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In an issue that introduced you to the people behind India’s leading production houses, I guess this is as good a time as any to introduce you to the people behind our very own weekly production, Box Office India!
Any product – whether an automobile, a mobile handset, a film… or a trade publication – is ultimately only as good as the people who create it. And I can say this with due modesty – all the good that you see in this magazine is a reflection of the fabulous team that works on it with such love and dedication.
Pretty much our entire core team has been part of this journey right from Volume 1, Issue 1, and that speaks more about what the magazine means to all of us than any words I could pen.
So let’s meet them now…
Our Editor, Vajir Singh, is not only the captain of the ship but also our most authoritative connect to the community that we serve, the trade. A working life spent entirely in film journalism, both trade and consumer, he is the bedrock of knowledge, contacts and understanding that makes the publication what it is – comprehensive, credible, classy. The magazine you hold in your hand today is testimony to his love, conviction and commitment for his baby, BOI. Also a hugely talented composer, lyricist and choreographer but that’s another story…
Sagorika Dasgupta is our ‘corporate’ brains, among other things. Having joined us from a leading financial publication, it is to her that falls the onerous task of handling stories involving such alien terms as EBITDA, 4K, Demographics and the like. She also heads our website operations and our correspondents’ team, and is an indispensable member of the team, and I say this not only because of her impeccable taste in beverages – Old Monk.
Rohini Nag is our international khiladi, bringing you the lowdown on the incentives and benefits that are on offer in various parts of the world through our regular column, Hunt Is Over. But she’s also a desi girl and knows what’s making waves in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chandigarh, and that’s what you see in Regional Times. Add to that her collections and online responsibilities and you’ll know why she is considering moving in permanently to office!
Soumita Sengupta is our ambassador at large and she’s the one you are most likely to run into at trailer launches, press conferences and other events as she flashes her smile to extract that one quote that gives copy its zing. She’s a strong votary of giving new talent and technicians their due and that’s something you will often see in columns and articles that carry her byline. Also the reigning Office Candy Crush Champion.
Raj Mahabir Saha is something of a collector’s item, not only because he oversees our vast nationwide collections gathering operation but also because he has a strange aversion to meeting the nation’s biggest stars and directors who visit our office.
Our chief sub-editor, Carol Lobo, ensures that our stories make for easy and interesting reading and senior copy editor, Aruna Chandrasekharan, vets our pages for any errors that might have crept in.
We are also helped by the team at our sister publication, Sound Box – Anita Iyer, Divya Naik and Swagata Panjari – who chip in with stories relating to the music industry, as also Chaitanya, who reviews music for us.
If the team above puts together great content, it is our designer Sajid Moinuddin who dresses up that content so well that our magazine is seen as a torchbearer of design and production values, and not just in the trade publication space…and we have awards to prove it! Though he runs a very successful design firm, HB Design, BOI is as much Sajid’s baby as it is for the rest of us. He is also our most generous host of parties and I am sure he’ll be throwing a huge one now that this issue is done.
Bringing out such a high-quality product obviously costs a lot of money and it is Amey Salvi who is charged with the responsibility of getting in enough advertising to keep us afloat. Much as we would like to believe that our great content is by itself an advertising magnet, the truth is a lot of effort does go into ad sales… but that is not going to prevent Amey from being our favourite punching bag.
All of our effort would come to naught if the magazine didn’t reach you and it is Vaibhav Adivarekar and Sachin Shetty that oversee our circulation and dispatch along with a team of runners as well as courier companies to ensure that the magazine reaches you, wherever you may be in the country, as soon as possible.
And then there are people who may not sit in our office but whose contribution to their magazine is nonetheless immense. Mr Yogen Shah and his team of photographers who send us pictures that speak much more than a thousand words; Mr Jignesh Vasani and his team at PR Touch that keeps our website up and running; and Mr Abhishek Kejriwal and his fabulous team at Parksons Graphics who we keep challenging with ever-more complex innovations and impossible deadlines but they never fail to deliver – undoubtedly the number one printing outfit in the country.
A word of thanks also to everyone at Select Media, particularly Manoj Rai, Kalpesh Jadhav, Jasbir Nagee and Kiran Jaul who support us in IT and Accounts.
And the final, and the biggest, thanks to Rajnish Khanuja who set it all up so we could embark on this wondrous journey and continues to be our pillar of strength.
This, then, is the team that works so hard each week to bring you your favourite film trade magazine. I feel blessed to have such great colleagues…and even more so, to have them as friends.