 Ten years ago when UpperCrust was born, it was for a very personal reason. And it was almost under duress. Behram Contractor, my husband of 15 years gave me a dictat – “I want a new magazine from you. And immediately.” I toyed with two ideas: sports and food. Sports because it’s in my blood and food because we had the great Busybee in our hive. “Food and Wine,” said the boss, “not because of any other reason except that - though India needs a good sports magazine, it will not be a commercial success. I know these things.”
And so exactly four months later I was ready with UpperCrust, India’s first and most elegant and sumptuous food, wine and travel magazine.
But it was not easy. There was the question of time and resources. At the time I was too busy running the Afternoon Despatch and Courier, the newspaper Behram and I had started in 1985, within just two months of being married. Conceptualising a new magazine and producing it seemed like an impossible task. But nothing is daunting in the face of adversity and I did it. With no help at all from Behram (for a reason, which I was to know later). But on the day the magazine hit the stands, Behram gave me a present. A signed copy of UpperCrust!
He had gone to Nalanda Book Store at the Taj Mahal Hotel and BOUGHT one. So like him, to leave behind the thousands of cling-filmed copies, neatly stacked at Afternoon House to go get me one that he wanted to pay for. Well, a year and four issues later, just one month before he passed away I learnt why he would not help me with any editorial inputs – he said he wanted me to stand on my own two feet. He said I had proved to him that I could. And then he made me promise that I would always work hard.
What can I say? Yes, I continue to work hard. Our magazine has done good. Our readers are most wonderful, they appreciate all the effort my team and I put in, our copies are available in every corner of the country, elsewhere in the world too, UpperCrust is a favourite, our subscriber base in India and abroad is among the largest, and these are regularly renewed. Our format of food and wine, infused with people and travel has proved to be hugely successful and has remained largely unchanged.
We have grown in number and quality of readership. The UpperCrust Show, a trade fair we started in 2003 is hugely successful and we are now taking it to different cities of India and even overseas. We have just added a new division to our company, namely, UpperCrust Travels. It focuses on promoting food and wine tourism. If you want to go on wine trails or join a cookery class anywhere in the world or want the perfect holiday, you know who to get in touch with!
Lastly, we are about to launch a premier club for foodies - The UpperCrust Gourmet Circle. If you are truly a food lover please send me an e-mail.
As you can see we have enough on our plate to chew from. But we love it.
Enjoy this issue, it’s the best of 10 years. Just a glimpse, really. Selected bits from all the super stories we have written over the past decade. For in-depth reading please dive into our archives on the net. Our website, www.uppercrustindia.com is very user- friendly and rather attractive too.
Thank you for reading us for 10 glorious years, encouraging us to do better.
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The Editor’s Page of UpperCrust probably has the most unique layout as compared to any magazine anywhere in the world.
It started with the thought that we wanted to be different. And that I, as editor and the wife of India’s best food writer – Behram Contractor (who wrote the famous column Eating Out With Busybee), had to take centre-stage. The idea of doing a double-spread with me in the big picture belonged to Mark Manuel, the then Executive Editor of the magazine. One day, he got Jenner Zimmermann, the well- known German photographer home and had him photograph me against my open kitchen that friends seem to admire so much. At first I was aghast and then embarrassed. But giving in to marketing concepts, reluctantly and almost shy, I did pose for Zimmermann and it turned out to be a terrific shot. The rest as they say is history! Readers loved the idea, they said it was a refreshing concept, unusual and unboring.
I must admit with each progressive issue I did too. Not because it was fodder for my vanity, far from it, but because publishing a food, wine and travel magazine presented many unique opportunities for me to think creatively. I also began to shoot pictures in full earnest, travelling far and wide to exotic locales, meeting, interviewing and photographing the most unusual people, often in exacting situations. It became fun. Entering into the kitchens of fantastic restaurants, interacting with top chefs, hobnobbing with royalty, going fishing in the deep sea, jumping into a helicopter to go on a moutain- peak- champagne-picnic, flying off in a micro-light from a beach in Dahanu, riding a camel at the Pushkar Fair, getting into a ‘panja-contest’with Hrithik Roshan at the absolute peak of his popularity, riding off with John Abraham on his 1,300 cc Suzuki Hayabusa at Carter Road waving to crowds! Phew, all so phenomenal!
Recording such moments became a passion for whoever was assisting me on a particular editorial assignment. It became a challenge for my assistants to shoot a good picture of me when I was at work, doing things like sitting in the lap of a baby elephant in Chiang Mai, or patting 500 year old turtles in Zanzibar. Often these were candid shots, unfortunately taken when I was hot and sweaty and not exactly looking my best. But then what do you expect with me dressed in fatigues with at least three cameras slung round my neck, precariously balanced on the Chinese Nets in Cochin or wading in into knee-deep waters facing the rapids, or dangerously perched on a narrow electric meter box, eight feet off the ground with a sea of humanity wailing all around me, waiting for the Syedna to emerge or standing still in a jeep, not daring to breathe as a tiger approaches in the forest of Ranthambore…
But it didn’t matter and still doesn’t if I cut a pretty picture or not, as long as the picture I take speaks a thousand words.
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