The office of Parsiana, a magazine for the Parsi community, is hidden in the dimly lit corridors of the Parsi Lying-in Hospital in Fort, a neighbourhood in South Mumbai (formerly known as South Bombay). The hospital itself has been closed for twenty-five years; the magazine moved in after the closure. There’s a sense of heaviness when one enters Parsiana’s office: high ceilings, the scent of old paper, distant sounds from outside juxtaposed with an unavoidable silence against the faded tiles and peeling plaster. A skeleton staff works diligently, frozen in time like a typical magazine office from the 1950s. A staff member is sitting at her computer, maintaining records, while bundles of files and documents are scattered across tables and shelves in different corners of the room, carrying the intimate narratives of a fading community.

Jehangir Patel, Parsiana’s editor, is in his eighties and appears both fragile and indomitable. He smiles warmly, stroking his dog as he talks with his staff, pausing between words to tend to health and habit. The gentle rhythm of his attention—between paper and pet, life and legacy—frames the story of a magazine inseparable from its editor and the community it served for more than six decades until its final issue in October 2025.

• Tags: Ashish Kumar Kataria, India, Issue 42, Mohsina Malik, Parsiana