'Financially we are sound and we have always broken even.'
'It is just we don't have the personnel and that is why we have to close down.'
Parsiana held a mirror to the Parsi community, reflecting on issues close to their lives.
Today, Parsiana faces closure; October will be its last issue. The magazine has taken the tough call to shut down since it cannot get editorial staff.
But that's weeks away. Today, the editorial drill continues in the long alleys of the ground floor of the once Parsi Lying-in Hospital in Fort, south Mumbai.
It is work as usual as two Indies accompany Jehangir R Patel, the editor and publisher of Parsiana, around the office.
Simba growls as he wags his tail drawing the boundaries for visitors who come to meet Mr. Patel.
Mr. Patel has been a journalist since 1968. Aside from Parsiana, he has edited and published Freedom First, Kaiser-E-Hind, Opinion, Voyage and Signature.
After completing his graduation at Yale university in 1968, Mr. Patel worked at the San Francisco Examiner and The Hartford Times.
He started his journalist career in India in 1971 editing and publishing Freedom First along with Mr. Minoo Masani. He bought Parsiana for a rupee from a relative and published the first issue under his editorship in August 1973.
"It has been good because it is not a stingy community. It is a generous, compassionate and caring community. It shows in the fact that a small magazine like Parsiana without any backing could survive all these years," Mr. Patel tells Senior Rediff Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar in the first of a fascinating two-part interview.
You are back running Parsiana. How are you keeping post chikungunya hospitalisation?
I am much better, but I am experiencing a lot of tirednesss, joint pain and weakness. Yet, I come every day from 9 to 4.
In a way it is good when there is work, your mind is awake and it is better than lying in bed.
I keep myself busy with editing, proofreading and a whole lot of publishing activities.
You went to study political science at Yale and worked in the United States for two years.
I studied political science from 1964 to 1968. Then from 1968 to 1970, I worked for the San Francisco Examiner and The Hartford Times. The San Francisco Examiner had just started a minority training programme.
They found that in metropolitan newspapers, most of the reporters or editorial staff were white.
The metropolitan newspapers wanted people with experience and whites were the people who worked in the suburban newspapers, who got experience that enabled them to come onto the metropolitan newspapers.
We were four minority people who were selected for that training programme. Even a Parsi like me qualified for a minority back then. (Laughs).
It was a three month programme and I could stay on for another two months.
Then I got a job with the Hartford Times as a bureau reporter.
How did the minority training programme and your work as a reporter help prepare you to report on issues that mattered?
It taught me the basics of journalism. It was a very good training programme. We met people, we asked questions, wrote, rewrote. We had people who sat with us and made us rewrite.
It wasn't only training on the job kind of thing. We were trained professionally. I was very impressed with the journalists there. They cared about their profession, they cared about people.
They took an interest in someone like me, they helped me find a job in every way, which they needn't have done.
They spent time with us and I got a real sense of commitment from them, as to what journalism was.
It wasn't just a job, it was a mission. I learned a lot there. The basics I got from The San Francisco Examiner and The Hartford Times.
Now in The Hartford Times, being in the county, you covered everything -- the courts, politics, you interviewed people, then they made me reporter for downtown, the state and gave me general assignments, features, etc.
Both were afternoon papers. I would be given to do a piece on whether if it was snowing heavily or something.
People were all nice. They were committed and interested. This was America in the 1960s and 1970s, which was a different country than now what it is under Trump.
The people were liberal, they were welcoming.
The fascism may have been latent, but there was the civil rights movement in America at that time.
The whole environment was about participation, doing things, getting involved and there would be intense discussions during lunch and dinner.
When I was younger, I was in two minds on the Vietnam war, as an Indian and Asian.
The debates on communism were going on and at the same time I had to be careful because of my visa, to stay out of trouble.
Now, of course, I am clearer on it, that they shouldn't have got involved in that war.
Then The Hartford Times closed down.
I got a good experience between both newspapers as I worked on both the East and West coasts of America. The coasts are liberal. I came back to India in 1970.
In your student years you also did odd jobs like washing dishes and serving steaks at the 1965 New York World Fair. What were those experiences like and did they prepare you for being a journalist?
I enjoyed both jobs. I was glad to be earning money and not being a burden to others. I liked working with my hands and interacting with people.
Working at a desk job has never enticed me. That is why I took to journalism so well. It was a creative calling -- you got out of the office. You were dealing with people rather than only papers.
Of course these were temporary jobs so one knew better options lay ahead. In journalism you forward to the next day, new developments.
In routine, manual or clerical jobs you may be repeating the same task over and over again, day in and day out.
It's not that challenging. But for an untrained/unskilled college student, they were fun and one didn't mind the hard work.
You felt you were contributing to the company's well being and your own.
I never served steaks. I had to offer customers a choice between Waldorf and 1,000 Island dressing on their salad or an apple or cherry pie.
This was included with the $1.49 steak. The food tray was placed on a conveyor belt and everything deposited on that. We served 1,000 to 2,000 steaks a day.
The New York World Fair was an exciting place to be working in. At the Squaw Valley restaurant I also waited at tables.
The high point was to see how much a tip the diners left over. This was taken by the main waiter/management. I was happy to get a salary, board and lodging.
Where did you work before you thought of taking up Parsiana?
Minoo Masani had lost his seat in Parliament and he was looking for other ways to be active in politics. He had this magazine called Freedom First.
He wanted to take that up and he asked if I would be interested. Now until that point I had known only about editorial.
I did not know about production, layout, bringing the magazine together, subscription and so on.
We were three of us, Masani, his secretary and me. It was a good exercise, we would discuss the story, write, rewrite, decide the layout and pictures.
By then I wanted to something of my own. Masani was a very nice man. He had a placement agency and I worked there for a few months.
But I wanted to do something of my own in journalism. I thought of starting a Parsi magazine.
Why a Parsi magazine?
I thought of it because Parsis are a small community, also a large number were in Bombay and I felt with a limited amount of money, in a limited capacity, I could start a magazine and one could break even.
Dr Pesi Warden, a distant relative of ours, had started Parsiana in 1964. He asked me to take over Parsiana.
He sold it to me for a rupee. I took it over in June 1973 and I brought out the first issue in August 1973.
We printed about nearly 4,000 copies and sold about 300 copies.
It took time for the magazine to grow and people to take a liking to it. Today the subscribed copies are 1,500.
The subscription those days was Rs 5, which was a lot of money those days.
In 2003, the Parsiana website was created. The annual subscription is Rs 1,200 for India and Rs 7,000 ($99, UK £80) for international.
The important issues are in the months of March and August, New Year times in our community.
The advertising costs started with Rs 100 per page, which costs Rs 26,000 per page now. The costs have gone up.
In your journey of 50 odd years at Parsiana, there must have been innumerable challenging times. How have you managed?
Financially we are sound and we have always broken even. It is just we don't have the personnel and that is why we have to close down.
Financially, the community is very generous. If you are doing something for the community and people like what you are doing, they come and support you.
Of course we had to work at it, it wasn't a cakewalk. We had to go out and convince people, even though they were a small chunk.
Overall it has been good because it is not a stingy community. It is a generous, compassionate and caring community.
It shows in the fact that a small magazine like Parsiana without any backing could survive all these years.
It could survive only because the people supported us with subscription and advertising, by making donations.
Initially it was tough, but once it took off, money was not the issue. We could keep going.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff