In the last 30 years, I have never got a call from any headhunter. There could be two reasons for this: one, I am bad at my work, or they know I will never leave Outlook. I would like to believe it’s the second. After working for 14 years in Mumbai, I got an opportunity to shift to our Delhi office in 2012. I was offered the cubicle closest to the exit door. The buzz was—this guy will not survive for too long.
Well, I survived. It has been over a decade and I have navigated through the worst days of Outlook, and gradually won everyone’s trust to move up to the first floor of AB-10, to the corner room. Outlook’s first floor was otherwise always meant for the ‘privileged’ few.
When I shifted to Delhi I was grappling with multiple responsibilities. Vinod Mehta, founding editor of Outlook, wasn’t sure what my role was. He used to often walk into my cubicle and ask me, “How are circulation numbers?” I had one standard answer, “We are doing well.’’ Till then that was my limited interaction with Vinod. He opened up to me much later. Once I was waiting at the car park to go with him to meet the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. He told me that he was feeling nervous. A man of Vinod’s calibre making a statement like that showed the vulnerabilities we all live with.
The last 10 years in this office have been unprecedentedly tough. Business crumbled, people left, we lost friends, vendors hounded us. But every day I walked into the building, I was convinced we will turn around. Somehow AB-10 always gave me hope and told me a day will come when things will get better. Covid was the turning point. I remember there was a time when we had no money to even buy paper napkins. Yet, we held on to hope and office staff like Ranjit and Gopal still brought us coffee and tea with a smile. They stood by us. They stayed on. And they are still here.
When Chinki Sinha, Editor, Outlook, told me to write about the memories of AB-10, I remembered the group of transgenders who used to come to our office every Holi and sing for us. This moment always reminded me of my mother narrating a story. When I was born, a transgender lady came to our house, held me in her arms and sang a couple of folk songs, which my mother later told me was one of the most beautiful pieces of folk music she had ever heard.
I believe it is blessings like these that helped us to reinvent ourselves and never compromise on the credibility of journalism that Vinod Mehta stood for. Now, we go to a different place. But the old office where we began and weathered so many ups and downs together will always be that happy place for us, a place that would always give us the strength to carry on and smile through everything.
Outlook remains the same magazine. In spirit and in everything else. Quirky, brave, fun.
(Indranil Roy is Chief Executive Officer, Outlook Group)
