(Update 4: Phew! Thanks a ton for the response people. We have lined up a bunch of great writers and truckloads of eager contributors. We still need more but hold your emails for the time being. If you’ve mailed in and not got a response so far do not fret! You will be contacted in due course. This thing is looking very very interesting…)

(Update 3: Excuse all who have mailed in/left comments and have heard nothing from me. I am plowing through the emails trying to match interests to sections. Everyone who has mailed in will get a response but just give me a little time. Currently I still need people enthu to cover business and “all sports”.)

(Update 2: The response has been accumulating rapidly. We have a high-power civil servant on board who will give us the inside line. A couple of music maestros and a very keen lifestyle editor. And an agony aunt. Don’t let the “Mumbai” moniker hold you back. It’s open to anyone serious about doing this. Send me no resumes. Link to your blog will do well. Expedite expedite!)

(Update 1: We have a photographer, a cricket-writer, a business whiz and a couple of general writers who’ve buzzed me. And, lo and behold!, we also have someone who is willing to donate server space! Yey! So now all I need it more editors. Please please reply. Or pass on the word.)

Hark! Hark! Hark!

Imagine an online magazine that has Bombay blood running in its veins. Free, fair and fun. Serious about quality and credibility. But laughs at itself after a brief moment of embarrassment while it frantically looks around for an excuse. Something that eventually will be as elaborate as this but maybe with a little of this irreverence.

A magazine that brings together writers, especially bloggers, who have strong opinions, will stick by them, and will smoothly adopt new ones when proven wrong. We will be cocky, yes, but not pretentious.

It will not pay you anything. The opportunity to write and be read will be reward in itself. And anything we may make will be plowed back.

At some stage we will be bought out by a private equity firm and then we will all retire happily into homes on Nepean Sea Road. I am not joking. Maybe.

But before that we need some able-minded and fleet-fingered writer types. The author envisions the following:

An online mag which will come out every Monday morning in time for the intrepid office-goer looking for exquisite lunch-break literature. High quality content in bite-sized 800-1000 word pieces. If there is one word that must describe the content it should be: ‘Intelligent’. A tiny bit of this with a smattering of this with a distinct Mumbai tang to it.

As Winston Churchill once famously said, I can only promise you the headaches of sacrosanct deadlines, painstaking proofing and a few hours of madness on the weekends. The comments, including ones like “Go do it with a mad dog you imbecile”, will come on their own.

So if you are a Bombay-lover, or write like one, and want to be a co-conspirator check out the profiles below:

1. Lifestyle Editor: Books. Movies. Restaurants. Hotels. Porn.
2. Music Editor: Albums, shows, soundtracks, crit
3. City Editor: Local happenings, local news, , local trains, local stuff
4. Business and Economics: Sensex. WTO. Karvy. Shit like that.
5. Sports Editor: Cricket, Football, F1, Lacrosse, Darts, Competitive Eating etc.
6. Politics Editor: National, International, Inter-brother
7. People and Places Editor: Social and Environment, Andolans
8. Template Designer
9. Server Space!! – Kindly Donate Whole Heartedly

Yours truly will be the glue that holds the whole thing together and makes most when we cash out.

You will drive your mag-space and to start off with we will need one article a week.

Operations to be sorted out once a team is in place.

Target launch date: 1st Monday of June

Drop me a mail at sidinsunny at gmail dot com. Tell me what tickles your creative heebie-jeebies. As unlikely as it seems this might turn out to be great fun. Positions filling fast!!!

Ciao.