Outlook, Behind the Scenes

Behind the eye-catching cover stories was a team of misfits, daredevils and idealists who simply wanted to do journalism that made a difference

- Sandipan Deb

THE sheer excitement that the founding team of Outlook felt in 1995 is difficult to explain to anyone who wasn’t there. All of us, from the editors to the junior-most correspondent, believed that we were doing something that needed to be done. We were actually hoping that we could even transform Indian magazine journalism.

We were all knowingly taking a risk. India Today had an iron grip on the newsmagazine market and most people thought it was ridiculous that anyone could make a dent in its near-monopoly. All of us had comfortable jobs in established and profitable media companies. But once you met Vinod Mehta—quiet and relaxed—and the publisher Deepak Shourie—manically energetic and driven—you bought into their vision. We were all young. Vinod was in his early 50s, but all the other editors were in their early or mid-30s. All of us wanted to do something new.

Outlook began its life in two rooms in the government-run and quite run-down Lodhi Hotel, even as Deepak went around with real estate brokers and negotiated fiercely for a full office space. I joined on June 1, 1995. Deepak secured AB-10 Safdarjung Enclave within a month or so, and the office was inaugurated on August 15.

The magazine was launched on October 4 with a press conference addressed by Vinod. There was some issue with Vinod’s car, so we went to the launch in mine. A few minutes before we left, I had asked Vinod: “What do you feel?” After all, he had launched several magazines and newspapers and I had never worked in a start-up. “I’ve never felt so confident in my life,” he said. “All the magazines I founded, I never had good marketing support. This time, I have a good editorial team and Deepak is the best marketing man I’ve ever worked with.”