The maverick media mogul who turned entertainment journalism on its head

Born in Karachi in 1938, Hira and his family were among the countless people uprooted by the partition of India. He subsequently settled in Mumbai. It was in this city of dreams with its relentless energy that Hira was to shape his destiny. He began his career as a journalist, a profession that honed his sense of the zeitgeist and his ability to anticipate what the audience wanted to read. However, Hira was not one to follow the traditional rules of journalism. He had a unique vision that soon manifested itself in the form of Stardust – the magazine that would redefine entertainment journalism in India.

Stardust: A new beginning

The book was launched in 1971, when film journalism was still largely respectful towards film stars, with publications such as Filmfare, Stars & StyleAnd Photo contribution everything according to a fixed pattern, Stardust stormed the scene with a bold, cheeky style that was as daring as it was irresistible. Hira shattered the existing conventions of film reporting and brought gossip, scandals and human foibles of Bollywood stars to the fore. The magazine railed against the sugar-coated, airbrushed stories about the stars. For its first issue, Hira (short for Hiranandani) had a scoop: a juicy claim that superstar Rajesh Khanna was secretly married. It put him on the cover, examined his private life and let the gossip explode. The result? An issue that sold out faster than you could say “star-struck”. Hira's decision to make the magazine twice as expensive as its competitors (while other magazines cost Rs 1, Stardust (priced at Rs 2) was a gamble that paid off spectacularly. The first issue, with the sensational headline “Is Rajesh Khanna Married?”, sold 25,000 copies in just three days, a feat unheard of at the time.

What set Hira apart from his contemporaries was his extraordinary ability to feel the pulse of readers. He understood that the public's appetite for celebrity culture was far greater than what the existing media landscape offered. He created a new language of film journalism that was irreverent, witty and often provocative. Under his leadership Stardust became synonymous with Indian pop culture, a publication that neither stars nor fans could ignore. He had an eye for talent, and when he hired Shobhaa De, then a disgruntled copywriter at his advertising agency Creative Unit, it was as if he had struck the journalistic equivalent of gold. De penned “Neeta's Natter,” a column that coined the now ubiquitous Hinglish dialect and became a staple of saucy insider gossip about Bollywood's biggest stars, delivered in a sarcastic tone. It became the stuff of legend – loved and hated by its subjects in equal measure.

A media mogul, a mentor

Hira mentored countless journalists, editors and writers, many of whom went on to shape the Indian media landscape. His offices were a breeding ground for talent, a place where creativity was encouraged, the status quo was always challenged and failure was seen as a stepping stone to success. Hira's leadership approach was as unconventional as his publishing philosophy – he gave his teams the freedom to experiment, fail and learn from their mistakes. This environment of innovation and creativity enabled Stardust and its sister publications remained at the top for decades.

Stardust was not afraid to publish stories that made the industry uncomfortable, stories that were sometimes unfair or overly sensationalist. Hira himself admitted this in his later years and expressed some regret about the times when the magazine's distancing from the film industry led to a harsher portrayal of the stars. But it was precisely this distancing that Stardust his advantage – the perspective of an outsider who was not beholden to the stars he was reporting on.

Hira's brainchild, Magna Publishing Co. Ltd., became one of India's largest magazine groups. Stardust was just the beginning. Hira expanded his empire and launched a series of magazines aimed at different market segments but with the same DNA: crossing boundaries. From Company To Versed To show timeEach publication was a pioneer in its own way, offering readers content that was never seen before at the time. Hira built a magazine empire on the foundations of risk-taking, innovation and a deep understanding of his audience's desires.

For those of us who grew up reading Stardust by the 1990s, the magazine was more than just a source of gossip—it was a window into a world that was at once glamorous, scandalous and painfully human. Despite his towering success, however, Hira remained an enigma. When the magazine's boom fizzled out, Hira retreated into the shadows, only occasionally appearing at parties where he met old friends like Shobhaa De and film producers like Ashwin Varde and Sarita Tanwar. The media mogul, who never married but adopted a son, began to shun the limelight. He was a man of contradictions—a fiercely private person who made his fortune exposing the private lives of others. This complexity only added to his appeal, making him a legend in an industry that thrives on larger-than-life personalities. His reluctance to step into the spotlight, combined with his keen business acumen, made him a figure of enormous fascination and respect.

In the 1990s, as times changed and the moving image (VHS tapes) became more prominent, he ventured into film production with Magna Films, a subsidiary of his publishing company. Just as with magazines, Hira brought his innovative approach to the world of cinema. While his ventures into film production may not have had the same success as his publishing empire, they were still proof that he was looking for new challenges and not being tied down to a single format. Nari Hira divided his time between Mumbai, London and New York. His penthouse in Mumbai often served as the centre for occasional soirées attended by his mentees. He was a man who dared to dream differently. He forged his own path and created a media empire that will live on.