Dates from Delhi

Two calendars by Parsi photographers, Navroze Dhondy and Ervad Cawas Bagli, depict travel and wildlife this year.
Delhi-based founder-managing director of Creatigies Communications Private Limited, Dhondy acceded to the requests of his friends and family and published a theme-based pictorial desk calendar for his company this year, he informed Parsiana on March 2, 2020. He had earlier put together a "motley bunch” of photos from faces to masalas to monuments in the calendars for the three years 2017 to 2019. Dhondy’s offering for this year is themed around air travel. But, he says, "I prefer the madness of randomness… A photo of a wild garden is preferable to a well laid one… Images should create intrigue.” Last year’s images included a seascape, the hands of a potter at work and raindrops on a fallen frangipani flower, among others (see "Dhondy: simply capturing,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, March 7-20, 2019).

A bird alongside an aircraft wing; sunset at Bangalore airport; a view of Bombay’s air traffic control tower; a shadow on a highway of a plane descending into Delhi airport; a mountain range in Afghanistan, among others, are some of the shots that "cover…exciting aspects of what I experienced and felt through the year,” he noted in the introduction to the calendar. An image of what appears to be a rear view mirror on the body of an Air India plane marks April 2020. "My friends are asking where they can find such a mirror on an aircraft… It is a mirror on an aerobridge,” he laughed.
"The Royal Bengal Tiger is the heartthrob of Bandhavgarh,” wild life photographer and head priest of the Delhi Parsi Anjuman Bagli told Parsiana on February 3. He says his 2020 wall calendar is inspired by Bandhavgarh Fort which lies at the center of the eponymous wild life sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. This calendar is titled "Forttiger,” as is his website (www.forttiger.com). But each of the pages of the calendar has reproductions of his photographs shot at diverse wild life sanctuaries in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Assam and includes three images of tigers. "I let my photos show my passion for nature,” he commented. The priest, who told us that he has studied fashion photography, has published two calendars previously, also on the theme of wildlife (see "Wildlife venture,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, May 7, 2014).

Dhondy (l) and Bagli