Why can’t a Parsi pen Urdu poetry, asks orthodontist

When he is not fixing his patients’ teeth, he is penning Urdu couplets. But orthodontist Dr Navroze Kotwal’s passion for Urdu poetry, especially its sublime form ghazal, has been a source of pique for his friends. “You are a Parsi, right? How come you speak Urdu so well and do shairi,” ask his friends. “Is it crime for a Parsi to learn Urdu and write poetry in it,” quips Dr Kotwal gently.

Article by Mohammed Wajihuddin |TNN

His ghazals regularly appear in half a dozen Urdu dailies and literary magazines. He is also in demand at mushairas (poetry recitation sessions) and invariably raises eyebrows when the anchor introduces Dr Kotwal (71) as perhaps the only Parsi in India who writes Urdu poems.

Since most of his friends, says Dr Kotwal, cannot read Urdu, he collaborated with ghazal-bhajan singer Anoop Jalota and cut an album titled Aashiqana. Tired of hearing the factually incorrect but a popular line nevertheless “Urdu musalman ki zuban hai (Urdu is the language of the Muslims)”, Kotwal responds with a couplet: “Urdu na musalman na Hindu ki hai zuban/Ishq, wafa ke rang ki khushboo ki hai zubaan (Urdu is a language neither of Muslims nor Hindus/It is a language of love, loyalty and fragrance). Such maudlin praise for Urdu which is not his mother tongue comes out of a conviction that language doesn’t have a religion. “It is the communal politics which divides a language along religious line. The vote bank politics has only compounded the crisis,” he explains.

Growing up in Mumbai (then Bombay) when it was home to poetic giants like Ali Sardar Jafri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi and Kaifi Azmi, Dr Kotwal says he fell in love with Urdu when in college. Since his father Shavak Kotwal was a film distributor, he would often meet poets and lyricists. The temptation to learn the language took him to a bookshop on Mohammed Ali Road where he bought a primer and subsequently hired a maulvi. But maulvisaab could only teach him the language, not the finer points of poetry. For that he approached Shafique Abbas, a former Urdu teacher and poet at Anjuman-I-Islam near CST.

The technique of creating correct couplets fine-tuned, Dr Kotwal started reading voraciously and now writes prolifically. He plans to bring out a collection of his ghazals soon. “Then I will be called a Parsi with a book in Urdu,” he laughs.

The post Dr. Navroze Kotwal and Urdu Poetry appeared on Parsi Khabar.

As Houthi rebels overran the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in March, the embattled government shifted its capital to Aden. For many Indians, and especially for residents of Mumbai, the name of the city has an unusual ring of familiarity to it. It is evoked, for instance,  in the name of major thoroughfare in the Central Mumbai neighbourhood of Matunga: Adenwala Road is a the leafy symbol of a deep if forgotten connection between India and Yemen.

Among other things, the interaction between the two cultures produced haleem, the meat dish that has long become a Ramzan staple.

Article by  Shoaib Daniyal | Scroll.in

The road gets its name from a Parsi family that had such strong business links with Aden, they decided to make it part of their identity. But trade wasn’t the only bridge between India and Yemen.  Islam has long bound the two countries, with clerics and lay people travelling back and forth from the medieval age.

The strategic location of Yemen, close to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, means that it has always been an important centre of Islamic theology. As a result, the medieval age saw Islamic saints come down from Yemen to India, especially the Deccan. The most significant transfer of this sort might have been the migration of the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community to Gujarat in the 16th century.

Yemenis in India

Yemen also exported fighters. Mercenaries from Yemen were well known for their skills of war and were in great demand, especially in the Deccan. Bahadur Shah, the Sultan of Gujarat in the 16th century had 10,000 Yemenis in his army and and Nana Phadnavis’ Maratha empire employed 5,000 fighters who were the highest paid soldiers in the entire army. Later on, with the fall of the Marathas, these Yemenis would serve the Hyderabad Nizams, where they were just as well regarded: they often served as guards of the Nizam’s palace.

The descendants of those soldiers still live in India. On the Konkan coast, there are Marathi-speaking Muslims of Yemeni descent. They are called Jamaatis and their Marathi is heavily influenced by Arabic loanwords, reflecting their origins. In Hyderabad, they are called the Chaush and many of still live in the Barkas neighbourhood.

The traffic between India and Yemen intensified greatly after 1839, when the British conquered Aden and declared it a free port. The city came to be used as a coal refuelling station for steamships sailing  between India and Europe. The building of the Suez Canal in 1869 transformed the city into a entrepot for trade between Europe, Asia and Africa.

Cowasji Dinshaw (the name “Adenwala” would be added later), a Parsi merchant of Mumbai, saw this potential early on and arrived in Aden in 1845. He proceeded to remodel the port to make it capable of handling the steamer traffic between the Indian Ocean and Europe, turning Aden the Singapore of its age. At the turn of the century, his son, Hormusjee, expanded the business, eventually acting as bankers, naval agents, shipowners, managing agents for mills and steamship companies. When the Suez Canal, the world’s largest shipping company at the time, the British India Steam Navigation Company, hired the Adenwalahs as their agents in Aden.

