While most support it, a small section of orthodox Parsis are in opposition claiming the body belongs to god.

By Jyoti Shelar | Mumbai Mirror

A Parsi high priest’s appeal to donate organs has the community debating yet again – while a majority are in favour, a small section questions the right to donate parts citing the orthodox belief that the body belongs to god, and must be offered back to him in its entirity.

High Priest Khurshed Dastur, who is with the Udvada fire temple in Gujarat, cited the case of 21-yearold Hvovi Minocherhomji, a Parsi girl who made headlines in June when traffic police cleared busy roads to ferry a donor’s heart she was waiting for.

“The girl is recuperating now and she has got an all-new life. Isn’t that something to consider? When the community is open in accepting organs, then they should be open in donating organs too,” Dastur told Mumbai Mirror on Wednesday.

“I simply made an appeal on humanitarian grounds. No religion talks about organ donation but it is aneed today,” said Dastur who first spoke openly about organ donation two years ago when he performed the Navjote ceremony of a blind Parsi boy.

His most recent appeal was made last month in Sanjan, Gujarat while he was addressing the community on Sanjan Day, which marks the Parsis’ arrival in Sanjan after fleeing from Iran.

Dastur’s plea found support from Bombay Parsi Punchayet chairman Dinshaw Mehta. “I completely support Dastur in this. If we can take organs then we can give them too. This is the best form of charity,” said Mehta.

According to Dastur, only a small section of Parsis is against donating organs. Orthodox Parsis believe that the body belongs to god and must be given back to him unblemished. Another belief holds that if a Parsi donates his eyes, he will not be able to walk the bridge to heaven and may fall to hell due to his blindness.

After Dastur’s appeal, a priest from Mumbai, Ervad Marzban Hathiram, wrote in his blog that charity is possible only with that which is ours, not that which belongs to someone else.

“If my neighbour is a very rich man I cannot appropriate his wealth, distribute it among the poor and call it charity. That would be akin to robbing Peter to pay Paul. The moot question is this – is the human body ours, or does it belong to God? Real charity does not lie in giving away something when we no longer need it – real charity means giving away something even though we may need it,” he said.

The post Parsis debate priest’s organ donation appeal appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Beheroze Shroff, a Bombay soul now exploring foreign shores, was fascinated by the vibrant history of the African diaspora. What we gained out of it are some exceptional documentaries

On December 10, 2014 the United Nations will launch the Decade for People of African Descent (Jan 2015-Dec 2024).

By Eunice de Souza | Times Of India

“The first global African diaspora occurred when some of the ancestors of all human beings migrated out of Africa, the birthplace of humanity,“ says Dr Sheila Walker, distinguished African American anthropologist who was here recently to visit some Sidi communities. She has researched many of the major areas of the global diaspora, but became interested in aspects of the diaspora in India after being “intrigued“ by the documentary films made by Beheroze Shroff, who is from Mumbai, but is now on the staff of the University of California, Irvine.

As always, Beheroze, who comes to India once a year for her research, was full of interesting details with which I was not familiar. For instance, she told me about a paper presented at the October conference by Rose Llewellyn Jones, which concerned the presence of Africans in Lucknow. In 1798, Lord Cornwallis banned slavery in India, but Arab traders in the 1830s continued to bring Africans to Lucknow in covered wagons. Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Lucknow had a Habshi Risalla regiment in which about 1,200 Africans had registered.He also had a regiment of African women, called Gulabi Platoon, and he used to ride with them.This regiment took up arms against the British in 1857.

Both Beheroze and Sheila Walker visited Hyderabad recently, to interview contemporary descendants of the African Cavalry Guards of the Nizam of Hyderabad. And then, of course there is Malik Ambar, Nawab of Janjira, also a Sidi, who married a young woman from a distinguished family in Mumbai.

I don’t know what Janjira is like now, but when I visited it with friends, it was rather scruffy. All I can remember of the “palace“ is a motheaten stuffed tiger, and rows of government tourist bungalows which consisted of one-room cement blocks, which, curiously, were built to face each other and not the sea. (We made up for all this with the prawns we bought and cooked).

Beheroze started making documentary films in the 1990s, but her family (Parsi Zorastrians) have been associated with the shrine of Bava Gor since the 1950s. Bava Gor is the saint venerated by the Sidis of Gujarat. He is said to have been an agate merchant who came to India about eight hundred years ago. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a shrine dedicated to him in Kurla, Mumbai.

She tells me that the younger generation of Sidis want to do new things, such as acquiring degrees in Business Management, Law, Chartered Accountancy. One young man, Jujhe, is already a successful model for Pepe Jeans.

What is interesting about Beheroze’s documentaries is that she never imposes a voice or a heory on them. She lets them talk for themselves. No chatter about whether they should be allowed to join the “mainstream“ or remain ethnic curiosities, doing the occasional dance for ourists and others. (Remember those debates about the various tribes of Madhya Pradesh and other Central Indian states?) In addition, she, like many independent ilm-makers, has had acute financial problems.Funding occasionally comes with strings at ached, unmentioned earlier -the familiar Indian phenomenon of Indian academics trying o latch onto work they haven’t done. I hope hat Indians interested in Indian culture will help finance her, and not spend their time burn ng libraries or gifting each other yachts and jets.

In the meantime, do look out for Vol 9 of UNESCO’s “General History of Africa,“ edited by Dr Sheila Walker as part of the celebrations.

The post Beheroze Shroff: Decade of African diaspora appeared on Parsi Khabar.

In her spartan office, Dhun Daraius Bagli is answering the third call in half an hour. The query is the same. So is her answer. “Sorry, we are full for December,” says Bagli, putting down the receiver. Bagli manages the Parsi Dharamshala at Parsi Anjuman near Delhi Gate — the hub of the community’s activities, festivals and events in the Capital for the past 60 years.

Article by Manoj Sharma, Hindustan Times

While Bagli is happy that the dharamshala — a transit point for Parsis travelling in North India from all over India — is always full, she laments that the community in the Capital is shrinking fast. Today, Delhi has only about 250 Parsi Zoroastrians.

In fact, very few can talk about the community’s decline in Delhi with the authority of Bagli, who has been living at the dharamshala since 1958. “I was 22 when I first visited the place with a few friends from Bombay, met the priest of the fire temple and fell in love with him. We got married and I shifted here. The place has been my universe ever since,” says Bagli, 82. The city’s Parsis call her the backbone of the community.

The dharamshala in Delhi is the only Parsi guest house that allows non-Parsi spouses to stay, though the temple is not open to them.

Bagli gets nostalgic as she talks about the 1960s and 70s. “There were a few thousand Parsis in Delhi then; today there are a few hundreds. We used to have gala functions; we still hold them but the number of people attending has been dwindling fast,” says Bagli, dressed in a light-blue sari with a high-neck blouse, her grey hair cut short. An Asho Farohar (the winged angel) adorns her sari. Her office has a cabinet with framed family pictures, novels, books on Zoroastrianism and myriad souvenirs.

Formed in 1925, the Delhi Parsi Anjuman (DPA) today has about 750 members, but a lot of them are non-Parsi spouses and children. They gather at Parsi Anjuman during functions and festivals such as Jamshedi Navroz, Gahambar, Parsi New Year and the anniversary of the fire temple – one-of-its-kind in north India.

A few years back, Bagli started a kitchen on Thursdays and Sundays to introduce Parsi food to non-Parsis. “A lot of non-Parsis call and book in advance. This is a small attempt to keep Parsi culture alive,” she says.

Bagli’s husband died in 1979, and now her son, Ervad Cawas Bagli, is the priest of the fire temple. He keeps the holy fire, which has been burning for the past five decades, alive — tending to it four times a day.

But Dr Shernaz Cama perhaps has a tougher job in hand – stabilising the declining numbers of the community. Cama is part of the four-member team driving the much-talked about ‘Jio Parsi’ campaign launched by the ministry of minority affairs to stem the declining numbers of the community in collaboration with the Parzor Foundation, the Bombay Parsi Panchayat and local Anjumans.

An aggressive advertisement campaign was launched on November 10, exhorting Parsis to marry within the community and procreate has gone viral on the internet. “Have a child quickly after marriage, because the child needs parents, not parents who act like grandparents”; “Be responsible. Don’t use a condom tonight”; ‘Isn’t it time you broke up with your mom?” are some of the catchphrases of the campaign.

“The idea behind this satirical campaign is to provoke the community out of its complacency, to help it break free from the stereotypes associated with it. The campaign is beginning to have its effect; it has made many within the community angry at the prevailing state of affairs,” says Cama, who teaches at Lady Shri Ram College and is a member of the executive council of the Parzor Foundation, which works for the preservation of the Zoroastrian heritage.

Cama says the country today has about 50,000 Parsis. Of them, 30% are unmarried, 30% are 75 years of age and 30% do not have children. The stereotypes associated with the community, she says, are by and large, true. “If you are 45 and unmarried, you are considered young in the Parsi community; and it is not unusual to see 70-year-old siblings living together, unmarried without any family support. It is a myth that all Parsis are rich and Oxford-educated,” says Cama. “We have a very few joint families. The problem is we were westernized too fast. Bringing back family values is also part of the Jio Parsi campaign”.

