By: Jhumur Ghosh, National Feature Editor, Times of India
Track2Realty Exclusive: I remember when I left Education Times in 2006, to take over Property Plus Central, Times of India Mumbai’s area centric real estate supplement, circulated in the central suburbs of the city, as its editor. Everyone I knew was convinced I had committed career hara-kiri.
There were subtle enquiries if I had been ‘demoted’. My ex-boss asked me several times if I was certain I wanted to take on a supplement that was slated to close down any minute, especially since five others in the department had already turned it down.
It’s not difficult to see why there was this reaction to my move to the real estate beat, from education. In 2006, the real estate sector didn’t measure up to my previous stint of the education sector in any way.
I was fortunate, however, to have the foresight, that this sector was slated for big things. How could it not, in a country where even now, culturally, owing one’s own home remains one of the biggest aspirations? That was just one part of the challenge for me though.
The second part of the challenge had to do with something I had no control over – my gender. Back then, there were practically no women in the sector. Not even as office staff, let alone at actual sites. I have been to meetings at sites where there would be at least 30-40 men, including workers and I would be the only woman for as far as you could see.
At several such site offices, I have had to use the gent’s loo because there were simply no women to warrant a separate loo for them. While this may not seem like such a big deal, it was symbolic of the larger attitude towards women in this industry.
Secondly, at that point in time, the PR machinery hadn’t descended upon the industry. Most companies didn’t even have an external PR agency, let alone an in-house corporate communications team. There was no need to.
Barring a few big players in the market, most companies were fixated on sales and returns per sq ft, as compared to the benefits of brand recall, advertising and PR. Needless to say, interacting with women, even for my story inputs, wasn’t a choice back then.
Then, there was the aspect of how media savvy the industry was back then. Truth be told, it wasn’t. To actually meet someone dressed in a business suit for a newspaper interview, was practically unheard of. Make no mistake, these people knew the industry – they just didn’t know how to package that data for media consumption.
So, from erudite deans and principals and knowledgeable scholars, I found myself thrown into the world of Hitesh Bhais and Viren Bhais, chunky gold jewellery, et al. It may sound stereotypical to some today but the industry has evolved from that, to where it is today.
Cultivating contacts proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Most of the men I met, looked upon me as some oddity, a lone woman in clearly a male dominated industry. They were distinctly uncomfortable with me and the feeling was mutual.
I was told by my team of freelance writers who had their own issues dealing with a woman at the helm of the affairs, that most of the ‘networking’ was done over a drink in the evening, something that I wasn’t willing to do then and now. It’s easier for them to open up, when it’s one man to another, I was told by the few people in the industry who spoke to me honestly.
Though by God’s grace, Property Plus Central had taken off very well by then and its success spawned Property Plus Western, for the western suburbs; I still wondered if I was cut out to succeed in this male-dominated industry.
…to be continued