Uncrowned kings of Aden

Vispi Dastur, postal historian and president of the Bombay Parsi Association, says that the family were at the time knows as the “uncrowned kings of Aden”. In 1911, King George V was hosted by the Adenwalas in Aden as he travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar in order to celebrate his coronation. The chairs that were used in that function, says Dastur, are still used by the family’s descendants in their Adenwala Baug mansion in Tardeo Road.

Aden wasn’t done with giving India tycoons. In 1950, a 16-year-old boy named Dhirubhai Ambani made his journey to Aden, a city still ruled by the British, to work as a clerk for Besse & Co. Later on, Besse & Co. would become distributers for Shell and their petroleum products and it was here that Ambani first came up with the (at the time crazy) idea of building a oil refinery back home in India.

While most Indians are unaware of these centuries of interaction with Yemen, a rather delectable result of this connection is much more familiar: haleem.

Hareesah to haleem

The 10th-century Arab scribe Abu Muhammad al-Muzaffar ibn Sayyar wrote down a recipe in the Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Recipes) for a meat porridge that he called hareesah. The Kitab was a collection of recipes from the kitchens of the “kings and caliphs and lords and leaders” of Baghdad. It mentions a number of meat and wheat porridges and says that “if the wheat was beaten to a smooth paste” it was to be called hareesah.

Hareesah has survived well into the modern age, and is still popular in the Middle East as an staple during Ramzan. The Yemen mercenaries who came to the Deccan in the medieval age bought it with them. Sometime in the 1930s, Sultan Saif Nawaz Jung, a Hyderabadi Yemeni-origin noble in the Nizam’s court, popularised hareesah by having it served at his feasts.

This hareesah was slowly Indianised in Hyderabad. The original dish contained only meat, wheat, cinnamon and ghee, cooked on a slow fire till everything turned to a mash. The Hyderabadis added a variety of dals. And, of course, masalas, India’s secret weapon,  found their way into the dish.

This modified dish took the name “haleem” and was by the 1950s being sold in Hyderabad’s restaurants, especially during the Islamic fasting month of Ramzan. Soon, it spread to other parts of the country and became a Ramzan staple.

The post Mercenaries and merchants: A short history of the strong ties between India and Yemen appeared on Parsi Khabar.

From Harvard’s website: Daryush Mehta

It is with great humility that I represent the Zoroastrian community as a Chaplain at Harvard University. Dr. Cyrus Mehta has diligently represented the Zoroastrian community in this capacity for 15 years, and I am honored to continue his good work and to engage in religious dialog with the larger community.

My mother’s father, Dasturji N. D. Minochehr-Homji was a High Priest of the Zoroastrian community in Bombay and a religious scholar before his passing in the mid-1980s. My grandfather’s teachings, kindness, and philosophy of dialog and inclusion are imbibed within me as a practicing Zoroastrian. My parents raised my two sisters and me in Florida with a strong connection to the local Zoroastrian community. 

Coming to MIT for graduate school offered me the opportunity to join the Zoroastrian Association of the Greater Boston Area (ZAGBA), for whom I have been the Youth Liaison since 2004. I helped co-found the Zoroastrian Students of Boston (ZSB), a group that brings together students and youth from around the area to perform service activities, engage in religious dialog, and host eminent Zoroastrian leaders and scholars. Along with Dr. Mehta, I help lead and organize the Gatha Study Group that meets regularly at Phillips Brooks House to discuss the Gathic scripture (holy songs) of the Zoroastrian prophet Zarathushtra. Zoroastrianism was founded over 3000 years ago and has evolved into the diaspora today with the catchphrase “Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.”

I am not a minister by training; currently I am a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As a member of the Harvard Chaplaincy, I would like to engage you to promote religious education and interfaith dialog and to connect with Harvard’s community on many levels. I invite you, your family, your friends, your partners, and others interested to come and help communicate an understanding about Zoroastrian theology in the context of academia, family, and social networks.

E-mail: daryush.mehta@gmail.com
Telephone:  (617) 599-0328
Address: Harvard Chaplains’ Office, The Memorial Church, Harvard Yard
Web site: zagba.org

The post Daryush Mehta: Zoroastrian Chaplain at Harvard and MIT in Boston, USA appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Hints of spice waft in swirls of steam. Pastel teacups brimming with brewed Indian chai rest on the sanded wood of a low table. Binaifer Dabu and her husband Navroz Dabu sit side-by-side on their leather couch, the twilight sun still warming their faces. Leaning toward Navroz, Binaifer offers him a cup of the family recipe she dares not alter. Glass plaques rest on illuminated shelves across from the couple. The Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) awards for acting and set design reflect their dedication to the local arts.

Article By Christine Rushton | Syracuse.com

Taking part in productions from “Hamlet” to “Noises Off” and “Othello” to “Cabaret,” the Dabus have donated their time to the Syracuse theater community for more than 20 years. Both act and Navroz also designs sets.

One of Navroz’s SALT awards was given for Non-Performing Person of the Year. Another of Binaifer’s was given as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role as R2-D2 in “Star Wars: The Musical.”

Combined they have 18 performing arts awards, including others from the Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS).

“I don’t know what we would do if we did not have the theater in our lives,” Binaifer said.

Navroz sketches detailed designs of each set he creates. He uses the skills he developed while studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to model his vision for each production. Last year, he committed his spare time to constructing about seven theater sets.