No wonder then, the Parsi Anjuman Hall in Delhi serves as a venue of workshops for children, parents and grandparents. The children are given lessons in Parsi religion, history, and culture. “We even organise workshop for grandparents who tend to feel that grandchildren are not their responsibility,” says Cama.

Many like Yasmin Jalnawala, 75, a guest at the Parsi Dharamshala who is in Delhi to attend an inter-community wedding, blame the dwindling numbers of Zoroastrians on young Parsis increasingly marrying outside the community. “In our time, no one did so. If parents did not agree, you had no choice but to fall in line. Tension appears whenever a Parsi girls marries a non-Parsi; in a mixed marriage, the non-Parsi parent does not often agree to Navjot, the initiation ceremony of the child,” says Jalnawala.

Compounding the problem in Delhi is the fact that the city’s Parsis have always been a floating population and so their numbers have never been stable, says Ava Khullar, vice-president, Delhi Parsi Anjuman. “But Delhi’s Parsis are small but a well-connected community; they are more prosperous than those in Mumbai. We are hopeful that the Jio Parsi campaign will make a difference,” says Khullar.

“If we could convince the young married Parsi couples to have two children, we can stabilise our dwindling population,” says Cama.

The post Parsis : A Community and a battle for survival appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Kaiyan Mistree and Shireen Havewala are not very different from other young professional couples living in Mumbai. He is an architect and she is a banker. They are both serious-minded 20-somethings. He is communicative, and she is measured; he is robust, and she is trim. They get on well together. They met through common friends, discovered common interests and decided to get engaged. But, there is one way in which Kaiyan and Shireen are distinctive from other young couples. They have decided to marry early, and have, possibly, a large brood of children. They are both equally committed to saving the Parsi community, whose future is threatened by falling numbers.

Article By Sunaina Kumar | The OPEN

“We’d like to have four kids at least,” says Kaiyan. “I promised my mother six and she promised me in turn that she’ll take care of them and I’ll just have to see them on weekends,” he says with a laugh. This conversation takes place on a Sunday morning at Bombay Gymkhana, which is packed to the rafters with the elderly elite of the city who are here for a bridge tournament.

Shireen is a little sceptical, though. “Let’s wait and watch,” she says, “Having children is also an expensive proposition.” He counters, “In the past, Parsis used to have large families and that can be a wonderful thing.” He sees that as a solution to the Parsi problem. While growing up, all they would hear from their elders was the constant lament: ‘We’re dying out, we’re dying out.’

Kaiyan is the son of Khojeste Mistree, an eminent Zoroastrian scholar. “From the very beginning, my parents told me, ‘It is your responsibility to protect your community, and it is you and you alone who can do it, so you have to marry a Parsi’,” he says. Shireen, on the other hand, questioned the edict that was passed on to her by her family at first, that she must marry a Parsi boy. She struggled with it, however; and once she was sure she would not want to give up on the Zoroastrian way of life, she realised that marrying a non-Parsi was not an option. “I love being a Parsi, it’s a privilege. People associate us with being honest, charitable and upright. I’m very proud of that,” she says. Their passion for their community has led them to start a project called Zoroastrian Return to Roots, which combines religion and culture with tourism, for Zoroastrians around the world. The idea, she says, is to make Zoroastrianism cool for young people.

It is the young who are questioning the set-in-stone tenets of Parsi life. What does it mean to find love, to marry and have children, when you’re a young Parsi? Can the community coax its youth towards matrimony, endogamy and reproduction? Can it ask its women to bear two, three, more children? Does self come first or community, or a fine balance between both? These are some of the questions that young Parsis are grappling with.

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Jumjoji, which translates into ‘let’s go eat’ in Gujarati, is a popular Parsi diner in Bandra. On its walls are sepia-toned photographs of Parsi gatherings and sombre-faced portraits of icons like JRD Tata and Sam Manekshaw. The menu is an amusing read, dishes named after kin and kith from whom the recipes have apparently been borrowed: ‘Aunty Freni’s Dhansak’, ‘Zenobia Zorabian’s Lagan nu Custard’, ‘Allu Gazder’s Patra ni Machi’. At the bottom of the menu, written in uppercase letters and also put up on the wall is the disclaimer: ‘Stocks available till Parsis last’. True to form, Parsis will never let a chance slip by to make an in-joke, or any joke. It’s odd, but almost appropriate, that a quip on a restaurant menu sums up the feverish anxiety, the apocalypse-now sentiment that grips the community.

‘Suddenly in the last ten years people have woken up that along with the Great Indian Bustard, the tiger, the one-horned rhino, the Parsi is also dwindling,’ Cyrus Broacha, another Parsi with a funny bone, says in Qissa-e-Parsi, a 2014 documentary that explores the history of the community and the current demographic crisis.

Through strands of popular culture, we find echoes of the ever-present Parsi fear of slowly fading away. The Last Parsi, a recent solo act by young stand-up comic Danesh Irani (the poster shows him with a vulture on his head), mines this very threat of extinction for comedy. In the past few weeks, the community seems to have reached a tipping point, highlighted by the ‘Jiyo Parsi’ advertising campaign. But, the fact is, Parsis have long been at this place. In Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry’s 2002 novel, Dr Fritter, a character who is often preoccupied with death, says, “Demographics show we’ll be extinct in fifty years. Maybe it’s the best thing. What’s the use of having spineless weaklings walking around, Parsi in name only.” “If, if, if,” says Dr Fritter, “If we are meant to die out, nothing will save us.” “Yes,” says Inspector Masalavala, “But it will be a loss to the whole world. When a culture vanishes, humanity is the loser.”

The ‘Jiyo Parsi’ scheme is a Parsi breeding programme, under which the Central Government will disburse Rs 10 crore as financial aid for Parsi couples facing infertility. It was designed with certain figures in mind that every Parsi can spout easily: there are about 69,000 Parsis in India (according to the 2001 census), 800 deaths for every 200 births a year, and the community’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88, which is less than one child per couple. The scheme has been operational for a year, three babies have been born so far, and 20 more are on the way. It is the second part of the scheme, under ‘advocacy and counselling’, advising Parsi youth and their families to marry and procreate early, that has led to all the disquiet in the community. It has brought forth the old feuds that plague Parsis, the most argumentative perhaps of all Indians (‘Where there are two Parsis, there are three anjumans’, is an old saying on the tendency of Parsis to disagree with one another), over the question of intermarriage and that of accepting the children of women who marry non-Parsis as Parsis.

The ‘Jiyo Parsi’ advertising campaign is a study in provocation. Apart from the ads that have been put out, like the one where Dadar Parsi Colony is rechristened Dadar Hindu Colony, there are many that nudge young Parsis to step up for the community, to have not one but two, preferably three, children. Here are some of the advisories: ‘Have a child quickly after marriage. Because a child needs parents, not parents who act like grandparents’, ‘In earlier times some families were cricket teams, surely you can manage a carrom foursome?’ ‘Who will be snooty about being superior, if you don’t have kids?’

Some young Parsi women are not amused. Simin Patel, a PhD student at the University of Oxford and the daughter of Jehangir Patel, editor of the bimonthly Parsiana, has been leading a campaign of outrage against ‘Jiyo Parsi’: “I am opposed to the premise of the programme, I see it as a state-sponsored system of breeding racially pure children. Studies have shown that our demographic decline is terminal, nothing can be done to reverse it, except give up on race purity.” Patel, who is 30 and single, says that such messages put undue pressure on women. “Can we ask women to be baby- making machines? It takes us back by more than a hundred years.”

Shernaz Cama, an academic and the founder of Parzor, a Parsi heritage project, has devised the Jiyo Parsi scheme along with the government. She was among the first to record the ‘deserted village syndrome’ in the early 2000s, where entire Parsi villages in South Gujarat were found empty, with the young migrating and the old dying. She says that the community needs to be brought back from the brink before it is too late, even if it means provoking some people and putting pressure on the young. Cama who has one son, like many middle-aged Parsis, says she would choose differently if she could now.

A reiteration of this idea, of women having multiple children to repopulate the community is found in Mistry’s fiction. Inspector Masalavala has this recommendation: ‘I have two suggestions. First, our youth must be prohibited from going beyond a bachelor’s degree. Give them cash incentives to study less. And those who want to do post-graduate studies, tell them they will get no funding from panchayat unless they sign a contract to have as many children as the number of people over age fifty in their family. Maximum of seven—we don’t want to spoil the health of our young women.’

Dinyar Patel, a researcher of Parsi history at Harvard, says that the demographic crisis is now existential in nature. Over email, he says: ‘Parsis are well aware that their numbers are declining, and I think it has reached a point, now, where it has become a visible fact. However, most Parsis are not aware of the really significant reasons for our population decline— non-marriage and late marriage. As demographer Ketayun Gould notes in her study, ‘The proportionate number of single people in the community might be one of the highest in the world’.’

