In 2008, the idea was modest enough that it barely qualified as a plan. There was no business model to speak of, no office, no team just a conviction that New Zealand's Indian community, then growing faster than almost anyone had anticipated, deserved a publication that took it seriously.
A platform that covered its achievements, amplified its voice, and reflected the remarkable complexity of a diaspora that had come to this country from every corner of the subcontinent, carrying every conceivable professional background, cultural tradition, and ambition.
The early years were equal parts struggle and adventure sometimes in the same week. There were editions that came together through sheer will, advertisers who had to be convinced that this community was worth reaching, and readers who weren't yet sure they needed us. Looking back, I think the uncertainty kept us sharp.
It meant we never took the community's trust for granted, because we knew, in those early days, just how easily it could have gone the other way.
What we got right, from the beginning, was staying close to the community itself. The Indian Weekender was never a publication about India.
It was always a publication about Indians in New Zealand -their businesses, their children, their cricket teams, their festivals, their political engagement, their grief, their celebration. When the community showed up for something, we showed up too.
That principle has not changed in nearly two decades. The shift to digital was one of the more consequential decisions we made, and we made it earlier than most.
While the broader media industry was still debating whether online was a threat or an opportunity, we were building our digital presence with the same seriousness we brought to print.
Today, the Indian Weekender reaches its audience across multiple platforms-and that reach, built steadily over years, is what allows us to serve the community in ways a single- format publication never could. The Kiwi Indian Hall of Fame stands out, for me, as the initiative I am proudest of.
The idea was straightforward: New Zealand's Indian community had produced extraordinary achievers across business, sport, science, arts, and public life, and almost none of them had ever been formally recognised as a collective.
The Hall of Fame changed that. Every year, watching inductees receive recognition that was long overdue -watching their families in the audience- confirmed that some things matter far beyond circulation numbers or click rates. The Hall of Fame belongs to the community. We just built the room.
Sport, culture, and community events have always been the Indian Weekender's lifeblood. We have covered cricket with the same attention we bring to politics. We have reported on Diwali and Holi not as colour pieces for an outside audience, but as genuine coverage of occasions that matter deeply to the people living them.
We have championed Indian New Zealanders in sport at every level -local, national, and international- because representation in those pages matters, and because these stories deserve to be told well.
None of this would exist without the advertisers and institutions who backed us when backing us was an act of faith rather than an obvious commercial decision.
They saw what we were trying to build before the evidence was fully in. Their support, sustained years and across economic cycles, made the Weekender possible. I am grateful to every single one of them.
And above all, the community. Readers who wrote in, turned up, subscribed, shared, argued with us, corrected us, and kept coming back. Organisations that partnered with us. Leaders who trusted us with their stories. Newcomers who found in our pages something that helped them feel, a little sooner, that they belonged here.
That is the community the Indian Weekender has had the privilege of serving. Here is to many more years of doing exactly that.