“At times, I have to put my own money into the set because they don’t have the budget for it,” Navroz said.

His designs come to life in the studio he keeps in his and Binaifer’s downtown apartment. Standing in the center of the room, Navroz picks up a 3-D foamboard model of his latest set, “Hamlet.” The 12-by-4 inch design shows a miniature of the life-size version: a painted red door, latticed windows and stacked stairs.

Navroz started using his architectural skills in theater for fun in 2007.

His son Behzad’s middle school production of “Fiddler on the Roof” needed help. The school, Chestnut Hill Middle School, had a small budget, and Navroz knew how to build using inexpensive cardboard as opposed to the traditional plywood.

He turned a simple set into a recreation of the entire town in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“Usually middle school sets have mostly painted backdrops,” he said. “But, we created a whole Russian village with the outside and inside of homes; a railway station; and even a large chimney for the fiddler.”

In 2008, he debuted his community theater design in an Appleseed Productions play, “The Dragon.” His design won the TANYS award for Best Scenic Design that year.

Navroz has used his architectural education building sets for several local theater companies including Le Moyne College’s Gifford Family Theater, the Auburn Public Theater, Appleseed Productions, CNY Playhouse, and Syracuse Shakespeare Festival.

Navroz also has worked for Schopfer Architects for more than 25 years. He contributes to building design projects in and around the Syracuse area.

While theater gives him an opportunity to use his talents in the performing arts, he said this season he will take on less projects than in the past. High demand for his designs have strained his time, and he wants to alleviate stress on his creativity.

Never take anything from the theater. It’s always about giving to the theater.

“My main motivation was threefold,” Navroz said, “to give my creative juices a chance to be expressed, to be a part of the activity and passion of both my sons and my wife Binaifer – which was theater, and this gave me a chance to volunteer my skills and creative artistic passion for the community.”

Binaifer also works outside of theater for Welch Allyn Medical.

She feels most at home on a stage, though.

Binaifer remembers her house as a child in Surat, India, as in a state of constant chaos. Her parents invited dancers, singers and actors over to practice for local productions. Her father Yazdi, now 78, founded the Parsi group Karanjia Drama Group, which still travels and performs.

“I would come home from school and all I would see in my living room was people rehearsing,” Binaifer said. “My mom would make chai and everyone would rehearse. They were acting like crazy people around the house.”

Like Binaifer and Navroz, Yazdi performs for free. His group only requests accommodations for room and board when they travel.

“Never take anything from the theater,” Navroz said. “It’s always about giving to the theater.”

Binaifer and Navroz grew up in a Parsi community of India. Parsis are direct descendents of the Persian people and migrated to India thousands of years ago. Binaifer describes her Parsi people as lovers of the arts and performers on the stage.

“(Parsis) are eccentric. They’re like ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,'” Binaifer said, referring to the movie about a traditional zealous Greek family. “They were also the inventors, the researchers, the philanthropists, writers, creators; in our culture.”

In 1981, Navroz left his city in the state of Gujarat, India, to study architecture at MIT in Boston. Binaifer joined him in 1982 after their families agreed on an arranged marriage. Navroz had fallen in love with Binaifer years before during their childhood. Binaifer, though, hadn’t considered the chance of moving around the world, isolated from family.

She spent her spare time in Boston finding acting jobs and learning the art of auditioning. Performing reminded her of her father. And, it took her mind off the trouble of immigrating to a new country.

Navroz didn’t fully consider the cost of living in America because he knew he wanted the education. So, the couple worked to survive on a limited income.

“I came in a naïve way, I just came,” he said. “I genuinely didn’t think of the money.”

Battling unemployment, lack of income and expiring immigration papers, the Dabus settled in Syracuse around 1989.

Two sons later, the couple felt at home in the city. And, they’ve stayed committed to their Parsi heritage through the arts.

“I think in a way we are honoring the memory of our parents,” Binaifer said.

She has continued acting in the Syracuse theaters, and will play the role of Mrs. Sowerberry in the Redhouse Arts Center production of “Oliver Twist” later this year.

“As my father stated,” Binaifer said, “I want to leave my last breath either on the stage of acting or in the classroom of teaching.”

The post The Dabu Couple wins over Syracuse theater scene, 20 years running appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The Bukhara Mohulla at Khamasa Crossroads in the Walled City is home to two shrines. One is the Parsis’ Vakil Adariyan Agiyari fire temple. And the other is the only Jewish place of worship in Gujarat, the Magen Abraham Synagogue (built in 1934) of the small Bene Israel Jewish community.

Article by Paul John | TNN

Soon, the 131-year-old Parsi icon will move out of the famous neighbourhood. The Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat has requested the AMC for a plot just beside the Parsi sanatorium near the riverfront.

A referendum held by the Parsi panchayat recently expressed the community’s resolve to relocate the temple. The panchayat consists of more than 1,700 members, and the majority gave their consent to shift the sacred fire to a new location in the western part of the city.

Ahmedabad Parsi panchayat president Brigadier Jahangir Anklesaria said, “The majority of the Parsi population now live in western Ahmedabad. The present location of the Agiyari is congested.” There are encroachments around the current site, he said. “It has been tough for our community to even get to the temple,” he said. “We want a large meeting place for the community’s youngsters.”