As the solution to the dwindling numbers seems to lie in matrimony, the Parsi community, led by its elders, perseveres in arranging marriages for the young. Almost 30 per cent of the population is unmarried, a result of education and progress, and in some cases simply because it is so difficult to find a spouse within the community.

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Arnavaz Mistry and Zarine Havewala are in charge of the matrimonial bureau of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), which was set up in 2010 to tackle the marriage crisis. They have not been doing very well— only 20 marriages have taken place in four years. “To save ourselves, we need each couple to have four children at least. Maybe we can get them to sign contracts,” says Arnavaz Mistry laughingly. Mistry is a BPP trustee and lives by herself in a spacious old-world flat in Dadar Parsi Colony. With her hair cut short, her manner boisterous, she would strike anyone as a Parsi lady. Havewala, however, is less distinguishable as a Parsi. The two matchmakers are an amended version of the traditional Parsi ‘aunties’, intrepid women who would catch unsuspecting young people at social gatherings and try bringing them together.

In a bid to attract young people, the bureau organises matrimonial meet-ups in the form of cultural events and parties. It’s not easy work, attracting the young. At the last meet-up held in November, which had a workshop on grooming (mostly for boys, says Mistry), only 22 people turned up. When they started, they used to get nearly 100 people. There are always more men than women. “Parsi girls are too embarrassed to turn up for ‘matrimonial’ meet-ups. They always say, ‘What if our friends find out?’” says Havewala. “Those who come to us are serious about marrying Parsis, but if they can’t find anyone after a few years, then it’s natural they will look beyond the community. Everyone cannot think about the social cause, they have to think about their own lives, and we understand that.”

Khushnood Viccaji is a 49-year-old Parsi who works as an infotech consultant, but has made marriage his life’s work. Along with two other friends, he runs Parsimatrimonials.com, a free website for Zoroastrians that started in the 90s, and has recently set up a page on Facebook with about 1,500 active users. Despite a demanding job, Viccaji devotes a lot of his time to the website. “A lot of young people are focused on moving up in life, on materialistic aspirations and marriage takes a backseat, but we are so small in numbers that it has a huge impact. We advise the young, ‘Marry not just for yourself, but for the community, to take the generation forward’.” He brooks no argument when it comes to intermarriage. “People might say ‘move with the times’, but from a religious point of view, it is unacceptable. When you grow up in a Parsi family, you know that it is a sin to marry out.”

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Viccaji represents the conservative voice of the community, which is also its dominant voice. On the other side are those who believe that a government fund will not save Parsis, and that the problem lies in the stance of racial purity. Filmmaker Sooni Taraporevala, who has written a book on Zoroastrians (Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India) is among the few notable names advocating a need for reform from within, asking Parsis to move from a race-based to a faith-based identity as Zoroastrians around the world have done. As she once said in an interview: “Young Parsis now complain that the community, especially in Bombay, has cornered itself into a ghetto to guard ‘race purity’. But in my experience, it’s the youngsters themselves who’ve enlisted to do this zealous guarding, brainwashed into believing that the religion and community is threatened from outside—when actually the threat comes from within.” While many young Parsis are open to discussing the need for reform, there is an equally large number that is dead set against the idea. One thought binds them all: they look at the legacy of their forefathers, many of them accomplished industrialists, shipbuilders and philanthropists who helped establish the foundation of modern India, as Mistry has written, and they know that the least they can do is simply survive.

As the old-fashioned way of matchmaking finds few takers among singles, the young, those who see themselves as saviours of the community, have had to step in, adapting the old ways to the new. One such attempt is the Bombay Parsi Punchayet’s youth group, ZYNG (Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation), which uses new-age methods like movie screenings, dance workshops, speed dating and adventure games, in the hope that love will strike.

Kareeshma Wadia and Hoshedar Havewala are a young couple who got married last year after meeting in Dubai at the World Zoroastrian Congress, a community event. They are both from Mumbai: she is a dentist and he is a lawyer. Sitting side by a side at a coffee shop in Juhu, they narrate the story of how they got hitched. Kareeshma had been meeting Parsi boys in Mumbai for some time, but nothing had clicked, so she was sent to attend the Congress by her family with the idea of meeting someone eligible. “I was told that it’s my duty to find a Parsi spouse and I was lucky that I did. But, for those women who can’t, it’s not easy,” says Kareeshma. “Events like the one we met at are mating season for Parsis. Some are there to seriously look for partners and some are there to just meet new people,” says Hoshedar, who belongs to the latter group. They ended up together, although the two do not share the same view on the Parsi demographic crisis. Kareeshma is self- confessedly unconcerned about the cause, while Hoshedar is committed to the idea of safeguarding the Parsi identity and has been a volunteer with ZYNG. He says, “To survive, we have to marry, which is why I’m always fixing up my friends. I think there is a kaajwali bai (matchmaker) in every Parsi.”

As things stand, Parsis, the Zoroastrians of India, find themselves stuck between modernity and a hard place.

The post Baby, Come and Save Us appeared on Parsi Khabar.

‘The Towers of Silence’ explores the fundamental question faced by every small community, namely how to preserve one’s traditions in a rapidly changing and modernizing world. The film focuses on the story of the ten-year-old Dinshah Magol and the decision he has to take between following his fate in becoming the priest of his Zoroastrian community, thus preserving them from extinction, or pursuing his dream of one day becoming an engineer. The expectations of the whole community rest on his small shoulders as he contemplates this decision while waiting to grow tall enough to perform the key rituals to potentially become the world’s youngest Zoroastrian priest in living memory.

Produced by Schadenfreude Films

Producer/Co -Director: Magnus Briem

Director : Fani Behraki

Camera: Pavlos Roufos, Eleni Zervopoulou

Editing: Pavlos Roufos

Sound Engineer: Fondas Kontopoulos

Video Link: http://youtu.be/dMXvsg1bN-s

The post Towers of Silence: Official Trailer appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The book was an accidental baby. But being pro-choice (for books, at any rate) the author would not abort it, and raised it with love, satire and laughter. When the book was ready, it was sent off into the big bad world, where it is currently battling demons, sex fiends, annoying teenagers, vacuous celebrities, genuine geniuses, book-haters and book aficionados. Please help the baby.

You can download an extract of The Travelling Parsi here.

The Unbelievable Parsiness of Things (with apologies to Milan Kundera) comes from being born a Parsi, knowing Parsis and passing on the Parsiness.

The protagonist leading the narrative through these short stories, is a nine year-old smarty pants Parsi girl. It is through her eyes that the reader is informed about the Parsi community, that is spread globally but mainly concentrated in Bombay. Annoyed that even the Internet tries to correct the word ‘Parsi’ to Paris, she begins to tell the world why the Parsis should be known, understood and remembered.

Enjoy it, love it, hate it, ridicule it but don’t ignore it. They’re a dying breed. Please help pollinate.

Kamal F. Sunavala is a writer based physically in Singapore and Dubai but mentally in Prague, Bombay, London or any aesthetic book cafe with good coffee. She lives with her partner (business and personal; isn’t that convenient), his perfume collection and her book collection.

She began as a writer and hopefully, will end as one. In between she’s been a lawyer, teacher, actress, director, content strategist (whatever that pretentious nonsense means), traveller and coffee connoisseur. At one time, she held the prestigious position of being the only Parsi living in Prague.

The Travelling Parsi is her third book.

Website: http://thetravellingparsi.com/

The post The Travelling Parsi by Kamal F. Sunavala appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Taking the dazzling textile tradition of the culturally-rich Parsis to a wider audience, young designer Ashdeen Z Lilaowala dons several hats.

Article By Janani Sampath | The New Indian Express

An author and curator, Lilaowala, who is a graduate in Textile Design from National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, was in the city recently, to be part of the Crafts Council of India’s 50th year exhibition, alongside famous names like Pheroza Godrej, distinguished author, curator and philanthropist and Jasleen Dhamija, an expert in India’s handicraft and handloom industry.

After a detailed research project on Parsi embroidery that he undertook for the Ministry of Textiles, Lilaowala also held training workshops in Ahmedabad, Navsari, Mumbai and Delhi. Under these workshops, more than 120 craftspersons were taught the Parsi and Gara embroidery. He is also the author of the book Threads of Continuity – The Zoroastrian Craft of Kusti Weaving, which was launched at the World Zoroastrian Congress 2013.

Earning the coveted title of the ‘Hottest design talent of 2013’, Lilaowala also launched the label Ashdeen a couple of years ago. With his exquisite designs of the age-old Parsi Gara embroidery, offering a spin on the ancient technique, he has taken to the craft to creative heights. In the recent exhibition in the city, Lilaowala displayed a range of saris, cocktail dresses and gowns with handcrafted embroidery. City Express caught up with the Delhi-based designer to talk about his efforts to take the art that is pictorial, colourful, to a larger audience, contemporising designs and how Chennai’s undying romance with the sari has floored him.

