Lost and Clueless: Moving from Lucknow to Bareilly

I landed up in Bareilly in 1993, with no friends, nothing much to do and no clue about the direction in which my life would go. All I had was my trusty old Yamaha RX100, the piles of motorcycle magazines which I bought every month and a Casio keyboard that I played regularly. Incidentally, this pic of me pulling a wheelie on my RX100 was clicked by my father!

In 1993, I completed my graduation from Lucknow University and was clueless about what to do next. Unlike young people today, who have access to a great amount of information online and who seem to have their entire careers planned out by the time they clear class 12, I guess our generation was different. In the early-1990s, study and career options were pretty limited – at least in Lucknow – and most people studied to be doctors, engineers or lawyers. Doing an MBA was becoming quite popular and some were even opting for the newly-announced CFA (chartered financial analyst) course. Other options included chartered accountancy, the civil services, joining the armed forces or perhaps joining a bank or the LIC.

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.

Ducati 848 Evo: The Italian Stallion

The Ducati 848 Evo. Hard-core, committed, brutal. Unrelenting. But such a memorable ride...

Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to ride a Ducati 848 Evo and write about it for Man’s World magazine. And not just a short ride either – the Ducati team allowed me to keep the bike with me for 3-4 days, which was just incredible. Apart from its drop-dead gorgeous Italian styling, red paint and single-sided swingarm, the 848 Evo was powered by a 140-horsepower twin-cylinder engine; zero to 60kph came up in just over 3 second and top speed was over 260km/h. Here are some excerpts from the article I wrote for MW.

Even before you begin to experience its incredible performance, the first thing about the 848 Evo that grabs your attention is its styling. No matter how many times you’ve seen the bike in pictures, the first time you see it in the flesh, it’s still stunning – the aggressive stance, the pointy snout with the twin headlamps and their angry glare, the carefully sculpted bodywork and tail section, and that utterly gorgeous single-sided swingarm, which puts the bike’s beautifully-machined Y-spoke alloy rear wheel up on full view on one side, are all deeply lustworthy. Gianandrea Fabbro, the Italian designer responsible for the 1098/848’s styling, really has done an outstanding job with this machine.

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.

Second-hand Dreams: Used Books to the Rescue

For those who are willing to spend some time and put in some effort, you can find some incredible bargains in used books stalls. And these days, used books websites have made things even easier

‘We Indians are value conscious, not cost conscious,’ we like to tell each other. But the notion of what may or may not be ‘value’ is often wildly different for each of us. Is a Rs 25 lakh Rolex chronograph, good value? What about an iPhone that costs Rs 1.40 lakh? Or a Rs 20,000 pair of Nike running shoes? Or Rs 10,000 for a meal for two, at a top-end 5-star hotel? When it comes to spending, financial prudence can often be at loggerheads with emotions and aspirations, and sometimes there’s no reasoning with the latter.

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.