The Parsis’ neighbours in the Walled City, the Bene Israel community that has barely 139 members, recently held a meeting where they discussed problems arising out of encroachments on the synagogue’s entrance, and safeguards against terrorist strikes.

The post Ahmedabad’s Vakil Anjuman Adarian to move out of Old City appeared on Parsi Khabar.

It is not every day that you see someone wanting to serve their family recipes in a restaurant setting. It is even rare if this restaurant is not a quick service restaurant (QSR) but a humble five-table dining space, running from an unlikely location for a restaurant and prides itself as a regional cuisine-specific delivery model.

Article by Tanu Datta | Indian Express

All this comes to life at Rustom’s Parsi Bhonu, a Parsi home-style restaurant in Adchini in Delhi, run by Kainaz Contractor and Rahul Dua. Both are 28 years old and have a background in hospitality as they did their management training together. Dua wished ‘to open a Parsi restaurant in Delhi’ while Contractor wished to open ‘her own restaurant some day’. Contractor, who shifted base from Mumbai to Delhi to open Rustom’s, says, “My interactions with many people led me to feel that there is space for an authentic Parsi-style restaurant in Delhi. Since this is not a funded project, Dua and I thought the delivery model would work well as it made for sustainable business. To add to the thought, Delhi people order in a lot unlike Mumbai people. At Rustom’s, we have mostly non-Parsis and youngsters ordering in. And we receive maximum orders on Sunday for lunches.” Adapting to Delhi was easy for her as she liked the city and has lived here earlier. The restaurant is named after her father. The duo have showcased Parsi style through the ambience, as it is done up to recreate an old Parsi home. The grandfather clock and the crockery cupboard add antique touches. The tiles they have used are found in typical Parsi homes. The space at Rustom’s is small and hence exudes a home-like warmth. “The menu has pictures of my own family and across the restaurant we have images from Sooni Taraporevala’s famous book Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India. Some pictures are for sale as well,” reveals Contractor.

On the menu front, the  place showcases close to 30 dishes. “These have been carefully chosen keeping in mind home-style dishes that can be perfectly executed in a restaurant format or those that are restaurant worthy,” says Contractor, adding, “Of course, there were a lot of trials and toil that went in before the final menu came out. The final dishes are ones that we personally like and believe people will like them too. The dishes are not too unfamiliar in terms of taste. These are dishes that people in Delhi will like. Once people take to the food currently being served, we shall introduce some offal dishes, but that will have to wait a bit.”

Dua’s contribution to Rustom’s, in his own words, was “to make sure the home-style cooking blended seamlessly into the restaurant format, for no one wants to be served ghar ka khana in a restaurant. So I took upon myself to ensure the presentation was not home-style, even if the dish was. I also helped find chefs and train them.” Dua, who has tasted success at Cafe Lota (which he runs with three others), lauds his partner for her food training and says, “Kainaz went to Nagpur to her aunt and trained with her for a month and a half, as also under her own mom to get her recipes right.” Since this is Dua’s first independent venture, it “marks my foray into the kind of restaurants I want to open in Delhi and elsewhere,” he says. Though he reiterates he is not here to please everybody, Dua and Contractor are cautious in their approach. “For now, we have started with what we thought was rightly suited for the Delhi palate. For our Patra Ni Machi, we use Tilapia fish whereas Pomfret would be our first choice. But most people in Delhi turn a nose to smelly fish or that, which has bones. After introducing our patrons to Parsi home-style food, we shall present some of our takes on Parsi food, but that will come in a little later. Our food is more of a tribute to the Parsi community. We are serving, what is essentially Indian food, that is very comforting,” quips Dua.

An offering that renders uniqueness to Rustom’s is the stock of regional products displayed for sale. “Since we are a regional Indian specialty restaurant we do believe in encouraging those engaged in the food-chain at our restaurant by offering their products for sale. We stock Parsi cane vinegar, dhansak masala, sambhar masala, vindaloo masala, Pallonji sodas, carrot and raisin pickle into two varieties—home-made and commercially packaged,” says Contractor, adding, “it is natural when we taste a new cuisine we like to recreate some of it in our own kitchens”.

The post Rustom’s of Delhi: The Taste of a Parsi Home Fare appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Seasoned RfP activist Mr. Jehangir Sarosh OBE is the new interim General Secretary of European Council of Religious Leaders-RfP (ECRL-RfP). He replaces Mr. Stein Villumstad who has stepped down to become the Country Representative of Norwegian Church Aid in Malawi.

When asked about his major achievement as a promoter of interfaith cooperation, Mr. Sarosh, a Zoroastrian, declared, “I’m proud of the fact that I invited five of the most prominent religious leaders from different faiths for a meeting and, with them as the founding members, we started a process leading to the inauguration of ECRL-RfP.”

The newly-appointed General Secretary saluted his predecessor. “Mr. Stein Villumstad has been a good friend and a joy to work with, and he leaves a Mr. Jehangir Sarosh legacy that will be hard to follow.”

In its meeting last year, the ECRL-RfP Council and Executive Committee members also expressed appreciation for Mr. Villumstad, stating “we are grateful for the outstanding skills Stein offered to ECRL-RfP.”