Gara Tales

Apart from the traditional Parsi saris, there is a range of Western wear that have inspired by the same technique used in saris. The idea is to contemporise the rich designs that have been passed down generations for many years now. However, the traditional saris are also a part of the collection. It is to show how versatile the old technique of embroidery  that comprises designs of birds and flowers can be.

Chennai Chronicles

This is actually my second trip to Chennai in just a few months. The first was again for the CCI’s exhibition in September this year. Both the trips have been extremely enriching and rewarding for me as a designer.  I have been very fortunate to have such a rousing welcome in this city. It is so wonderful to see that the sari is still a prized possession for many Chennaiites and they just can’t seem to get enough of it.

For the Non-Parsis

While the embroidery work is an integral part of the Parsi culture and it is most worn by the women in the community, I propose to take the designs to a wider audience. Chennai, therefore, has been an ideal place for me to showcase the designs. That is why the Parsi community being a small one in the city doesn’t bother me. True to that, most of them who have chosen to adorn the designs are non-Parsi women.  The best part is the women here know their saris well. They don’t look for anything blingy and they have a great sense of colour and proportion. Their informed outlook towards the fabric and the craft makes the whole sojourn all the more exciting.

Precious Pashmina

I am a great admirer of the Pashmina shawl that is woven by Kashmiri craftsmen. The intricate designs and their motifs are fine examples of aesthetic designing.

Waiting to Return

This whole collection was a mix of materials that suit the climate here. So, the taste and preferences of the people here have been at the centre while planning it. Working with the CCI that is based here has been a great pleasure. They have been extremely helpful in promoting the craft and are a dedicated group.  I look forward to returning with my designs.

The post Ashdeen Lilaowala: I am Floored by the City’s Love for Saris appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Tally Beck Contemporary will present a group exhibition of contemporary works that incorporate calligraphy from Iran. Animating the Word: The Legacy of Iran’s Minority Calligraphic Traditions will open on Wednesday, December 10 and run until December 30. The opening reception on December 10 will begin at 6:00 pm and run until 9:00 pm.

While Persian calligraphy and artwork is more familiar to most audiences, there are other rich traditions of calligraphy in the minority cultures of Iran. These traditions have inspired a genre of contemporary art that incorporates the written languages and enriches the visual expression of these peoples.

Zoroastrian work by Kourosh Vafadari

For this exhibition, Tally Beck Contemporary will be exhibiting work by Ani Babaian (Armenian), Hannibal Alkhas (Assyrian), Solayman Sassoon (Jewish), Siamak Jamshidizadeh, Pooneh Oshidari, and Kourosh Vafadari (Zoroastrian).

Inspirational concept for this unique show of calligraphy from Iran comes from Richard N. Frye (1920-2014), the first holder of the Aga Khan Professorship in Iranian Studies at Harvard University. Richard Frye, an enthusiastic language learner, enjoyed rendering short Persian poems in his elegant hand. He also had a deep appreciation of minority languages of Iran and the Middle East, including those represented in this show as well as others written in modified forms of the Arabic alphabet. This show is dedicated to his memory.

Animating the Word

The Legacy of Iran’s Minority Calligraphic Traditions

December 10 – 30, 2014 – New York

Iran, like other geographic state entities formed on the basis of colonial negotiations in the 19th century, contains several significant historically indigenous religious groups: Zoroastrians, Jews, Assyrians and Armenians. These four groups each have distinctive orthographic traditions bound to their religious traditions and ethnic linguistic heritage.

A land that has come to represent the rise of Islamic governance during the late 20th century, nonetheless the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued a measure of the recognition of the presence of its historic non-Muslim minorities through its constitution, revised in 1980 under more restrictive interpretation than when the country first adopted a constitution in 1908.

First the Zoroastrian community, then the Jewish and Assyrian, have long roots in Iranian culture dating to the original Imperial Iran of the Achaemenids. The well-documented Armenian displacement from the Transcaucasian region of Julfa to the Isphahan of the Safavids during the 16th century marked a period of growth and influence for this community that has continued to mark it as the significant indigenous Christian presence in the country.

Despite the decline of minorities in the demographic percentage of the IRI total population in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, their continued representation in the national legislature (Majlis), their private schools and cultural associations, in Tehran in particular, allow maintenance of language and culture. Acculturated to Persian through the compulsory public educational system since 1928, bilingualism among Assyrians and Armenians is widespread. The religious language of Zoroastrians (Avestan, a Middle Iranian language) and of the Jews (Hebrew), has long become Persian with the exception of the Aramaic speaking Jewish communities living in the eastern Zagros towns from Sanandaj to Urmiah. The Jews of Iran (known as Kalimi) when they wrote Persian used the Hebrew alphabet as did the Aramaic speaking Jews.

Religious orthographies, thus, enjoy extensive usage within these four communities. The strong calligraphic of Persian, written in a modified Arabic alphabet since the early Islamic period, influenced these orthographies in two important ways: an appreciation of stylized calligraphy and the incorporation of calligraphy into manuscripts that has translated into calligraphy as an integral part of contemporary art.

-Dr. Eden Naby

http://tallybeckcontemporary.com/

The post Animating The Word: Legacy of Iran’s Minority Calligraphic Traditions. appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The Indian Memory Project is a fantastic website that curates memories. They have a wonderful post by father daughter duo Rumi and Sooni Taraporevala about picnics at Juhu Beach.

This photograph of our family was taken by my youngest kaka (uncle) Shapoor at Juhu Beach. We had all gone out to Juhu beach for a picnic, outside the Palm Grove hotel (now Ramada Plaza Palm Grove). It was a regular haunt for picnics and we used to look forward to our day out for weeks. The beach was totally un-spoilt and had only a few small shacks around. Now I wouldn’t go even if someone paid me for it.

I remember, we would take the train from Grant Road to Santa Cruz and then take a bus to Juhu beach. At that time the Bombay trains were not called Western or Central railways. The Western line was called BB & CI – Bombay Baroda and Central India Railways and the Central line was called GIP – Great Indian Peninsula Railway. I don’t remember what we would do though, I think mainly chatter, run around, eat and some of us swam. Picnic lunches were fun, sometimes they were large tiffins full of Pork Vindaloo. It was very tasty.

In the middle wearing a white dress is Freny, now my beautiful wife, and on her left is me. Freny and I are also first cousins, our fathers were real brothers. Like some other communities in India, in Parsis too, marriage between cousins is allowed. Though we weren’t an arranged match, we just fell in love with each other. She was beautiful. I think even at this picnic I was eyeing her. Our parents must have noticed and declared that we must be made into a match. There was no ‘dating’ at the time, so the way I would get to meet her was – when she would be attending the girl guides meeting, I would go and fetch her back. We would walk through Azad Maidan and at Churchgate take the train to Grant road. At the time she used to live at Sleater Road. A lot of boys were after her, she was a beautiful girl you know, but I got her.

Continue reading the entire post at : The Indian Memory Project

The post Picnics at Juhu Beach: Indian Memory Project appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Persis Kamakhan had been trying to have a child for nine years.

After an attempt at in-vitro fertilization in 2010 didn’t work, Ms. Kamakhan says she had all but given up — IVF was unaffordable on her husband’s monthly income of $400.

Article by Shanoor Seervai | The Wall Street Journal

Then Ms. Kamakhan, 35, learned about Jiyo Parsi, a $1.6 million program to help India’s minority Parsi community have more children and reverse its rapid population decline. Through this program, funded by India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs, couples who need help conceiving can receive free or subsidized medical treatment.

Research identifies low fertility, late and childless marriages, inter-marriage and divorce as some of the reasons that Parsis — Zoroastrians who emigrated from Persia to India more than a thousand years ago — are one of the only communities outside Europe with dwindling numbers. The Parsis have shrunk from 114,000 in the 1950s to 69,000 in 2001, or 0.007% of India’s population, according to the latest-available census data.

The Jiyo Parsi program’s witty but controversial ad campaign, launched last month, takes on these challenges by playing off common stereotypes about this tiny but influential community.

“Isn’t it time you broke up with your mom?” asks an advertisement directed at Parsi men, many of whom remain very close to their mothers well into adulthood, creators say.

Another ad suggests that a neighborhood called Dadar Parsi Colony could be renamed Hindu Colony “if you don’t get married and have kids.”

“I saw the humorous side, but it should have been a bit more subtle… a lot of people have taken offense,” said Naheed Contractor, a 27-year-old public relations professional based in Mumbai.

Ms. Contractor, who doesn’t consider herself a practicing Parsi but was born into the community, says she doesn’t want to see the Parsis die out. But she doesn’t intend to marry early, or choose her partner based on religion.

“You end up with who you end up with,” said Ms. Contractor.

The Parsi community’s exclusiveness is also contributing to its decline, she said. Conversion is forbidden, non-Parsis are not allowed inside places of worship, and intermarriage with members of other faiths and communities is frowned upon.

