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While picturesque calendars may be few and far between, there are at least three community members — marketing professional Navroze Dhondy, priest-cum-photographer Ervad Cawas Bagli and US based illustrator and children’s books author Delzin Choksey — who continue to publish physical calendars of their photographic and art work. 

"Perhaps I am bringing back the old-world charm,” says Dhondy, founder-managing director of marketing company Creatigies Communications. Parsiana spoke to him on April 4, 2024 regarding the desk calendar his company has been publishing for the last seven years. In this age of proliferation of "everything digital,” Dhondy said, "I can be one of many, or I can be unique… I can send digital calendars to say five lakh people but I actually send the desk calendars to a few thousand…” Agreeing that the desk calendar has generally gone out of circulation, the Delhi resident stated, "Almost everyone I have sent it to has asked for it… In fact some even start hounding me in March, ‘Where is my calendar?… I hope you remember to put me on your mailing list.’” 

The Creatigies calendar has been following the financial year since April 2023. Dhondy  turned a mishap — a delay at the printer’s end — to his advantage. As he told us last year, "I had an option of starting from February or March…But then the Eureka moment happened. And it struck me why not change it to the financial year?”

In the preamble of the current calendar, which celebrates 22 years of the establishing of the agency, Dhondy writes that the offering is a "motley collection of 12 images,” adding that "the blur between subtle and the real is what keeps me alive.” Requested to elaborate, he said, "I like it when my photographs make people think…I prefer to look at things that are not obvious… Obvious is boring… I don’t like the obvious.”

  Creatigies Communications’ 2024-25 desk calendar 

The photographs were shot on his mobile phone. "The address (location) did not matter as much as the moment and the muse.” There is a butterfly juxtaposed with a beetle in Mukteshwar, a village in Uttarakhand where Dhondy has a holiday home; a tree positioned just above a wall painted with a tree trunk in Bombay; a boat languidly floating on Lake Geneva; criss-crossing roads in a Dubai desertscape. Dhondy’s love for travel shines through: a 20 ft sculpture of the famous Rampuri chaku (knife) on his travels to the Uttar Pradesh town known for the implement; an airplane on the tarmac in a Bombay monsoon ("a favorite place of mine, Bombay airport”); the geometric patterns made by the cable stays of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Bombay; potters’ creations from Himachal Pradesh.     

Each month has a large image with the dates in two lines, followed on the flip side by a week-wise listing of dates in squares. "You can write your details for the day in them,” Dhondy advises.

"Call me old-school, but I love the look and feel of physical media. There is something pleasant about the look and feel of paper,” says Bagli, head priest at Delhi’s Kaikhushru Pallonji Katrak Dar-e-Meher. An amateur wildlife photographer, Bagli took it up as a hobby in 2002 (see "Wildlife venture,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, May 7, 2014). Since the last two years he has graduated to heritage photography. His 2024 wall calendar follows the January-December cycle, and includes the Parsi rozs and mahs. "I print both, with and without the Parsi aspects… so I can send it to my non-Parsi friends too.” The priest said he prints about 100 calendars but sends electronic versions to "many more.” 

The current calendar focuses on heritage structures, mostly in Rajasthan, with a few in Goa and Kerala included. (A view of St Agnelo Fort in Kannur, Kerala is wrongly attributed to Goa.) Given half a chance, Bagli says he would gladly return to using an analog camera as versus a digital one. He finds great joy in changing the film and the anticipation of a good photo. Even when he does photography assignments for private clients, he gives them hard copies of his work. "There is no greater joy in anticipating what will come next in a well mounted album of photos… There is no happiness in digital media,” he said, when Parsiana met him on March 4 in Delhi. 

Examples of Bagli’s work can be viewed on his website www.forttiger.com.

Meanwhile, Choksey has published wall calendars for children since 2021 (see "Color coded calendar,” Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, August 21-September 6, 2021). "Currently it’s in its third year and has been renamed as The Zoroastrian Shahenshahi Calendar,” she informed Parsiana. 

Choksey made her first Parsi Calendar, as it was then called, available online as a complimentary resource. "Its popularity led to its physical publication and distribution by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA) across Zoroastrian Sunday schools throughout North America in 2022.” Following this success, editions of the Parsi Calendar for children for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 were printed and distributed, continuing the tradition of providing educational and cultural value to the community, she stated.

"The initiative of the Parsi Calendar was to gauge its necessity and value for children globally. The concept was driven by a personal desire to deepen a child’s understanding… Common queries within the household, such as ‘Why do we have two birthdays?’ and ‘What are these 30 rozs we are learning about?’ served as the impetus for this project,” she explained.

The approach of color-coding the calendar (when two Zoroastrian months span the English month) has garnered appreciation from both children and adults, Choksey stated. "There has been a marked increase in interest from adults, who have requested that the calendar be made available several months prior to the New Year, ensuring they can incorporate it into their homes well in advance,” she mentioned. Her products, which include the new volume The Navjote Book, are available in India at https://bit.ly/parsishop and worldwide on Etsy on https://CrispyDoodles.etsy.com 

Choksey says her calendar empowers children to identify personal milestones and grasp the significance of Zoroastrian celebrations. "It is more than a schedule — it is a tool for discovery, enabling children to learn about muktad days or Pateti… When children interact with the calendar, marking significant dates, they gain autonomy and deeper comprehension… This is conveniently possible since the calendar is in print format and not digital.” Other advantages she lists:  "the illustrations captivate children, prompting them to recreate the images, thereby internalizing Zoroastrian symbols.” The quotes from the Avesta and the Gathas "seed young, bright minds with the timeless Zoroastrian virtues of selflessness and goodness preparing them to make a positive impact on the world.” 

Poona based Beauty Without Cruelty (BWC) run by Diana Ratnagar also publishes a wall and desk calendar with images of animals and birds taken by professional and amateur photographers. The calendars are sent not only to all members, but also to some educational institutions, libraries and government in order to create an awareness. Calendars are based on the BWC motto "Beauty Without Cruelty is a way of life that causes no creature of land, sea or air terror, torture or death.”

As reminds the BWC website, "It is 50 years since the founding of BWC-India... This (2024) calendar commemorates these 50 years of BWC’s activism by pointing out 12 (out of many) achievements during the journey which we feel aptly depict our efforts. These have made us feel that we have somewhere made a difference to our animal brethren on this planet and not been silent bystanders or cynical onlookers to the brazen and wanton maltreatment of nature’s defenseless and innocent creation by its largest predator — man.”