The ECRL-RfP Secretariat was relocated to London, United Kingdom from Oslo, Norway and will hold its first Council meeting of this year in Frankfurt this May, under the theme “Tackling Violent Extremism.”

More about RfP

The post Jehangir Sarosh Takes over as Interim General Secretary of ECRL–RfP appeared on Parsi Khabar.

While a majority of Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees feel the property should be reserved for Parsis only, its chairman says charity funds should not be spent on legal fees to make it community-specific.

Article by Jyoti Shelar | Mumbai Mirror

The question of changing the status of Silver Oaks, a plush property spread over 22,000 sq ft in Breach Candy, back to being exclusively for Parsis has divided the trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP).

While a majority of trustees feel BPP should intervene to get this done, chairman Dinshaw Mehta is against it as it would mean spending from the charity kitty.

The estate, owned by a charitable trust called the Sorabji Kanga Trust and estimated to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore, was converted for secular use way back in the 1990s. It is home to several high profile individuals, including NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.

The property was earlier restricted to having only Parsi beneficiaries and trustees. However, the trust changed the rules and a non-Parsi developer was also appointed.

“It is a massive property and the community needs to be benefit from it. We are completely against the secular use of the property. A majority of the trustees feel that BPP should intervene in larger interest of the community,” said BPP trustee Yazdi Desai.

In 2000, two former BPP trustees had approached the court on individual basis to stop the estate’s ‘secular’ status. Dinshaw Mehta was clear on the finance involved, saying trustees can intervene if they want but only by using their own money.

“I am completely against using BPP’s charity funds as we are already facing a crisis. Intervening would mean going to court and spending huge amounts on fighting the legal battle. BPP is already reeling after spending over Rs 3 crore on the renegade priests’ issue,” Mehta said.

He added that he is not against supporting the cause, but only against spending the charity money. “Also, this issue seems more like propaganda as the BPP elections are round the corner,” Mehta claimed.

A community member, who declined to be named, said BPP trustees are fighting over a property that belongs to a completely different trust. “They should concentrate on the properties that are governed by BPP and look into their problems,” he added.

The post BPP Divided Over Rs 1000 Crore Silver Oaks Property in Mumbai appeared on Parsi Khabar.

An Iranian visitor can’t help but notice the Zoroastrian symbols that dominate old Mumbai.

In the historic Fort District toward the southern end of this metropolis of twenty million souls, Zoroastrian monuments take center place at intersections and crossroads, while small signs warning “Entrance for Parsi Irani Zoroastrians Only” pop up here and there, hinting at discrete entrances to the many fire temples hidden in the neighborhood.

Article by Alex Shams, ajammc.com

There are somewhere between 60-100,000 Zoroastrians living across the Subcontinent, with the vast majority concentrated in Mumbai. A similarly vibrant (if much smaller) community of a few thousand live in Pakistan’s Karachi as well.

Within the Zoroastrian community of the Subcontinent, there are internal divisions, primarily between Parsis — who trace their roots to a group of Zoroastrians who arrived from Iran in the 10th century fleeing persecution — and the Iranis, who arrived in the 19th century. The boundaries between the communities are sometimes blurred, a process furthered by the sporadic arrival of individual Zoroastrians from Iran to India outside of those two waves. All members of the faithful, however, share a belief in the creator Ahura Mazda and the Prophet Zoroaster, in line with the religion’s teachings developed around 3,500 years ago.

In Iran — where Zoroastrian was the state religion until the arrival of Islam — the holy winged Faravahar symbol of the ancient Persian monotheistic faith has been transformed in the last few decades into a kitschy emblem of Persian ethnic pride. A symptom of the symbol’s commercialization is that the most common place it can be found is probably at cheap jewelry shops, where they sit amid big crosses (popularized by the Latin music wave of the 1990s) and trinkets shaped like marijuana leaves.

The Zoroastrian community in Iran numbers around 25,000, and fire temples and other holy places can be found in most major cities across the central Iranian plateau. But the community is so spread out that outside of Yazd it is difficult to pinpoint any specifically Zoroastrian neighborhoods. Indeed, while Zoroastrianism in Iran is extremely visible as a symbol of an ‘ageless’ Iranian national pride, Zoroastrians as living individuals are hardly acknowledged.

In Mumbai, the position of Zoroastrians is quite different, with concentrated communities and a highly noticeable, concentrated physical presence in the urban fabric. Although Zoroastrians in India proudly announce and cherish their roots in Iran, their historical prominence and relative economic success as a community makes them hyper-visible in this cosmopolitan entrepot. Here is a city where every religious, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic community in India is represented, and the Zoroastrians’ long-time residence and success in the area has assured them a prominent place in the urban hierarchy.

For many Zoroastrians, Iran is a kind of legendary homeland, a place that they believe they were unfairly driven from but whose culture and history they are somehow connected to. Material connections to contemporary Iran in the community are surprisingly common.

The pages of the Mumbai community’s newspaper Parsi Times, for example, contain advertisements for heritage tours of Iran, including but not limited to Zoroastrian sites. Bohman Kohinoor, the 92-year-old owner of one of the most famous of the few dozen Parsi eateries left in the city — Britannia and Co. — was born in Iran and even returned for his honeymoon.