One ad in the Jiyo Parsi campaign says, “Who will be snooty about being superior, if you don’t have kids?”

“If you want the religion to progress, you can’t be so stuck-up,” said Ms. Contractor.

The ad campaign has “shock value to make us realize that if we don’t change our attitude, we will not be normal as a community,” said Shernaz Cama, director of the Parzor Foundation, a community organization associated with Jiyo Parsi. More than 30% of Parsis never marry, and each Parsi woman of child-bearing age has less than one child. The community’s fertility rate is 0.8, compared to a national rate of 2.5 children per woman, according to the World Bank.

The program is aimed at low-income and middle-class Parsis who wouldn’t be able to afford expensive medical treatment like IVF, which could cost up to 500,000 rupees, around $8,000, said Ms. Cama.

“There’s a misconception that all Parsis are wealthy,” she said, adding that many Parsi families in villages in the western state of Gujarat who don’t have access to computers have asked for information about the program via regular post.

The program hopes to facilitate at least 200 births in the 5 years it has funding from India’s federal government. Ten children were born through the program in 2014, including one pair of twins, said Ms. Cama.

For Ms. Kamakhan, who gave birth to her first daughter, Hufriya, in October and is getting accustomed to being woken at 4 a.m. by her cries, the Jiyo Parsi program has changed her life.

“The first time I held her, it was like I had an angel in my hands,” she said.

After years of being shunned and excluded from auspicious events like weddings because she was childless, Ms. Kamakhan says “it feels amazing to be a mother.”

The post How the Government-Funded Parsi Fertility Scheme Works appeared on Parsi Khabar.

At the Annual General Meeting and Gala Dinner of the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce, three Zarathushtis all from the USA, won the three awards presented.

Edul Daver of New Jersey USA won the 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Nina Godiwalla won the 2014 Professional of the Year Award. Shirin Kumaana-Wadia (a Parsi Khabar co-founder) won the Young Professional/Entrepreneur Award for 2014.

The Awards were presented to Edul and Shirin by Lord Karan Bilimoria. Nina could not attend due to prior commitments.

The Gala Dinner at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dubai began with a warm welcome by WZCC Secretary Behroze Daruwalla. Minocher Patel, a public motivational speaker then gave a wonderful talk about what Happiness means to all of us and many spend all their lives striving to achieve it, without realizing that it is in the now and here. Fitness guru Mickey Mehta spoke about how living healthy was a holisitc process, both of body and mind.

Then Chief Guest of the evening Lord Karan Bilimoria spoke of his journey as an entrepreneur and used his journey with Cobra beer to emphasize some of the finer points of entrepreneurship and running businesses.

This was followed by the much awaited awards ceremony.

Edul Daver lives in New Jersey. Over an illustrious career spanning a few decades he started with and then finally became the owner of a metal coating company, one of the largest in the US. In his response to the award, Edul spoke of the unflinching support of his wife Niloufer as the backbone of a successful entrepreneurial journey. More about Edul here

Nina Godiwalla lives in Texas. After a path breaking successful career at Morgan Stanley, she wrote a very successful book called Suits that charted her journey in Wall Street, a very male dominated field of work.

Shirin Kumaana-Wadia lives in New York. As a young professional Shirin has been involved in design projects all over the world focusing in hospitality design. She also started her own design firm Mazda Design that pursues unique design projects in the USA and India. She is also into Salsa and other Latin dances and is a photographer with recent exhibitions in India and upcoming ones in 2015. Shirin spoke about how design in all walks of life can help everyone from individuals at the single scale to cities, nations and mankind itself at the collective level. More about Shirin here

The event ended with a vote of thanks to the WZCC executives and to the organizers of Enterprise Dubai 2014.

The post Zarathushtis from America Win all WZCC Global Awards for 2014 appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Enterprise Dubai 2014 is a two day event planned by the Zarathushtis of Dubai to highlight the entrepreneurial opportunities in the region, and specifically the city of Dubai. Over two days, leaders of industry and business are gathering to discuss and debate their journeys into running their own businesses. And it also provides those in the audience with opportunities to learn about setting up their own businesses in Dubai and the UAE.

The event got underway on Friday December 19th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dubai. Over 500 attendees, sponsors, and invited guests from industry and government witnessed a great opening ceremony. Films about Dubai and its superlatives, opportunities and possibilities introduced the city to the audience. The ceremonial lighting of the lamp was done in the presences of H.E. Mirza representing the local government and other dignitaries like Lord Karan Bilimoria, Fali Major and Vada Dasturji Khurshed of the Iranshah.

An operatic rendering of the Ashem Vohu and Yatha Ahu Vairyo by Farah Ghadially accompanied by Jamshed Turel on the piano provided the musical element of the opening.

Meher Bhesania who heads the organizing committee welcomed the delegates and promised a fun filled two days.

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi sent in a congratulatory message acknowledging the millennial alliance and cohesiveness of Parsis within the Indian fabric.

A few events really stood out in the first day’s program. The first was a fantastic presentation by one of the most eminent legal luminaries of India Fali Nariman. He spoke about ethics in business and in life. He said that this is the age of distraction where all of us are bombarded with extraneous distractions of the digital kind.

Fali Nariman narrates an example of how ethics is a necessity in a leader. It is said of JRD Tata …..when told that a certain business practice was not illegal to pursue….quipped back…but is it right ??.

The organizers hopefully will put up the video recording of the speech, as an inspiration to the youth around the world.

Lord Karan Bilimoria spoke of various virtues that have helped him in his entrepreneurship journey. One of the most important was integrity which he said is the cornerstone of Zoroastrian Parsis over the centuries. He also emphasized that it is not only necessary to universalize human rights but also to universalize the respect of them.

There is a very interesting mix of well known Parsis here at Enterprise Dubai 2014. Besides Lorrd Bilimoria there are folks from all over the world including Dastur Khurshed the Vada Dastur of Udvada Iranshah, Dinshaw Tamboly, Bachi Karkaria, Katayun Kapadia, Nadir Godrej, Fali Major, Fali Nariman and many others. And the Parsi press it out in full force with Parinaz and Jasmin from Parsiana, Shernaaz Engineer from Jame and Freyaan Bhathena of the Parsi Times.

The afternoon session had a power packed panel on Corporate Social Responsibility. Nozer Buchia moderated the panel that has Lord Karan Bilimoria, Minoo Shroff, Behram Jeejeebhoy, Homa Petit, Neville Shroff and Dinshaw Tamboly.

Later in day Yazdi Tantra chaired a session where the 6 finalists of the Business Plan made their presentations to the judges and answered their questons. The results of the competition were announced later in the evening and Darius Aga of Ahmedabad won the first prize and Rashne Pardiwalla took the runner-up prize.

A lively entertainment program post dinner regaled the crowd.

Some candid observations from Day One:

The success of any event depends on many factors. And running things on time is one of the most important ones. It becomes a disservice to those who actually show up on time, to find out that the entire schedule is running very late. The first day saw a lot of it. Hopefully things will improve the next day.

While some of the talks and panels were fantastic, there were a few that did not serve any purpose besides being infomercials for Dubai Tourism and Dubai as a business attraction. I dont think anyone attending the event ever had a doubt of that as Dubai’s potential. However, in such a tightly packed event, it took away from what is otherwise a great program layout.

A few people in conversation observed what was apparent in the lack of visiting youth. Even though its a business oriented event, a better participation from visiting youth would serve well.

The hosts have been fantastic to a fault Every question is immediately answered or resolved.

Looking forward to Day Two

The post Day One: Enterprise Dubai 2014 appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Day Two of Enterprise Dubai started with the lighting of the lamp by two more Parsi stalwarts who joined the event today. Nadir Godrej and Ronnie Screwala lit the lamp along with Fali Nariman to begin the days proceedings.

Proceedings from Day One covered here

Minoo Shroff, Corporate Counselor & International President, World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce spoke of staying ahead of economic currents and building enterprises during uncertainties

Nadir Godrej took the stage and blew away the audience with another fantastic poetry that was his speech too. He is a man of many talents, and the poet in him goes underrated. He ran through Godrej’s history from the founder Ardeshir Godrej to today, and how they business house navigated the challenges of the time and worked through the license raj years.

Ronnie Screwala took the stage after Nadir and gave another fantastic talk about his journey over the last 20 years and what he plans to do over the next 20. Ronnie spoke about the initial struggles in setting up the media giant, and how at every point they would disrupt the “norm” and bring about change socially. He gave an example of how a candlelight march in a movie in the early 90’s was the first time such a thing was shown in a movie. And a month later when tragedy struck, the public embarked on a candlelight march for the very first time, and has now become the norm. He also spoke about his current involvement with the Swades Foundation that he set up with his wife Zarina. The foundation aims to go into rural areas and look at the various problems that affect them holistically and offer aid and solutions, such that when when they exit the area, the problems are gone and the people are empowered permanently. The foundations aim is to serve 1 million people every 5 years.

