You'd think, therefore, that I might be slightly blasé about this business of starting something new. I thought so myself till a few months ago when I and a small team started work on a city magazine for Delhi. I was initially half-interested in the project because the canvas seemed too small. What could you do with a city magazine in India 2005 which, if you went by other city periodicals and supplements, seemed cigar-obsessed, celeb-crazed, pasta-potty and wine-greedy? The only way I could enthuse myself and my colleagues was to tear up the existing formula and think out of the box. Moreover, the prevailing model had been flogged so exhaustively that duplicating it was sure to put all the journalists working on the project to deep sleep.
Delhiwallahs have an opportunity this week to check whether I am talking trash. There are few sights more ridiculous than an editor going on about what a scintillating, daring and pioneering publication he has produced. But even if City Limits is the worst periodical ever printed in post-Independent India, it has made me feel 10 years younger. The old frisson is back, the adrenaline is pumping faster. There is something in the process of creation—from the rough idea to the final copy in hand—which is uniquely and incomparably exhilarating for a hack. You have to be an extremely dull editor not to be turned on by a new launch.
Journalists get quickly jaded doing the same thing day in and day out. Placing a new publication into the unpredictable hands of readers is a great pick-me-up, an instant tonic for tired spirits. This week I at least am walking with a spring in my step which even my dog Editor has noticed.