In both Mumbai and Karachi, the two main cities in the Subcontinent where Zoroastrian communities reside today, the impact of the Zoroastrian community can be strongly felt across the urban fabric. Distinctly Zoroastrian neighborhoods have emerged and are legitimated through the erection of public monuments and temples that materialize the community’s claim to belonging in the urban and national fabric. In some neighborhoods, the Faravahar sits on multiple temples, fountains and shops on the same block, creating the impression of Zoroastrian “space” even though the neighborhoods count only a handful of actual Zoroastrian residents.

The interior of Britannia and Co. restaurant.

Mumbai’s neighborhoods are an elaborate patchwork of varying religious traditions, and Hindu, Jain, and Sikh temples, mosques, ashurkhanehs, churches, synagogues and a wide variety of other religious monuments project a specific religious community’s belonging on a certain street or neighborhood. This demarcation of space is related to the fact that Karachi and Mumbai serve parallel roles, as both are the largest city and greatest magnet for domestic migration in their respective contexts.

As a result, their urban fabric is covered by districts hosting migrants from every region of the country, and the presence of a community neighborhood in the city signals to a certain extent their legitimate place among the nationalities, regions, religions, and ethnicities of the nation.

In both cities, long-established and wealthy “Parsi Colony” neighborhoods sit proudly among the host of districts named for communities that cover their respective city maps, in addition to the variety of Zoroastrian symbols that dot other neighborhoods as well.

A religious diversity poster at the Mahalaxmi Temple near Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. Unfortunately, Zoroastrianism was forgotten by the well-intentioned creator.

No matter the successes and visibility of Zoroastrian communities across the Indian Subcontinent, however, the community is still a tiny minority in a sea of more than 1.7 billion people. Their visibility in the urban fabric masks the very central fear of “extinction” that in many ways defines internal discourse in the community.

An ever-present subject among Zoroastrians is the decline in community numbers, a product of low rates of marriage and birth as well as high rates of emigration to the UK and other Western countries. In India, the clerical elite refuses to consider children born of mothers from outside the community as Zoroastrian (although in Pakistan the situation has recently changed), a factor which has left community numbers dropping quickly. The situation even led the Indian Ministry of Minority Affairs to launch a (quite embarrassing) campaign called Jiyo Parsi to encourage young Zoroastrians to get hitched and stop using condoms, leading some to angrily respond that Parsis “are not Pandas.”

One ad associated with the campaign in particular highlights the ironies of the community’s fear of a slow, quiet extinction. Among the campaign’s many patronizing and at times brazenly sexist ads, one takes aim in particular at the historical visibility of the community in the urban fabric by attempting to stoke fears that “Parsi Colony” will turn into “Hindu Colony” if the next generation doesn’t start procreating soon. Indeed, today in India — and in Mumbai specifically — the Parsi legacy is most felt in its visible prominence in the public sphere.

Interestingly, the prominence of this Iranian-descended community contrasts sharply with the near invisibility of Iranian and Persianate culture more broadly in the Subcontinent today, which since 1948 has been subsumed into Indian and Pakistani national culture. While Zoroastrians today appear to be an almost out-of-place minority group, the community was historically part and parcel of a wider elite Persianate subset of Indian identity. For centuries in India, the Persian language was the language of the courts and the arts, and Persian customs and style were markers of high breeding before the British institutionalized control in the second half of the 1800s.

Indeed, it is difficult to understate the historical impact and influence of Persian on the elite culture of the Indian subcontinent, despite the almost complete erasure of this dimension of Indian history from the public imagination. The language maintained such an extensive literature that the dialect used locally even developed its own standard, called Indo-Persian, and both Mumbai and Calcutta were centers for Persian-language publishing well into the 20th century. Even if most Parsis arrived in the 10th century before Persian became well-established, by the 1500s they found themselves living an environment the broader Indian ethos of the moment had turned deeply Persianate.

As contemporary fears of the disappearance of the Parsi community show, however, that period has long passed, and in an age of increasingly monolithic and homogeneous state nationalisms, Zoroastrians are but one of many small, formerly elite communities in India that are slowly disintegrating. The Arab Jewish Baghdadi communities that once dominated commerce across British India (including modern-day Myanmar), for example, have almost disappeared completely into Israel, while Armenian communities across the Subcontinent have increasingly packed up their bags as well.

One problem is that many elite business communities believed that their interests lied with the British during the colonial period. Baghdadi Jews, for example, largely stopped speaking Arabic over the course of a few generations and switched to English as a home language.

Similarly, Zoroastrians tended to view the British in a positive light, and symbols of affiliation and allegiance to Britain continue to decorate some Parsi restaurants even today.

Mumbai Starbucks emblazoned with the logo of TATA, one of the world’s largest companies that was founded and is still run by local Parsis.

It was no wonder that the rise of the Two-Nation theory — which posited the need for separate states in South Asia for Muslims and Hindus — left Zoroastrians in a complicated place. Bereft of their former British patron and stuck between dueling visions of India that offered these former elites only a marginal position, Zoroastrians could either leave for Britain or face a deeply uncertain future. The 1998 Indian film Earth dramatizes this struggle, depicting a Parsi family in Lahore whose world is turned upside down despite their deepest hope to remain neutral and stay put.