The speech by the Indian Consul General was a big let down after the two morning speakers. He reiterated the same tired briefing points with no acknowledgement of the unique subset in the audience. And of course came extremely late and delayed the entire proceedings of day two.

The talk on Dubai Tourism was very well presented by the CEO of Dubai Corporation of Tourism. He elicited on the steps taken towards Dubai 2020 World Expo and other advances in infrastructure etc, to service the tourism industry.

An award ceremony was held where business families were presented with the Zoroastrian Ratna Awards, and nine individuals from all spheres of Zoroastrian life were presented with awards for their services to the community. They included among others, Ex-Air Force Chief Fali Major, FEZANA President Katayun Kapadia and FEZANA stalwart Roshan Rivetna.

The panel on Parsi Doctors was fantastically put together. The doctors on the panel included Dr. Cyrus Mehta – Eye Surgeon, Dr. Keki Turel – Neurologist, Dr. Rustom Soonawala – Gynecologist, Dr. Sabrena Noria – Gastro intestinal surgery and Dr. Zubin Nalladaru – Heart Surgeon.

They each ran us through their areas of medical expertise and also spoke of tips that would help keep the individuals healthy in ageing life.

‘Is women power just a pie in the sky’ was discussed by another illustrious panel, this one chaired by Bachi Karkaria, and featured Zarina Screwvala, Meenal Baghel, Meera Sanyal and Bikram Vohra.

Later in the evening there was a cricket quiz, followed by a Master Home Chef Cook off where 4 teams of 3 participants each cooked up some tasty dishes. The winning team was awarded a Rs 50,000 prize.

The evening dinner and Gala began with a series of Thank You’s to the various members of the organizing team who did a fantastic job.

A coffee table book titled “Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters” authored by Meher Bhesania was launched at the function by Nadir Godrej.

After dinner, the amazing Parsi Theater Group led by Sam Kerawalla and including the crazy funny Danesh Irani as Aflatoon presented “Faramji Ni Film Utri”.

That brought about the end of the formal proceedings of Enterprise Dubai 2014. Day Three was devoted to sightseeing and taking in the sounds and sights of Dubai City and its surroundings.

Some candid observations from Day Two and overall:

• As much as bringing in government dignitaries and politicians can sometimes become a compulsion, it is not necessarily the best idea. Not one has been known to show up on time. This was the case with the Consul General of India too. The day’s proceedings were supposed to start at 9:00 AM but did not begin till 10:30 because the dignitary was not on time. And this affected the entire program. The amazing natak, surely a highlight of the event started at 11 PM with at least 1/3 rd of the attendees having left. This brings about a point I raised yesterday too. Events need to be run on time. It is disrespectful to those attendees who show up on time.
• Two days events land up being pretty packed, and therefore the program needs to be given enough thought. On Day two after Mr. Shroff, Mr. Godrej and Mr. Screwala spoke, the audience was on a high at the intellectual thought provoking talks. And then the Indian Consul General let the momentum go with a banal talk.
• Again the endorsement of Dubai and the virtues of the city went on too long. I think not one person in the audience doubted Dubai’s potential or calibre as a regional power. The fact remains though that Dubai’s biggest draw is tourism. In the early 2000’s it did position itself as a global financial center, and we all know how that went. What would have been really interesting is to know the specifics of actually starting a business, and not just a sales pitch on starting one in Dubai.
• Organizers of events also need to be realistic in how much is packed into a program. The daily shopping trips to Dubai Mall seemed unnecessary, and maybe a distraction especially since it was a two day event, and nothing was running on time.
• The food at the event got better as the meals went by. It was great to see sev and dahi at breakfast and chicken farcha and patra ni macchi for lunch and dinner. Nice touch

All in all, a great event, and one I am glad I went to. Initially because of the proximity to the North American Congress in Los Angeles next week, we were going to give this a skip. However with Shirin Kumaana-Wadia winning the WZCC Award, and the presentation ceremony in Dubai, a day before the event, we made a trip out of this.

Meher Bhesania is truly a powerhouse and her dedication and never say never spirit was written and evident all over. Every speaker spoke of her tenacity and steadfast determination in getting an impressive speaker list to the event. Her team of mostly young dedicated volunteers went out of their way to make the event a success.

We take this opportunity to thank Meher personally and her entire team in general for a job well done.

The post Day Two: Enterprise Dubai 2014 appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Below is an article by Nergish Sunavala on the above topic. Parsi Khabar is happy to be mentioned, in the august company of others like Parsiana.

Amongst the dwindling Parsi community, interfaith marriage has long been a contentious issue. So in 1988, when Parsiana, a liberal community magazine, began listing interfaith unions in its “milestones” column, it created a storm. Orthodox factions argued that the inclusion could be seen as encouragement. “People hated us for that,” recalls the editor of the half-century-old publication, Jehangir Patel. “They stopped advertising and subscribing. They didn’t even want to be in the same room with me.” But Patel stuck to his guns. “We were just reflecting the reality,” he points out.

Today, Parsiana has a meticulous record of the quantum leap in interfaith unions. Besides creating an archive and resource for future historians, community magazines feed a deep-seated hunger for information about one’s own history, culture, community activities and current events. From the 30-lakh-strong Gujaratis to the Jews, who have dwindled to just 4,000 in Greater Mumbai, every community is churning out publications like Chitralekha, Shaili and Kol India (kol means voice in Hebrew) to meet this demand. Online forums like Parsikhabar.net, Zoroastrians.net and the Progressive Dawoodi Bohras have also popped up in the last decade.

For instance, East-Indians.com was set up as an online resource to help members lobbying to get the community included as an Other Backward Class (OBC). In 2006, they were included in the list. The website’s founder, Prem Moraes, claims his portal played a key role in making the idea palatable to wealthier members, who may have otherwise objected to the OBC tag. “With more interaction, you understand each other’s issues,” explains Moraes. “So, rich people slowly realized that poorer sections of the community would benefit tremendously and it wouldn’t really impact their lives.” The website and Gaothan Voice, a monthly newsletter circulated since 2003, have also been championing the return of East Indian lands, appropriated by the government for development projects in the 1950s. “Awareness on such issues has increased by 500%,” says co-editor Alphi D’Souza.

Though Gaothan Voice’s print-run has increased to 3,500 from 200 in 2003, the honorary editors recently decided to reduce its frequency because of a lack of funds. Most community publications rely on advertisements, sponsorships, donations and subscriptions. Patel says that each issue of Parsiana costs about Rs 5 lakh to produce with a staff of 14. Though it initially had a Gujarati section, today it is written only in English.

This switch is an emerging trend as community magazines struggle to reach the youth and expats, who are more fluent in English. Kol India, started in 1995, initially differentiated itself from other Jewish publications by being bilingual. Today, it has only a few Marathi articles. Editorials cover community issues like migration to Israel and whether the Jewish prayer service should be in Hebrew or Marathi.

Often new publications are started when a certain section of the community feels under-represented. New York resident Arzan Wadia started Parsi Khabar a decade ago because he felt the existing publications were either too liberal or too orthodox. The articles on his website are curated from other news portals with about 20% original content. The Progressive Dawoodi Bohras forum, run from Canada, gives members a space to vent against the priestly class without facing ramifications.

Since the 1970s, the reformists have also been bringing out a bilingual journal nowcalled Bohra Chronicle, which has been shunned by the community’s religious head for its criticism of the Bohra hierarchy. It has a circulation of 10,000, says Irfan Engineer, an occasional contributor to the journal. “Some readers, who are scared, ask us to post copies to a friend’s house or to a nearby shop.”

The post Community magazines try to keep pace with changing lifestyles appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Poet and critic Adil Jussawall’s “Trying to Say Goodbye” is among eight books of poetry conferred the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award 2014, it was announced here Friday.

Apart from this, five novels, three books of essays, three of short stories, one of literary criticism and an autobiography have also won the award that recognises premier works in 22 Indian languages.

Article Source

Bengali poet Utpal Kumar Basu’s “Piya Mana Bhabe”, Bodo poet Urkhao Gwra Brahma’s “Udangnifrai Gidingfinnanei”, Shad Ramzan’s “Kore Kakud Pushrith Gome” (Kashmiri), Gopalkrushna Rath’s “Bipula Diganta” (Odia), Jaswinder’s “Agarbatti” for Punjabi, Gope Kamal’s “Sija Agyaan Buku” in Sindhi and Munawwar Rana’s “Shahdaba” (Urdu) have also won the award.

Well-known novelists Shailender Singh (Dogri), Ramesh Chandra Shah (Hindi), Subhash Chandran, (Malayalam), Asha Mishra (Maithili) and Poomani (Tamil) have been awarded for their literary writings.

A distinguished jury representing 22 Indian languages had recommended these books and they were approved by the executive board of the Sahitya Akademi which met Friday with the institution’s president Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari in the chair.

Winners of Manipuri and Sanskrit language awards will be declared later.

