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"A genetic disorder” is what advertising professional and founder and managing director of Delhi-based Creatigies Communications Private Limited, Navroze Dhondy (pictured) calls his passion for photography. His maternal grandfather, Jamshed Patell and great-grandfather, Maneckshaw Mistry, were both professional photographers who had their studios in Allahabad, Nainital and Karachi (see "The touching photographs,” Parsiana, March 21, 2017). "I think a bit of that got stored away in DNA memory and I took to photography as a young kid, slowly developing a really passionate hobby along the way,” the 59-year-old wrote to Parsiana on February 20, 2019.
For the last three years, Creatigies has been bringing out calendars featuring Dhondy’s photographs taken on mobile phones. Each month of the 2019 calendar carries a picture – from a sea scape, the hands of a potter at work to rain drops on a fallen frangipani flower; overleaf is a "diary” where recipients can note down appointments. "So, you see, it does not only serve my vanity,” he laughed while talking to us on a follow- up telephone call. "The mobile (phone) has now become an extension of the eye allowing me the freedom to capture at will,” Dhondy wrote in the introduction to the calendar.
The advertising professional explained why unlike others, the Creatigies’ calendar does not deploy a theme for each year. Calling the photos a "motley collection” of the images he has captured over the years, he stated, "Themes become boring... A variety of images that cut across different moments, walks of life, people, places, artefacts... keeps the user of the calendar guessing what’s next and fresh through the year.”
Dhondy’s "day-to-day, simple images, capturing the humdrum life through an interesting perspective” were either lying on his phone, or computer, or on his social media accounts. "I was discussing my passion for photography with some friends and associates...They were going through my various posts on Facebook and commenting on the photos that I took.” That was when he realized that "here was an opportunity of sharing these with my friends, family, colleagues and clients through a format that would be useful and be a part of their lives each day of the year.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest challenge for Dhondy is to shortlist the final 12 photos that make it to the calendar. "I feel terrible leaving out some which are my favorites, but then I do like to have a wide variety of images that allow the user to have a photo-filled year,” he noted. The Qutub Minar in Delhi has made it to December of each of the three years. Proudest of the photograph of the Delhi monument on the page of December 2018, Dhondy says, "It is till now my most favorite picture... Who knows I might better myself soon!”
The current calendar has a quote from British photojournalist Sir Donald McCullin: "If you can’t feel what you are looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” "I think everyone who wants to take to photography must ‘feel’ and then shoot,” Dhondy said. Previous calendars have carried quotes from photographers Annie Liebovitz and Elliot Erwitt. "It may sound clichéd, but it is true,” he said quoting photographer Ansel Adams: "You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
The adman says the use of cricketing terminology (hattrick, umpire, well bowled) in the introduction to the calendar is due to another "genetic disorder,” cricket. "My uncle Nari (Contractor) was the captain of the Indian cricket team. I spent many a summer at his place in Cusrow Baug, and heard him recount countless stories about the great game. Thanks to him I met many other illustrious cricketers…. and as a kid growing up in Allahabad these (encounters) sure gave me ‘bragging rights’ too.”
Cricket is also a big part of his company’s business (see "Creatigies’ concerns,” Parsiana, March 7, 2017). The communications company has "work(ed) with each and every IPL (Indian Premier League) team since inception... We have also co-created a (television) game show ‘Superskills’ which was held for three years in London,” he noted. Football teams, kabaddi teams, badminton squads have all been clients of Creatigies, Dhondy noted.
Creatigies was conceived by Dhondy after he witnessed the changing face of Indian advertising for two decades, having starting his career with Lintas (Lowe), moving after eight years to Hindustan Thompson Associates (now J. Walter Thompson) and later functioning as chief executive officer of TBWA/Anthem and Percept.
Dhondy calls himself a "traditionalist in a simple way…I believe in the simple tenets of our religion and if we follow good thoughts, good words and good deeds, that’s truly being a good Zoroastrian and a useful human being contributing in some way or another… One does not have to pray for long hours and prostrate oneself before the fire.” He often goes to an agiary to "thank the Supreme Being and to hit a pause button” in his hectic lifestyle.
Among Zoroastrians in the field of photography, he holds the late Homai Vyarawalla in high esteem. "What a dent she made in the male dominated bastion back then.” Vyarawalla is widely regarded as India’s first woman photojournalist. Also an admirer of the works of screenwriter and photographer Sooni Taraporevala and cinematographer Fali Mistry, of the latter he says, "Mistry was the one to break through the triumvirate of producer-director-actor in Hindi movies and get recognition for cinematographers.”
The creative professional includes writing, poetry, sports, music and travel among his other hobbies. "Watch out for my book of poems in a year’s time,” he ends.