For the most part, however, the community escaped Partition unharmed. But the rise of the right-wing Hindutva ideology across India in recent years — which imagines Muslim and Christian Indians (including millions of followers of the Syriac, Nestorian, and Chaldean rites) as individuals foreign to the national body politic — threatens to go even further, taking the ideology of Partition to its full logical extent and expunging the Subcontinent of a diversity that has long refused to fit into the clearcut boxes of modern nationalist and religio-supremacist ideologies.

Amid this landscape, India’s Parsi and Irani communities occupy a unique if still uncertain place. As a largely wealthy, urban community, they do not fear the growing communal tensions that have been stoked by recent rumors of forced mass conversions of minorities amid the lingering memories of the 2002 riots in Gujarat or the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms.

Indeed, their fear is of a quiet death on the shady lanes of Mumbai’s Dadar Parsi Colony, of a day when the fire temples will fall empty and museums will be set up in their place. Regardless of what happens, however, the memory of this small diasporic Iranian community will live on in the urban fabric itself. The fear among Zoroastrians, however, is that they may end up increasingly like their Iranian counterparts: remembered fondly instead of lived with happily.

All photos courtesy of the author.

The post Parsi Mumbai: The Legacy of Zoroastrianism in India’s Urban Fabric appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The World Zoroastrian Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adil Mehta performed at the XVII North American Zoroastrian Congress in Los Angeles.

Below is the video recording of the event that way held on the second day of the Congress on December 30th, 2014 at Hilton LAX Airport

The post The World Zoroastrian Symphony Orchestra at XVII NAZC 2014 appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, eminent Zoroastrian scholar at Stanford University and a good personal friend of Parsi Khabar brings out the much-awaited Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism

This is the first ever comprehensive English-language survey of Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest living religions

More about Yuhan here

The post The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The Mumbai Port Trust has served an eviction notice for all tenants of Metro House building in Colaba including the iconic Cafe Mondegar for criminal violations of the lease agreement.

The 7-page notice of termination of lease (a copy of which is with Mumbaiwalla) was served to the building lessee Metro House Pvt Ltd on November 19, 2014 through Mumbai Port Trust advocate JJ Jadeja.

All the present occupants have been given six months from the date of notice to peacefully vacate the property.

According to the notice, the lessee Metro House Pvt Ltd has flouted every possible term of the lease including multiple instances of illegal subletting and alterations, unauthorised constructions of mezzanine floors, lofts, installation of mobile towers – besides unpaid rent, service tax and interest.

Of over 100 tenants in the building, 23 are illegal and have also been sent copies of the notice. These include Hardcastle Restaurants (which operates a Mc Donalds outlet on the premises), Hotel Regal Plaza and Metro Shoes.

The violations by Metro House Pvt Ltd apparently took place over a period of nearly two decades. The notice also seeks recovery of penalty and arrears amounting to Rs 1.64 crore.

“We have served a notice terminating the lease of Metro House,” Mumbai Port Trust chairman Ravi Parmar confirmed to Mumbaiwalla. “After the 6-month notice period expires, we will start eviction procedure. This is a criminal proceeding under Law of Contract for which police can take action.”

Several other lessees of Port Trust property across South Mumbai that are similarly involved in private profiteering and illegal subletting have also been served notices.

Continue reading the entire interview at MumbaiWalla

The post Cafe Mondegar faces eviction after Bombay Port Trust terminates building lease appeared on Parsi Khabar.

‘Chikoos’, ‘aamras’, Parsi food and empty beaches—Bordi offers a restful break from the city rush

When you’re driving in Mumbai, you never get to speed, or even feel the wind in your hair. Road trips can change that. They may begin with a slow crawl out of the city but then, at some point, like a door swinging wide open, you leave everything—worries, work and traffic—behind.

The Mumbai to Bordi route provides one such escape.

Article by Bhavani | Live Mint

The husband and I set out early on a Friday, caught the Western Express Highway, which slowly morphs into National Highway (NH) 8 and runs to New Delhi via Ahmedabad. Once on the highway, I rolled down the windows and let the roar of the wind drown out the music. Hills flowed into each other on either side, the air felt crisp.

Just about 25km after the Virar toll booth, we turned into a parking lot crowded with other ravenous travellers and joined the queue at Vithal Kamats. Their chai could give kheer a complex, the sambhar tasted like sweetened dal, but the misal pav had steam coming out of my ears. Satiated, we headed back to the highway. At Kasa junction, we took the left turn on to Dahanu Road, taking the coastal highway till Bordi. The sea, with tall trees lined up on the beachfront, gleamed to our left. On the right, chikoo orchards zipped by.

A small town about 150km north of Mumbai, Bordi lies along the Maharashtrian coast. Most of the hotels there used to be Parsi homes. They may not give the feel of true home-stays—but Parsi food is on the menu.

There aren’t many attractions—barring the 16th century Vasai Fort, also called Bassein Fort—so we planned our trip around the sea and sand. On the beach, dark, mildly sticky sand welcomed us. A signboard proclaimed that locals weren’t allowed to use the beach for daily ablutions, yet I walked cautiously till the gentle warm waters of the Arabian Sea swept me up, inviting me to venture further.

