Parsi Times is celebrating its 11th glorious year and it’s a time of jubilation and achievement indeed! Right from its inception, this newspaper has been delightfully servicing, entertaining and enlightening its audiences, week after week. Now an integral and vibrant presence in most Parsi homes, the weekly proves to be a portal to the quaint and boisterous lives of Parsis the world over. Through the 11 years, Parsi Times has flourished as a respectable, noteworthy newspaper all thanks to the tremendous support, encouragement and appreciation of its readers.
Then again, none of it possible without the expertise, panache and skill of its editor. In Parsi Times, we receive a Weekly connecting Parsis all over the globe with the latest ongoings and khabar… there’s news and entertainment tied, parceled and published to keep you refreshed, buoyant and informed week after week. Parsi Times has proved time and again to carry forth its motto, ‘The Truth – Delivered Weekly’. It contributes to the community by delivering reliable, accurate, informative, news and features with a perfect blend of motivational, thought-provoking articles, stories and entertainment.
Come Saturday morning, weekend starts with the sound of the thud outside the door – where the paper rests a couple of minutes, before it’s eagerly picked up and quickly glanced at, alongside that piping hot morning cup of choi… looking through the pages for the most relevant ones to read, afore it is greedily grabbed by other members of the family staking their claim to that precious stack. Through the day, rotated and exchanged by grubby hands and eager eyes, the paper soon becomes the topic of conversation in households.
Onwards it goes, making its way downstairs to a neighbor too thrifty to buy his own and too old to read the one online. It circulates around floating from home-to-home, making its presence felt to be finally returned only when brusquely demanded back, much to the annoyance of its disgruntled rightful claimant. Dog-eared and deprived of its once pristine starchy crispness, it’s reluctantly returned to its rightful but irate patron…. when segueing between weeks, from Saturday to Saturday, its pages and delights making for a smooth transition.
Our community is generally linked by two things – What you Eat and What you Read. If it’s not a Dhansak on Sunday, you can hardly be deemed Parsi. And if it is not our Parsi Times, you do not belong within the folds of our eager, eccentric, erstwhile community! Mark the man or woman who eats at the Ripon Club every Wednesday, packing in that dish and flaunting his knowledge of the community news, thanks to the paper he reads and note the ones who do not – a distinction there!! You cannot be disassociated from these and still call yourself a Parsi. You extract the flavours of Parsiness from it, only to then display it for the world to see.
Truly the favorite of the community, the Parsi Times weekly covers it all – from sneaking a peek into lives and times of our community, to keeping us abreast with the loss of our departed ones. It informs us into the goings-on in our city’s housing colonies to reporting on our Parsi Punchayet. The pages portray and paint the colourful lives of our community. It talks of aggrieved residents living in utopian enclaves, wanting more rights and fewer waivers than any government. It talks of disgraceful behavior on the part of civilized folk whose finer sensibilities have been brutalized by the lack of parking space. It talks of jealous peace amidst the reigning Baugs after sporting events, rarely disturbed, thanks to the coverage and conciliatory wisdom on those pages. It instills religious fervor to devout Zoroastrians while infusing interest, understandable and relatable knowledge to the young who seek a more religious and spiritual path.
There is no denying, like any business, the focus of any newspaper is sustainability and readership. As part of a newspaper team, you have to be responsible. It is your job as creators, reporters and writers to be extremely mindful of what you put out into the world. It is much like any celebrity, influencer or industry. If people are going to read what you publish or dare to listen to your views, opinions or advice – you have to be mindful of the content. What springs from the pages can take root real fast. Information is knowledge and you have to use it wisely, sagaciously. Newspapers are generally a rigorous search for truth and a rigorous search for determination. They fill the unseen gap between words and the outside world.
In the days long gone by, newspaper clippings were collected, chronicled and saved from forgotten disarray. People drank a full measure of words and you may sometime surprisingly trip upon lost passages and forgotten stories – faded and yellow, extracted from old mahogany cupboards, like looking through the ages at a vintage library. That deep scent of nostalgia grips you in a hazy stupor and you realize that days may come and go and years may pass by, but a beloved newspaper lingers on… the word in print remains, bridging time – past and present. It clings on and somehow newspapers that service communities – like Aapru Parsi Times – become part of your identity, your persona, and even your education. The backbone of the printed world, these are a tidy habit of sluggish mornings and lazy weekends, akin to a habit, a need, a want… and so delighted that the Parsi Times is yours!
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