At the very beginning of my career in journalism, my boss, editor Anant Pai – known to millions of Indians growing up anywhere in the 1970s and 1980s as the legendary ‘Uncle Pai’, the father of Indian comics who created the immortal Amar Chitra Katha series and Tinkle magazine – gave me some sage advice.
“Young man,” he said. “At some point in your life you will be consumed with the ambition of starting your own publication. Remember, when God wants to destroy you, He will appear in your dreams and ask you to start a magazine.”
That quote came to my lips instantly when Giri Gupta first spoke to me about his dream of starting a new publication for Indians in New Zealand. When I repeated Mr Pai’s wise words Giri said, “But I think if we are sincere of purpose and hardworking we can persuade, convince and win over God to our side, to bless us and help us achieve this dream.”
It was hard not to be enthused by his optimism and strength of purpose that had a strong undercurrent of practicality and business nous. Over several meetings, which also saw useful inputs from his friend and business associate Bhav Dhillon, a game plan for publishing company Kiwi Media Group and Indian Weekender was launched in late 2008.
The two men left the planning of the design and content mix entirely to the creative team that rapidly fell in place soon afterward. But they had one guiding principle that they wanted everyone in the team to be mindful of: make a conscious effort in projecting the positive side of things especially in matters relating to Kiwi Indians.
While little about migrants appears in the mainstream media in New Zealand or for that matter in any country where immigrants are a comparatively new phenomenon, when it does it tends to be in a less than complimentary light. In fact, that was a subject of animated discussion at a forum that brought mainstream and ethnic media together in Christchurch last month in which Indian Weekender participated.
It was important to enhance the feel good factor of living in a country far from home, to celebrate life as a migrant and helping in whatever small way in the process of assimilation. This was not always happening in the media outlets catering to Indians in New Zealand. There seemed to be a preponderance of negative reporting in our ethnic media, which needed to be countered – that was the general consensus with which Indian Weekender began. And a year later, it has stuck by that dictum and has been widely appreciated by the community – and even honoured by the most important Indian organisation in New Zealand – for it.
The economic and business analyst pundits told us that the timing for launch could not have been worse. “Wait for a year,” one said. “Just hold on till things begin to look up,” was the general refrain, owing to the dark clouds of the global financial meltdown that had gathered menacingly all the way to the horizon with all their grim foreboding.
But the eternal optimists at Kiwi Media Group rightly surmised that the only direction to go in the worst period in a recession is up – you can’t go any lower. The examples of successful products launched during an economic recession are legion, the legendary iPod included. So we soldiered on regardless and here we are one year later, having survived the storm and now riding the slowly rising wave of the economic recovery.
Like all start-ups the early days were fraught: hard to convince advertisers who were constantly warned by competitors not to waste money in a new publication that wouldn’t last beyond a couple of issues; logistical and administrative issues; the economic recession … the list was endless.
But the wise move of quickly adding digital offerings paid off well. A full blown website followed rapidly by an iPhone, smart phone and now an iPad version, the addition of a subscriber newsletter and a state of the art free web business directory for Indian businesses went a long way in establishing the brand and making Indian Weekender the most visible and accessed Kiwi Indian multimedia brand – complete with text, graphics, audio, video and a growing list of e-business options available for delivery on a range of devices.
This, accompanied by compelling content, is what has catapulted the Indian Weekender brand beyond Auckland and New Zealand. Readers in India, Fiji, Australia, the US, the UK, the Middle East and some 33 countries access our digital offering in substantial numbers that have doubled every three months since launch.
None of this would have been possible without the co-operation, positive response, encouragement and the loyalty of our valued readers and advertisers, to whom our deepest thanks are due.
Standing on the threshold of our second year, we would like to think God has been on our side.
I haven’t the heart to call my visionary former boss Mr Pai – now living in graceful retirement in Mumbai – and tell him that his advice can sometimes be proved wrong. Not that my fine one-time mentor won’t be happy.