 2

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 3^rd 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 19^th 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.

Learning to Live in Bombay: CHIP Thrills – Part 1

Balarama Building, Bandra Kurla Complex. This is where the CHIP office used to be in the late-1990s

 

In an earlier post, I’d written about how I applied for work at CHIP magazine, was interviewed by its Editor, Gourav Jaswal and was offered a job as a writer @Rs 9,000 per month. (For those who may be wondering, this was back in 1998, and Rs 9K per month wasn’t really as bad as it sounds today, in 2024.) So, here’s the follow-up piece to that: Here’s the story of my moving from Lucknow to Bombay, and my first few years in the city as a newbie tech journalist.

I had to join CHIP on 1^st June 1998. In those days, the CHIP office used to be in Balarama Building in Bandra Kurla Complex. Before I left Lucknow, my parents had spoken to my aunt (my mother’s youngest sister), who used to live in the Dadiseth Agiyari Lane, near Chira Bazar, in Kalbadevi. Despite the fact that her place was quite compact, she still very kindly agreed to let me stay with her family for a few days until the time I could find a place for myself. Finally, at the end of May, I got on a train to Bombay, landed up at the Bombay Central station and took a cab to my aunt’s place. My aunt and her family made me feel welcome and my uncle explained to me how I should take the local train the next morning, get off at the Bandra West station and then take an auto to reach the CHIP office. For someone who’s never done this before – especially for a Lucknow wallah used to getting around everywhere on his motorcycle – getting on to a local train in Bombay in the morning, during peak rush hours, can be a scary experience. The crowd is just unbelievable – passengers are smashed inside and out of train compartments, a thousand human bodies are compressed against each other till they’re about to burst, feet get trampled upon and sometimes it can be hard to even breathe normally. That, along with the intense heat and humidity of Bombay makes travelling in local trains an exercise in building character. You what they say – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

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.