This post has been long due and I should have written it ten days back.I actually did write it a week back in one of my Maths classes but because of sheer laziness , the cricket world cup and exams never really got to typing it. Before beginning have a look at The EP!C Magazine
This is one story I am never getting sick of telling , it might get long and begin to bore you but some people wanted me to put it here so it's dedicated to those few people.
It all began on a lazy afternoon in the college when I and Uncle V were just sitting doing nothing at all(or maybe we were working , don't remember) .I have no clue where that came from but I was telling Uncle V how cool it would be to be the editor of Vogue.I keep having these random thoughts of doing things and then expressing them aloud without realizing.
V on hearing that started laughing , her mocking laugh and gave me the "what-are-you-saying-it-is-happening-in-your-dreams" look. She always does that when I think of something new . We have together plotted a million ventures but most get rejected the very next moment generally because of the fact that we have no finances.
After a few minutes of silence Uncle V says " Or maybe you can be , I have an idea." That made me think my inner ghost of suggesting crazy things had engulfed the otherwise "realistic" Uncle V . I just nodded and she went on " Lets have an e-mag , an online magazine "
Now I stopped her saying " Yeah right and do what ,write all the 15-16 articles ourselves, think of something that is not so far-fetched and come back to mother earth" Ha! I finally got the opportunity of saying that to her. With that the another idea was discarded.And we went back to doing nothing in our mutually accepted silence( I hope it is, never talked about it).
Days passed by , nothing happened and Uncle V again suggested the online magazine thing. The second time she suggested it I thought of working on it. And that day in our computer lab we were thinking of what name should we have , we decided that it would be a youth magazine and the name would be youth oriented.
It was finalized that it was not going to be just a youth magazine , it was going to be the people's magazine, for anyone and everyone. We still did not have a name , out of the blue Uncle V suggested - EPIC , which became the acronym for Ensemble of Plainly Idiosyncratic Citizens .I was going to be the editor (yaaay) and Uncle V the director but ultimately we are a team.
Our about section is something like this:
EP!C – Ensemble of Plainly Idiosyncratic Citizens , it’s just not a magazine , it’s the corral of
a) ideas that should reach everyone
b) of people who want themselves to be heard and
c) most essentially of the readers , the strength , the ones who will keep us going.
It is the idea of two undergraduates , itching to fly out of the cage and wanting to do the world some good.We were doing this for fun, but somehow it turned into a passion, which was undiluted and unwavering. The EP!C magazine aims to make people write and read.It is for you to voice your idiosyncratic idea.
Then came the most difficult task of getting the writers , some of our friends write and they were called and asked to write for some random magazine.But that was not enough , that is when a friend Terror#1, one of my favorite bloggers came to the rescue and readily agreed to give his most thrilling stories , he even asked his other blogger friends Basically Blah and Smriti to write. Another favorite blogger Pepper agreed to do an article for the first issue. I was ecstatic to have them write , all of them are just awesome.
Every single write-up on the site has a story, The Solitary Wanderer was done by a friend in the middle of his boards when I was reluctant to approach him but since then he has been the enthusiastic contributor , giving great ideas . I fell and fell badly....In love was done by another friend , it was twisted by me but the friend did not appreciate the bollywood stuff I added and then all of us ( that includes three-four friends , Uncle V and me) sat together and gave our inputs, mine were brutally edited.
Working on the first issue was the greatest thing I have ever done in my entire life.There were moments of panic when someone did not submit their article on time and did now reply to our mails or when the site was not coming out to be as we wanted . We decided to launch it on 17th March, 2011, Uncle V's birthday . Planning the follow-up party with S.W.A.T was another fun bit.
She and I wanted to give a surprise to Uncle V and moved around in a village market ( disadvantage of a college in the outskirts of the city) at 9am to find party props.To our dismay we could not find them anywhere. We walked miles straight ahead ( did not want to take a turn and risk losing our way).
Shopping in an alien land with one of the craziest person alive on the earth is the most exciting thing. S.W.A.T is a person who has the tendency of cracking lamest jokes and can leave you gaping at her , wondering how she managed to come up with such a thing.
When we had lost hope of finding anything in that haunted market and I wanted to give it a last shot at this shop where we ultimately got our party poppers , sprays and everything else.Phew!! another bizarre shopping experience.
The party was again one of its kind , in the college near a class room , and we created a complete ruckus out there. And did not leave until one of the professors came.
After all the editing , designing the site , apprehensions on how things will turn out to be , panic attacks , some last minute alterations , the magazine was finally released on the right time.The EP!C team hopes to get bigger and better with the follow up issues.Seeing the feedback, we want to take it even more seriously now and have things that impact the world in the right manner.There was not much work of this kind in the first issue but we plan it in the next.
This is the Editor , EP!C magazine signing off from a long post.Thank You if you made it to the end.
