The matrimonial ad was the first step of a 5-year-plan

Since I stayed in Nasik and since there was no provision to insert any ad in the Times of India in Nashik, I had to make a trip to Mumbai. It was a one-day affair. I went by the Panchavati Express. It left Nashik Road station at 7.30am and reached Mumbai at 11.30am. My work was only at the office of the newspaper and, once I completed the formalities, I came out and went to the Mumbai Central bus stop. There I had a light lunch and took a bus back home.

The first batch of responses arrived within the fortnight. The ad was under a Box Number to maintain confidentiality and the address I had given was that of my office. The replies had been dispatched from Mumbai through courier.
Then came the weeding out process. It was a time consuming matter and the final decision needed to be one that had the approval of all three of us – my wife, my son and myself. First I wrote down my preferences on a sheet of paper and then asked my wife to note down hers. Then we gave the bunch to my junior for indicating his.
Well - there was hardly any common factor in our thoughts.
By the time we finished with the first batch of responses, there arrived the next batch. And, there followed a similar exercise. Still no consensus.
The third batch came but, only a few.
We sat down once again, took stock of the situation and decided to send out a few replies and that is how our 5-year plan took off – it was: operation ‘bride hunting’. (to be continued …)
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Printing Bengali magazine and books from Nashik

The procurement of the four-language DTP software by the ad agency took a few months and, we had already decided to go ahead with the printing of Bengali magazines and books from Nashik. We wanted the magazine to be registered with the Registrar of Newspapers so we could collect ads for the same.
Since one of our friends was into the printing business, he gave us estimates of the amount of funds we would require to print the magazines. We wanted to print four issues every year to start with and the print order would be a few hundreds. We also had to have a base of subscribers and, hence, we drew a list of Bengalis from all over India. Our sources were the matrimonial ads that appeared on Sundays in Bengali newspapers. Other source were telephone directories of Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune from where we selected Bengali names.

We knew that we would have to invest to get the first couple of issues printed and circulate them. In order to build our subscriber base, we decided to dispatch complimentary copies by Book Post and hoped that the recipients would reciprocate our gesture by becoming members.
Therefore, with all our activities set in motion, we had to go around to collect ads.
The printing of Bengali magazine from Nashik was a totally new and revolutionary concept and, we decided to approach Bengali industrialists. They encouraged us and, through them, we got introductions to some non-Bengali well-wishers who were owners of hotels.
And, this exercise was time consuming.
We would program it for Sundays. My friend and I stayed in township and we would go by scooter to the industrial area in Nashik which was nearly 25-Km away from township to collect the ads and the cheques. We would leave in the morning after breakfast, have lunch in some wayside hotel and return home by evening. (to be continued …)

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