Parsiana, one of India's oldest and most prominent magazines serving the Parsi community, will cease publication in October after 60 years, its editor announced in an editorial published in August.
The fortnightly said dwindling subscriber numbers, a lack of funds and the absence of a successor to run the title made continuing unsustainable. The magazine, started in Mumbai in 1964 by Pestonji Warden, has been a regular chronicler of social, religious and cultural life among Zoroastrians in India and in diaspora communities.
Jehangir Patel, 80, who bought the magazine for one rupee in 1973, has led Parsiana for five decades and steered it from a small monthly that largely carried essays into a news-focused fortnightly with reported stories, columns and illustrations. Under his stewardship the title tackled sensitive community issues with a mix of frankness and humour, and cultivated a loyal international readership.
Patel said he always regarded Parsiana as "a journalistic endeavour" and that the team — many of whom joined the magazine decades ago — now confronted the reality of ending both the publication and their careers. "There's a sense of tiredness mixed with the sadness," he said. "We've been doing this for a long time."
From its early years as a black-and-white journal, Parsiana introduced innovations that unsettled and engaged readers. In 1987 the magazine broke new ground in the community by publishing interfaith matrimonial advertisements, a move that prompted letters demanding the practice stop but that the editorial team defended. The magazine also published reporting on demographic challenges facing Parsis, including concerns about the community's shrinking numbers and the decline of traditional funerary sites such as the Towers of Silence.
Readers and community leaders responded with tributes after the closure was announced. Letters published in the magazine's September edition described Parsiana as "a companion and bridge connecting Zoroastrians across the world" and praised its role in informing and challenging the community. A Washington-based reader credited the title with bringing "a touch of realism on contentious issues," while readers in India and Pakistan recalled its diligence in chronicling community life.
The Parsiana office sits in a neo-Gothic building in Fort, an upmarket area of Mumbai's financial district; the premises were once a Parsi hospital and the newsroom is stacked with decades of back issues. The 15-member team preparing the final issues includes people in their 60s and 70s who were hired and trained under Patel's leadership. Staff members said forthcoming editions will commemorate the magazine's history and legacy, and that they expect to mark the closure privately rather than with public celebration.
In recent years Parsiana covered community developments such as the inauguration in May of the Alpaiwalla Museum in Mumbai, described as the only Parsi museum in the world. The magazine's coverage ranged from reporting on ceremonies and institutions to commentary on changing customs, and it served as a record of social life for a community whose members are dispersed internationally.
Community members expressed regret at the impending closure. "It's like the end of an era," said Sushant Singh, an 18-year-old reader in Mumbai. Tributes in the magazine's latest issues and on social media reflected a wider sense of loss among Parsis who saw Parsiana as a distinctive public forum.
The decision to end publication follows wider pressures on specialist print titles globally, including rising costs and declining paid-subscription bases. Parsiana's editors said the magazine's final issues will document its six-decade record of reporting on the community it served, and mark the end of a long-running chapter in Parsi journalism.