When the Dirty magazine launched its first print edition in January this year, the question its founder-editor Kshitij Kankaria was asked more than once was “Why?” “Many were amused that I was bothering with a print magazine, when publications were shutting down the world over. They thought that it was a clear formula to fail.”

Kankaria felt otherwise. “In India, we mostly have publications that cater to the masses. Many of these were hit, even before the pandemic of 2020. Dirty was always intended for a niche audience. I knew from Day 1 that our success wasn’t going to be determined by the number of copies sold, or how many minds we could satisfy with our content,” he shares over a telephonic chat. He feels that what’s not worked for most mainstream magazines, especially fashion, is that they aim to cater to the masses, but their content continues to be niche. “It’s a clear two-way path that they [publications] are trying to take at the same time. In a country like India, where a massy person watches a Salman Khan film and a niche person, something more cerebral, you can’t sell the same product to both.”