Arupa Patangia Kalita (Assamese), Nanda Hankhim (Nepali) and Rampal Singh Rajpurohit (Rajasthani) have got the award for their short stories, Jayant Vishnu Naralikar (Marathi) for his autobiography, Jamadar Kisku (Santali) for his play and Rachapalem Chandrashekara Reddy (Telugu) for his literary criticism.

Kannada poet, writer and professor G.H. Nayak, publisher, writer and critic Madhavi Sardesai (Konkani) and late photographer Ashvin Mehta (Gujarati) have got the award for their books of essays.

The award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl and a cheque of Rs. 1,00,000 will be presented to the authors at a special during the Festival of Letters – the annual function of the Akademi – March 9, 2015.

IANS

The post Adil Jussawalla wins Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 appeared on Parsi Khabar.

A tribute to the pioneering musician who passed away.

Article by  Rudradeep Bhattacharjee

The Bombay film orchestras of the golden age from the 1950s to the 1970s were a male bastion. Sarod maestro Zarine Sharma (neé Daruwalla), who passed away on Saturday, was one of the rare women who broke the sonic barrier.

Born in 1946, Sharma was the daughter of a police officer who encouraged her to take up Indian classical music. She started learning the harmonium at the age of four. But it was at the Swami Haridas Sangeet Sammelan in 1952 where she heard a Ravi Shankar-Ali Akbar Khan jugalbandi that she fell in love with the sarod. Tutored in the instrument by Haripada Ghosh, she also credited vocalists SCR Bhat, Laxmanprasad Jaipurwale, SN Ratanjankar and the legendary violinist VG Jog as important influences.

Identified as a child prodigy, she had her first brush with the film studios in the late ‘50s when she played for the title music for Maasoom (released in 1960), a film that many remember for the ever-popular tune Naani Teri Morni.  But she began her association with the film industry in earnest four years later.

When the music director Roshan wanted a sitar-sarod duet for the title music of the period drama Chitralekha (1964), sitar player Imrat Khan suggested Sharma’s name. Expectedly, both the young musician and her father were unsure of what to expect. But the recording went off well and Roshan asked her father if the sarod player could come the next day to record for the background score.

So, the next day, father and daughter landed up at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai’s Bandra neighbourhood. This time the entire orchestra was there. The teenager was intimidated. But when her father suggested they leave, she felt it would not look nice. They waited.

A few hours later, it was her turn. Years later, reminiscing about that moment, she said, “When I began to play, all the musicians who were standing around were very surprised. Because I was a lady, no? And lady players of sarod were very, very rare. And also there were very few ladies in the film line, so they all were astonished. It seemed to me as if they’d never seen a sarod before. And people came to know about me because here I was – I was just this 18-year-old Parsi girl playing in films. But mostly they didn’t know my name. I was ‘that Parsi girl’.”

Soon, “that Parsi girl” became a regular presence in the studios and worked with some of the top music directors. It was also in the studios where she also met her future husband, the sitarist Ashok Sharma.

Listen to Sharma’s student, santoor player Ulhas Bapat, talking about his guru to acclaimed vocalist Shubha Mudgal here.

Rudradeep Bhattacharjee is the director of The Human Factor, about the contribution of the Lord family to Hindi film music.

The post ‘That Parsi girl’, sarodist Zarin Sharma broke the glass ceiling in the Bollywood music studios appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Neither Kushroo Anita, 35, nor Viraf Mehta, 30, have found “the one” yet. They’ve both finished school, established careers and grown eager to start families. But even in a city of 18 million, they’re struggling to find spouses.

Article by Rosalie Murphy | Pulitzer Center

Anita and Mehta, both men, are young members of India’s Parsi community. The ethnic group numbers just 60,000 nationwide, three-fourths of them in Mumbai, and diminishing fast. Their Zoroastrian faith forbids converts, so many ascribe the population decline—at least in part—to increasingly common marriages between Parsis and people of other faiths.

“In 2008, one in every four [Parsi marriages] was a mixed marriage. Now, one of every three is a mixed marriage,” said Mehta, a banker and Parsi youth leader. “When people say Parsis are dwindling, it’s not necessarily that we’re dying out, but when you intermarry, you dilute that sense of Parsi identity.”

Khushroo Anita, a 35-year-old Parsi, often dates women outside his faith when he travels for work. His parents hope he will marry a Parsi woman, so he keeps these relationships secret at home. Image by Rosalie Murphy. India, 2014.

The specter of their shrinking population hangs heavy over Parsis of all ages. They face pressure from their families and community leaders to marry other Parsis, because marriage implies children who can inherit religious and cultural customs.

Anita, the 35-year-old businessman searching for a spouse, has dated women of other faiths, but called the relationships “clandestine.” His family badly wants him to marry a Parsi. He hopes to as well, but not out of religious or cultural devotion—it’s just easier.

“I would be ready and willing to date outside, but if it’s something where I see opposition from my parents, from home or society, I don’t believe there’s any point going forward because you’re going to have so many roadblocks,” Anita said. “It’s only in the movies where you see all the roadblocks opening up and everything is happy at the end.”

Like Anita, many young Parsis struggle to meet partners within the community. The group’s median age is above 50. As a group, Parsis are extremely well educated and wait to date until after college and professional school: On average, women marry at 26 and men at 31.

The Parsis comprise only about 0.4 percent of Mumbai’s population. Those who grow up outside the city’s Parsi neighborhoods seldom see their peers.

To facilitate meetings and ultimately marriages, youth organizations host speed-dating events and arrange blind dates. Several online dating portals offer matches. Parsi trust funds even subsidize housing for young couples.

Khursheed Narang, left, and Meher Amersey founded the Association of Inter-Married Zoroastrians 20 years ago. Now, they connect interfaith couples with Zoroastrian priests willing to perform weddings and initiation rituals for their children. Image by Rosalie Murphy. India, 2014.

“Parsis typically get married at an older age. We are encouraging them to get married earlier,” said Muncherji Cama, a trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, a large Parsi trust fund. “We have a recorded list of young people who are eligible to get married. We have a matrimonial week once a month. If a couple seems to get along, we set up a few private dates. Last year we had 15 marriages—and may it go higher!”

Those 15 marriages matter a great deal to this shrinking, aging community. According to a 2011 study in the journal Demographic Research, if neither marriage customs nor fertility rates change, there will be just 19,136 Parsis in Mumbai in 2051.

These statistics bring with them a community-wide sense of crisis. Many Parsis who marry outside the faith face some family pressure and community scorn. However, under the laws that currently govern Mumbai’s Parsis, Zoroastrianism is inherited through fathers. Parsi men who marry out can include their children in Zoroastrian rituals and in population counts, but women cannot.

A sign outside a Mumbai fire temple limits entry to “Parsees only.” Under current rules, this excludes children who have Parsi mothers but fathers of other faiths. Image by Rosalie Murphy. India, 2014.

“This problem doesn’t exist for men who marry out. Their children are accepted as Parsi community members, and they are allowed the privileges, including living in the Parsi colonies and visiting the fire temple,” said Khursheed Narang, who married a Hindu man 40 years ago. “As it stands, women are ostracized, and their children are not considered part of the community anymore.”

When Narang’s children decided they wanted to be initiated into Zoroastrianism, Narang struggled to find a priest willing to perform the ritual. She taught her children about her faith but couldn’t always bring them inside temples because some priests forbade her entry.

As the Parsi population shrinks, Narang laments the exclusion of her children and others. She too wants Zoroastrianism to live on in her children, especially if they choose to practice it. “Our community, if it means to survive, can’t expect to remain ‘pure’ in the way they call it,” she said.

The 2011 Demographic Research study estimated that, if the Parsis were to include children of interfaith marriages in their 2051 population count, they would number 20,535—a 7 percent increase over 19,135 predicted under current rules. To maintain the Parsis’ current population, the group’s fertility rate would have to triple.

In other words, accepting children of interfaith marriages might not be the key to community survival. But it could sustain Zoroastrianism through women like Narang and ease tensions in many Parsi families.

“We want the sense of Parsi identity to be forceful enough to make you want to marry a Parsi, but kids grow up and they’re independent…You can’t really blame the person for what they choose. My own brother married a non-Parsi,” said Mehta, the 30-year-old banker eager to meet his wife. “We are still far away from an absolute sort of approval, but it is coming. There’s a realization that we can’t go on the way we are.”

Jerome Campbell contributed to this report.

The post Interfaith Marriages Challenge Parsi Families appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The year was 1997 and Dawn (the newspaper, not the website) was planning to publish a thick supplement to celebrate the 50th Independence Day of Pakistan, and I was commissioned to write an article for it.

Article by Bisma Tirmizi | Dawn.com | Photos by Fawad Ahmed

My editor handed me Ardeshir Cowasjee’s phone number asking me to coordinate with him on the article. I smiled inside. I liked Ardeshir, he was cynical and buckets of fun to hang around with. I of course knew him well, thanks to the long corridors at the Dawn group’s building, where one could bump into almost anyone.

