Naresh Fernandes walks around the square conference room that overlooks Mahalaxmi Racecourse. The walls are filled with all the covers of three years of Time Out Mumbai magazine. He points out his favourite issues, and one has a cover photo depicting two 70-year-old men in Gandhian attire driving a motorcycle.
Wide perspective: Time Out Mumbai editor Naresh Fernandes says: ‘I think it would be a dishonest magazine if we only talked about the glitz.’
“This was about Bombay’s role in the freedom struggle,” he says. This is one of the few cover stories he wrote alone. “I wanted to remind people that this city has a long history of being involved with struggle to make things better. That great cities become great cities because of the involvement of citizens.”
Fernandes continues around the room, highlighting cover stories about night life, restaurants, festivals and wine in one breath, and then communal tensions after the 2006 bomb blasts and infrastructure problems after the 2005 floods in the next breath. As editor of Time Out Mumbai, Fernandes’ job has clearly been a balancing act. Time Out is an international brand with magazines in 35 cities from Argentina to China, and travel guides for almost 55 destinations. In London, it calls itself the city’s listings authority. In New York, Time Out is a major city arts and entertainment magazine.
When Fernandes was hired in June 2004 by publisher Smiti Ruia of Paprika Media Pvt. Ltd, which is a content partner for Mint, he knew that he had the challenge of being true to this international entertainment brand and true to his city.
“I think it would be a dishonest magazine if we only talked about the glitz,” says the 38-year-old. “Time Outs around the world believe that they care for their cities and you couldn’t care for Bombay unless you recognized that more people live in slums than live in formal housing. And that culture is not only the domain of the elite.”
And, since its launch, Time Out Mumbai has become a home for the city’s culture to gather.
Before 10 September 2004, there were events with no place to go, no central place to be listed for all to see. Now there are dozens of pages every fortnight about events in dance, theatre, music, film, food and night life. In some senses, this was enough of an accomplishment. But Fernandes wanted more. He made it his mission to include a range of the city’s life and social issues to whatever extent possible, when the magazine could have focused easily on just bars and clubs, socialites and Bollywood.
Time Out opened up the city, giving Mumbaikers new perspectives and sub-cultures to be aware of and explore.
“I think there are forces at play to homogenize the city,” he says. “The little things that make the city unique, that is what we look out for.”