When Purva Grover, an Indian girl landed in Dubai, she kept up with her passion for journalism and love for home. At the same time, she couldn’t help but play with fonts, colours and words to create something for the fellow NRIs. Little did she know that hearts and minds from all communities would greet her dream with the same passion and love! She became an NRI in November 2012 and felt a strong urge to strengthen her bond with her home, India and also a strong desire to explore her new home, Dubai. Very soon, this aspiration (first expressed via a blog) became a talking point amongst the huge Indian diaspora not just in Dubai but all across the globe and a magazine was born in July 2013. The story of The Indian Trumpet magazine has been that of knowing Indians all over the world and falling in love with all Indian things all over again. “Running the magazine has been an exciting, fascinating and a challenging journey. I have lived through moments that made me smile and scream at the same time. There were times when the laptop misbehaved, fonts got mixed up and writers and photographers missed deadlines, but then, these were complemented with times when my inbox got flooded with encouraging words, download speeds improved and colours and words just fell into place,” says Purva.

Purva’s life revolves around datelines, headlines and deadlines, and she 'still' loves it very much. She has over seven years of experience in the publishing industry and has worked as an associate editor for luxury magazines in India before moving to Dubai. “I have had a stint as a journalist and senior copy editor with some of the leading newspapers in India and have worked on a range of subjects like art, fashion, cinema, food, television, people, etc. I continue to work as a freelance editorial consultant and writer for Indian and international magazines. Over the years, I have evolved from a journalist to an editor to a manager. However, it was not and is not the easiest course to take, for I am more an editor, any day, than a businesswoman!” mentions Purva Grover.

In a journey so exciting, tiresome, rewarding and challenging it is tough to single out problems! At a certain point in any entrepreneurial journey one should begin to delegate work without which it has proved challenging to switch roles between an editor, founder and entrepreneur.

To edit each piece to perfection, to design every pixel of the website, to make sale and marketing pitches and more, Purva has played the founder-editor-designer-writer-peon-coffee boy-advertising person for The Indian Trumpet, which was pretty exhausting as she states.

“Having said that I am grateful for collapses and cheers and pats on our backs and lessons from mistakes, we continue to strive harder and dream bigger and to gather love and spread smiles across the latitudes and longitudes. Looking back I feel that had I done so I would have to begin with slept better and more.”

Purva doesn’t carry a business background. Hence she is better with fonts and colours than numbers and percentages. While in a year, The Indian Trumpet made one and all fall in love with the colour, culture and chaos of India, it did have a tough time to her walking on the financial ground.

Purva states, “So far goodwill, love and personal savings have helped me.” She also adds, “But yes, we are now looking at raising funds to blow the trumpet louder from here on.”

So far Indian Trumpet is the only e-magazine for Indian expats that captures the colour, culture and chaos that NRIs miss. The magazine is aimed at anyone who wants to be in touch with India and its ethos. The target audience for the magazine includes: Indian expatriates globally, resident Indians and Non-Indians across the globe. The Indian Trumpet is a celebration of India and Indian-ness. Within its pages it encapsulates things and ideas uniquely Indian from the richness of butter chicken to the colour and boisterousness of Bollywood movies to the cadences of our goosebumps-inducing National Anthem to the eternality of the Taj Mahal. It can be an introduction to the Indian identity for some as well as a nostalgic joyride for others.

“I see it gathering more love and appreciation from Indians all across the world. I see it achieving more laurels day by day!” says Purva.

“Our strength is interaction with our readers. We’re constantly in touch with them through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, events, contests, meet-ups and a lot more. We exchange e-mails with them, share our plans with them and more. They help us decide what is too much or what is too less,” she narrates.

It’s always easy to give up something! But budding entrepreneurs should make a start, and a slow one at that. A beginning towards a dream, a change! It’s not about who wins the race, the tortoise or the rabbit! Find your track and start walking, strolling, hopping, skipping; there is nothing better than being on the start line!

Journalist turned entrepreneur Ms. Purva has to advice some newly born entrepreneurs in this field. She says, “Never shy away from talking about what you are doing and how far you have come. We gave it a miss for a long time and once we did we were flooded with letters from fellow editors of magazines of international repute, picked up by a researcher in London School of Journalism to be studied as a part of the course on online journalism, approached to share our articles with another magazine for Indian expats and even by a publisher who wanted to buy us out!”

By the second issue of Indian Trumpet, messages from fellow NRIs not just from Dubai but even from Turkey, the US, Kuwait, Oman, Australia, London and more started reaching Purva. They demanded, she and her team delivered and got appreciated to strive to work harder. In just a year, they have managed to connect with thousands of Indians all across the globe. This was an incredible achievement for the newly launched e-zine.

“I was getting a chance to love, miss and appreciate the ‘home’! And honestly, even if someone had told me that this is how tough the journey would be I would have still done exactly the same thing and with the same enthusiasm. The Indian Trumpet is for all the people I knew, got to know and will know through this magazine,” she smiles.