If you think that print is dead, you’re probably looking at the wrong obituary. At least that’s what Nupur Joshi-Thanks, the founder of niche magazine subscription service, Paper Planes, firmly believes.
In 2014, Joshi-Thanks took a sabbatical from her career as a lawyer to travel for a bit, largely around Europe. While exploring the cities there, she observed that most of them had a thriving indie publishing scene. In the pleasantly cold Norway, the quarterly magazine, BRYGG, is dedicated to their ubiquitous coffee culture. In Spain, the bilingual quarterly publication, Mincho, explores international illustration trends — everything from comics and videogames to typography and children’s books. Among the more internationally popular is the UK-based cinema magazine, Little White Lies , whose issues are available in India if you scrounge enough. These magazines feature brilliant design and photography with equally immersive writing.
Back home, Joshi-Thanks hankered to read these magazines again. She took to ordering them online, generally from the popular Magma shop, and had them shipped to India. Not surprisingly, there were exorbitant shipping fees involved, often double the retail price of the magazine. Sensing that this wasn’t a sustainable hobby, Joshi-Thanks started asking her friends if they wanted to order collectively. That is where the idea for Paper Planes started.
Now a full-fledged subscription-based magazine service, Paper Planes has subscribers around the country who’ve signed up to receive a curated selection of magazines every month. In theory, running a service revolving around such a niche business wouldn’t seem sustainable at all. “I’m still scared it’s not sustainable,” Joshi-Thanks says. “That’s why we’re using the subscription system, it keeps my inventory low. It was only recently that we started retailing and distribution.” she adds. When she first started the service, subscription boxes were still a novelty in the country. With the evolution of lifestyle choices in metropolitan cities, there came an influx of concept stores. It is at these stores, such as Nappa Dori and Ministry of New in Mumbai, that Joshi-Thanks now physically retails her selection of magazines.
Slowly, Paper Planes started to host and promote local magazines as well. Within your monthly subscription box, you can expect to find Helter Skelter , an independent magazine reporting on alternate culture in India, or even the Gaysi Zine , a gorgeous and irreverent magazine with a focus on LGBTQI stories from the country. “We’ve been interacting with so many publishers, internationally and locally, with such a passion for what they do. I just want more people in India to start making magazines like this,” Joshi-Thanks says.
To keep the interaction going with the subscribers, Paper Planes hosts a get-together every other month. This month though, Joshi-Thanks is opening the doors to a newer audience, with a pop-up store at Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters in Lower Parel over the weekend. At the pop-up, you can browse among Paper Planes’ new collection and even old titles at your leisure while you sip some heavenly brews that Blue Tokai has to offer. Previous subscribers even get to partake in a brewing class.
Our conversation ends with Joshi-Thanks stressing the ethos of Paper Planes: to “create a culture which appreciates and treasures an intelligent and soulful approach to print journalism”. To say that print is dead is to make an ignorant statement according to Joshi-Thanks. “If print is not good enough to survive, it will go. People are probably looking at the bad stuff; it doesn’t last long. Then, there are other forms of print taking up the challenge to survive by using new designs, telling new stories. Anything to give the reader a new experience,” she emphasises.
The author is a freelance writer
The Paper Planes Pop-Upwill be hosted at Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, Lower Parel on September 17 and 18 from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