I arrived at his beautiful Bath Island bungalow. There he was, eating the delicious ‘dhansak’. It looked almost like haleem or dal gosht, but tasted a little different; the depth of the dish with a base of lentils and vegetables gave it a unique, distinct flavour, and served on a bed of caramelised brown rice the dish was a whole new taste of delicious. That was the first time I ate dhansak.

Food guide to India by Charmaine O Brien defines dhansak as follows:

Perhaps the best known Parsi cuisine is the meat and lentil stew called dhansak. It is never served at weddings, because it is customarily served four days after a death and has associations that are not to be invited during a wedding. Apart from this stricture, dhansak is widely enjoyed and is another unfailing inclusion on Parsi restaurant menus. Parsi cooks are also masters at incorporating extensive number of ingredients in singular dishes. A simple dhansak might contain twenty individual ingredients while a more complex one almost twice that.

My research has led me to believe that Parsi cuisine is a bit of sour (from vinegar, tomatoes and fenugreek) and sweet (white or brown sugar or jaggery). Dhansak is thought to be the best of comfort foods and is traditionally cooked for Sunday lunches. And since it is considered a heavy meal to digest, an afternoon siesta is always welcome after its flavourful consumption.

About its origin, there are various stories, and like all favoured foods, dhansak has evolved through history and geography. It is believed to have roots in the Persian Khoresh (stew), this particular stew that evolved into dhansak was one made with plums, lentils, spinach and meat, and was served on rice. The migration of Persians to the sub-continent christened this particular khosesh as dhansak.

Pat Chapman in his book, India Food and Cooking, says;

Traditionally, dhansak always uses goat meat with up to four types of lentils and slow cooking amalgamates the flavours. During the cooking a kind of ratatouille of aubergine, tomato, spinach and fresh chillies is added. Meat mixed with vegetables and fruit is a typically Parsi recipe and shows its Persian origins. Dhansak is probably the most popular Parsi dish and has sweet and sour [and savory] flavours – the sweet comes from palm sugar (jaggery) and the sour from a slight overtone of fresh lime. The apt derivation of the name of this dish comes from dhan, meaning wealthy in Gujarati, and sak meaning vegetables. Pronounced slightly differently, dhaan means rice, which accompanies this sumptuous dish.

Dhansak became very popular in the late 19th century, with the rapid growth of Bombay and Karachi. The working men were provided with tea and snacks by Parsi immigrants from Iran, who had set up small tea stores on street corners selling soda water, biscuits, tea, omelets, and also dhansak. Hence Karachi and Bombay, the coastal cities of the sub continent, became the two favourite cities of Parsis to settle in.

Interestingly, foods from the sub-continent and the chefs who developed them had assigned codes with new meanings to traditional titles; thus the korma came to signify a creamy dish, dhansak meant a slightly sweet lentil curry and the vindaloo simply indicated that the food would be very hot.

In the book Curry, food historian Lizzie Collingham says;

In the seventh and eighth centuries, fire-worshipping Zoroastrians had fled the Arab invasion of Persia and settled along the west coast of India. The Parsis, as they are known, adapted to their new surroundings, adopting many sub-continental habits. When the Europeans began to arrive, they adapted again; they learned English, moved into shipping, and grew wealthy from the China trade. The East India Company merchants, in Bombay, mixed with the Parsis during the early days of the company and later, once their rule was established, they often employed Parsi butlers in their households.

By this means, the Parsi dish of dhansak became well-known to the British. This is a daal of four pulses, which is made with either mutton, or chicken, and vegetables. It is thick and very spicy and is best-eaten Parsi fashion with caramelized brown rice and fried onions. The use of tamarind and jaggery in the dish betrayed the influence of the Gujarati love of sweet and sour in Parsi cooking. Dhansak was one of the curries that regularly appeared on Anglo-Indian dining tables and that eventually became a standard item on British Indian restaurant menus.

The recipe I share with you today comes from the kitchen of my dear friend Teenaz Javat, she is a Mumbaiite married to a Karachiite. We worked together at Dawn in the past century.

Here it is from my kitchen to yours:

Ingredients

¼ mug masoor daal (red split lentils)

¼ mug moong daal (yellow split lentils)

¼ cup toor daal

¼ mug chana daal

2 onions, finely sliced

2 tomatoes

2 to 3 green chillies

Pinch of turmeric

1 tsp. cumin powder

¼ tsp black cumin

1 tsp. coriander powder

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp dhansak garam masala

1 large brown cardamom

1 cinnamon stick

½ tsp. fenugreek seeds

1 cup aubergine

½ cup red pumpkin

1 potato

½ cup carrots

½ cup spinach

1 tsp. ginger garlic

½ cup oil

2 lbs. mutton

Salt to taste

Method

Soak the grains for four to six hours. Boil lentils eyeballing the water quantity. Once the lentils are boiled add eggplant, potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, spinach and cook until the vegetables are done. With a hand mixer blend the vegetable and lentils.

In a separate pot heat oil, fry ginger garlic and all masalas, adding 1 chopped onion, tomatoes, chillies and meat, cook together until tender. Now mix mutton and lentils and cook together until well blended. Garnish with lemons, fresh coriander and carmelized onions.

Brown Rice

Brown ½ sliced onion, add 4 green and 1 black cardamoms, 5 cloves, 5 peppercorns, 1 bay leaf, salt and brown sugar to taste.

Once sugar caramelises, add 2 ½ mugs chicken or mutton stock, bring to boil, adding 1 mug pre-soaked brown rice. Cook until fluffy, and serve as a bed for dhansak with a side of Kuchumer (chopped onion, tomatoes, green chillies, cucumber, cilantro with a dash of lemon juice).

The post Dhansak: Food Stories from Pakistan appeared on Parsi Khabar.

“Today, our Parsi children know more about Hindu gods and kings than historical personalities of their own religion,” said Hoshaang Gotla, 29, who works with an education firm. To stop this “growing ignorance” about Zoroastrianism among children, Gotla and other like-minded Parsis have initiated a series of community programmes.

Swati Goel Sharma, Hindustan Times  Mumbai, December 22, 2014

Run by a group called the Xtremely Young Zoroastrians (XYZ), events will be organised every alternate Sunday and, through fun activities, Parsi children will be taught about Zoroastrianism, community literature, folklore, contemporary iconic personalities and even Parsi cuisine and language.

“Through skits and plays, children will learn about Zoroastrianism’s creator Ahura Mazda, his message and our prayers. They will also be introduced to our great epic poem Shahnameh, and stories of famous kings such as Tahmuras, Jamshid, Homai and Rustom,” said Gotla.

“The events will also improve their decision-making abilities, team work and management.”

For the content of the programme, XYZ has on board nine senior and influential Parsis from diverse fields such as law, health and philanthropy. For religious knowledge, Parsi high priest Khurshed Dastoor has helped, while actor Boman Irani will motivate children to test their limits. Diana Marfatia, an educationist and one of the advisors, said the initiative could prove to be a landmark in the community’s contemporary history. “While the blame is on us seniors for not having passed many legacies to our children, this is an organised effort for revival,” she said, adding the team worked for a year to design the curriculum.

Gotla said more than 400 children between five and 15 years of age have already enrolled for the programme, which has a fee of Rs1,000 per year.

Sessions will be held at seven centres in the city — Colaba, Tardeo, Parel, Dadar, Andheri, Santacruz, and Byculla.

A Colaba-based parent, who did not wish to be named, said he promptly enrolled his 13-year-old daughter as the experience would instil in her a sense of pride about being a Parsi, at the same time improve her people skills.

At the inaugural two-hour session at Birla Matoshree Hall, Marine Lines, on Sunday, more than 300 children, along with parents and senior members of the community, sat through a series of video presentations, which briefed them about the history of Zoroastrianism and celebrated the Parsis who have made it big.

The names included business icons such as the Wadia family, and those in the entertainment world such as musician Zubin Mehta and actor Perizaad Zorabian.

The post Young Parsis learn XYZ of their history appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Make good on your words, Dhunjibhoy

Now that Khushroo Dhunjibhoy holds the reins of the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC), having taken over from Vivek Jain in the recent hi-voltage election, here is a quick look at what Dhunjibhoy has on his plate, RWITC style. –

R: Renewal. He has to get the 100-year lease of Mahalaxmi that has expired, renewed.
W: Wordsworth. He has to prove that all his pre-election words and promises carry weight and act on them.
I: Infrastructure. He claimed he was going to upgrade the infrastructure of the club. Yet, with the lease pending, one cannot do much, so it all depends on the first R — Renewal.
T: Tax. Betting tax, to be precise. Dhunjibhoy said he is going to prevail upon authorities to reduce it. Let us wait and watch.
C: Clean up racing. Murky stories and sabotage allegations were key to his campaign. He said he would bring in professional stewards for racing. The clock has started ticking, Mr Dhunjibhoy. Your time begins now. – See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai-diary-sunday-shorts/15857158#sthash.VHc5r1Ut.dpuf

The post Khushroo Dhunjibhoy Wins RWITC Elections appeared on Parsi Khabar.