We did start the fire!

as you know it today. It was the first time an Indian newspaper had a full page dedicated to things automotive. Today, we see job opportunities in every other newspaper around!

Tony Joseph, the current editor of Businessworld, used to head BS Style in 1995 (among other things) and he had only one question when I joined Business Standard to do automotive stuff. "How many cars are there in India?" I counted all the variants and said, "Thirteen." "So what will you do for the fourteenth week?" I didn't know.

But somehow we have managed over 500 weeks of creating back-to-back Motoring pages. And a few readers who followed the evolution of the page still write to us. From this 'mother' page emerged the Automobile Annual, Motoring Quarterly , and then in 1999, a full-fledged Motoring Monthly.

We have featured test drives from all the continents "" Palios in Brazil, Cadillacs in the US, Opels in Europe, Holdens in Australia, and Ferraris in...India. We have driven petrol, diesel, CNG, electric, hybrid and nuclear-powered cars...okay, not the last one.

We took readers along when we drove from London to Cape Town in 1998, covering 24 countries in 42 days, and then again, when we managed an entry in the Limca Book of Records for covering 29 Indian states in 29 days. The concept of Car Of The Year Awards was introduced to India in this space back in 1996.

Some of the best writers in the country have contributed to these pages. I have seen love, marriage, birth, death and divorce during the last 10 years' courtship I have had with this page. And death, inevitably, was the most painful of them all. I am sure Deepak Tolani, my good friend and photographer, who shot the first pics (of a BMW 525td) for this page would have been the happiest man if he were alive today.

Well, it looks like it is time to point the nose of a car towards the next 10 years.