Inspiring story of an entrepreneurial adventure!

by Soma Chaturvedi

It's not always easy to do what we want, but many a time it's more difficult to know what is it that we really want to do, especially when it comes to making a career choice. For Ajay Jain, the eureka moment arrived over a trip for his second honeymoon!

Born and brought up in Delhi, Ajay fulfilled his parents' dream by studying mechanical engineering at Delhi College of Engineering (1992) and MBA at Fore School of Management (1994).

 

He tried his hand at IT and sports management sectors, switching between jobs and entrepreneurship until he made a decision for himself. "I realised it's better late than never. So let me just go back to what I wanted to do in the first place," says Ajay. So, he went on to do M.A. in Journalism from Cardiff University, UK.

Back to India in 2002, Ajay started his career in journalism. But unable to confine himself to the "set editorial agenda of media houses," he freelanced as an independent columnist, writing on business, technology and youth affairs. "I was not employed anywhere," he confirms.  

But the turning point came in the summer of 2007. And then it finally hit him, almost overnight. "I was on a self-drive holiday in Himachal in the Lahaul Spiti region, a place where people usually don't go, when I realised the joys of driving in remote locations. And that's when I decided to be a travel journalist full-time." While the inclination had been there; the trip helped to conceive the action plan and ‘Kunzum' was born.

In fact, his brand Kunzum is named after a high altitude pass in Lahaul Spiti. "Everything came one step at a time. Initially Kunzum.com was just a blog, then I started putting together some of my books. Less than three years back, I picked up this place to serve as a gallery for my photography and then two years back we converted this into a café that you see today," says Ajay.

"For me it also became a personal social mission, selling the India travel story to a global audience. I don't think a very good job of it has been done." Ajay wasn't always a travel freak. Having discovered the joys of driving around the country changed it all for him. "Now, no matter how far I have to go, I just start driving – for me, a two-hour flight to Bombay is more tiring than a four-day journey to Ladakh."

Ajay travels with "a sense of editorial purpose". Travelling by road allows him to change routes and itineraries. "I need to keep that flexibility in mind, otherwise I'll just be writing about stuff that everyone anyways knows about."

His individual travel pieces add up to books later. Every time he collects 25 great holidays, it becomes a book adding to his ongoing series. He has authored seven books which include non-travel subjects as well.

Fond of photography, Ajay writes pictorial travelogues. Whereas, a lot of travel writers don't do photography and they just write descriptive travelogues, without pictures in their books. "I just decided to mix imagery with words. That's again a template that I've developed for myself. I put a picture instead of writing 200 words and use my words for the anecdotes."

Talking of skill sets, he says, "Somebody can give you tips on how to write better in travel, but a lot of it actually has to be self learning and self critiquing. That's the only way to become a better writer."

And how did the engineering and MBA degrees contribute to his chosen career? "While I did not enjoy engineering, I did that out of family pressure, but some of the things you learnt pursuing engineering, the way things are structured, the way they work, have always helped me in whatever I've done. Management helps because I'm not just a writer and a photographer, I'm also an entrepreneur at the same time. The journalism degree helps in what I'm actually doing – writing and photography – so it's all adding up to what I'm doing," says Ajay.

He feels, "As long as you keep yourself in a student mode all your life, you'll do better for yourself. The day you say okay I know everything, you'll start stagnating and your performance will suffer." He cautions against getting caught in the wrong situation. "You should do what you want to do and that's when you'll be good at it."

But it's not always easy to follow your heart. Freelance writing in India is still a financial risk, despite the proliferation of media platforms. "It's not easy and I would say that it's almost impossible to survive as a freelance travel writer because you spend a lot of money travelling, apart from your personal expenses," agrees Ajay. But people still manage do it along with generating revenues from other avenues, such as writing books or doing commercial photography to pay their bills and fund their travel writing. "But book royalties also take time so you need to have a little nest to tide you over that period. So you would do many other things to keep the money coming in," shares Ajay.

Ajay has been lucky to have his wife by his side in this decision. Kunzum is their own initiative, owned by them. "Both of us enjoy working together on this. I'm the writer and she's the editor." For Kunzum, it's been a gestation period for the last five years and Ajay expects the investments to pay off in the near future. With a monthly subscriber base of over 30,000, as told by Ajay, Kunzum's online presence has benefitted from its offline avtaar.

Promoted as "come and hang out here, it's your space", the café averages daily footfall of 100 plus. "We sell books and photographs (initially), and now we are adding more products and services," explains Ajay. The café serves only tea/coffee with cookies for which you may pay what you like. That covers the overheads of running the place.

Is his travel café a new concept for India? He corrects, "I think it's a unique concept globally. There may be some common elements, but as a whole I don't think it exists anywhere else. This is purely invented here."

Having been there, done that, Ajay agrees that working for a couple of years always helps before you take to entrepreneurship. But of course, "If you have a great idea, time is of essence, and you are all raring to go – start in school!"

So, that's the moral of the story. Now, does it remind you of your dream? How far would you go to fulfill it?