Noted advertising and theatre personality Burjor Patel dies at 91

Eminent advertising and theatre veteran Burjor Patel has passed away early Tuesday morning. The former Khaleej Times advertising director was 91. Family sources confirmed Patel died due to old age and had no major ailments.

He joined Khaleej Times in December 1988, at the age of 58, and retired from the company in March 2009. Patel was the senior vice president of strategy and development at the time of retirement.

A member of the Parsi community and Mumbai-native, he held various positions during his tenure at the newspaper, including vice president marketing and advertisement manager. Before joining KT, he was with the Mumbai advertising division of the Calcutta-based Statesman Newspaper.

Patel made an impressive impact in the media sector in the UAE during his 20-year tenure in the KT, helping it along its journey to becoming a media powerhouse.

Burjor and his wife Ruby Patel, who died in May 2020, were well-known names in Parsi Gujarati and English theatre. The couple contributed in great measure to the arts scene in Dubai.

The couple has two daughters – Shernaz, a renowned Indian theatre and television actress and Feeroza. Their son Marzban is the CEO of Mediascope, a content and media sales corporation in India.

In a career spanning several decades, Burjor Patel lived through some of the most exciting times for his two passionate likes – theatre and publishing. As a kid, he was fond of cricket, but in college (Elphinstone in erstwhile Bombay), there was no scope for him to get into the team, which had players like Madhav and Arvind Apte (both brothers) and Subhash Gupte. However, his passion for theatre was enormous.

After college, Patel would sit near Churchgate station and watch the rehearsals being done by Adi Marzban, an award-winning theatre personality, a recipient of the Padma Shree, the fourth-highest civilian award in India and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award. “I was waiting for my chance for more than a month,” he recalled in an interview.

“Then I got a role with two lines. I realised later that this was Adi’s way of mentoring — exposing young talent to the drill and regimen of acting, not blooding them instantly. That discipline helped me enormously.”

After he completed his law degree, Marzban urged Patel to get into advertising; he joined Jam-e-Jamshed, one of the oldest publications in India (it was started in 1832) and worked for 12 years; it also allowed him to pursue his theatre career. Marzban along with Patel is said to have transformed modern Gujarati (including Parsi) theatre in India.

Patel later joined the Times of India, but his busy career saw him neglect theatre. CR Irani of The Statesman was constantly urging him to join the publication and he promised that he could continue with his theatre activities. Patel finally relented and joined the paper and also set up the Parsi Syndicate Group, encouraging the world of comedies and thrillers in the Mumbai theatre stage.

Patel also had a regular feature in a leading newspaper. In one of his columns, he wrote: “I may not be the toast of the nation anymore but I can send a message to all 80 plus men and women that ‘Life also begins at eighty’.”