The next day, after an unhealthy helping of akuri, Parsi-style masala scrambled eggs, we set out to explore Bordi. The Saturday village haat had taken over the main street, an assortment of stalls selling everything from vessels and groceries to lingerie. Down the road, a Parsi bawa, standing at a window of his bungalow in white pyjamas and short kurta, invited us in. The chance to see an old Parsi home should never be passed up. It was like a walk down memory lane—poster beds, old tiled mosaic flooring and wooden window shutters. “We are all cousins, between 60-70 years, who live here,” he told us. His breath was laced with alcohol, but we were all ears thanks to his stories and his generosity.

Bidding him adieu, we headed to Aswali Dam, a 15-minute drive away, to watch the day dissolve into dusk. The dam wall divides the two sides—the large lake hemmed in by hills, and endless stretches of green fields.

We didn’t want to leave Bordi without visiting a Warli artist’s home. The tribals of this area traditionally decorate the walls of their homes with an art form unique to coastal Maharashtra-Gujarat, a style dominated by squares, triangles and circles—and now, expressed on paper, popular in homes across the country. We chatted with the artist, Suresh, and his family, and bought a few pieces before making our way to one of Bordi’s chikoo orchards, most of which welcome tourists. The chikoo trees, with their dense canopies and low-hanging fruit, stood in rows, engulfed by the earthy smell of decomposing leaves, ripe fruit and wet soil. We boxed up that smell in a box of chikoos layered with leaves, raw at the bottom, ripe at the top, an edible souvenir. If you would like to experience the peak chikoo season, visit towards the end of May.

Back in Mumbai, as I gulp down yet another cold chikoo shake, my mind wanders back to Bordi. I dream about running a heritage home-stay in an old bungalow, walking down the quaint lanes and letting life unravel by the water…

The post Bordi: In Search of Serenity appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Catering service the Bawi Bride Kitchen, which serves Parsi food, will launch its delivery services next month. sunday mid-day samples a meal, which comprises old Parsi favourites including Sali per eedu

Article by Anu Prabhakar | Mid Day

Perzen Patel, Chief Tasting Officer of the Bawi Bride Kitchen, the catering service which aims to make ‘Parsi food easily available’ to all, is all set to launch the venture’s food delivery service, titled Bhonu by Bawi Bride. The service, says Patel, will be launched on May 1.

The meals are carefully planned out throughout the month, to include a variety of dishes such as Chicken Ras Chawal, Chicken Vindaloo, Prawn Pulao and Fish Moilee among many others. There are four different packages — Ravenous (Rs 11,600 per month, R2000 per week), Starving (Rs 9,800 per month, Rs 1,750 per week), Very Hungry (Rs 8,000 per month, Rs 1,500 per week) and Hungry (Rs 5,250 per month, Rs 1,000 per week). The weekly meals are available from Monday to Friday and the prices exclude delivery charges.

We order a ‘Ravenous’ meal, which includes steamed white rice, two pieces of pav, Green mutton curry, Sali per eedu, Potato cheese cutlets and a small bowl of cut apples, bananas and oranges.

Green mutton curry: Main ingredients include coriander, coconut, jeera, green chillies and haldi among others. The meat is cooked with the curry masala in the cooker, to spread the flavour and taste of mutton to the entire curry. While the carnivore in our team finds the meat a tad too chewy for her taste, we like the flavoursome gravy. The dominant taste of ingredients such as dhana jeera and the meat preside over everything else, making this dish a favourite.

Sali per eedu: Made with pureed tomatoes, turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander, cumin powder, garam masala, salli and eggs, we like the Sali per eedu. Sure, we have had a fancier versions of this classic Parsi dish in the past, but we like the dish’s simple, no-frills version – exactly what we would like to have on a more daily basis. Some of us felt the potato sticks could have been crispier, but still, we like this traditional Parsi dish.

Potato cheese cutlets: We, unanimously, agree that the cutlets are a tad too salty for our taste. The cutlets are stuffed with cheese and other ingredients such as mashed potato, cooked with dhana jeera powder, salt and pepper and garam masala. We love the cutlets when we combine it with the steamed rice, but if only salt wasn’t so liberally sprinkled.

The post Bawi Bride Brings Parsi food at your doorstep appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Here are some pictures from the Persian Day Parade that went down Madison Avenue, in Manhattan; New York City today.

See the full set of images on Parsi Khabar’s Facebook Page

The post Persian Parade 2015 in New York City appeared on Parsi Khabar.

It’s a fight for a seat, and sometimes, a chicken leg, at the Parsi gahambar that celebrates an age-old tradition of praying and feasting.

Article By Meher Mirza | Mumbai Mirror

At 8 pm on March 21, stewards from legendary caterer Tanaz Godiwala’s team were on stand-by like soldiers awaiting a general’s order, even as a line of cooks poured bubbling hot sweet-sour, butter-flour saas from saucepans into aluminium trays stacked with succulent boneless chunks of steamed rawas. The saas-nimacchi was soon making the rounds of aisles in a makeshift seating area at Dadar Parsi Colony where a dinner was underway on the occasion of Navroze, the holiest day of the Zoroastrian calendar, marking the Spring Equinox.

They were carrying on a tradition that some say, dates back to the times of Prophet Zoroaster. The feast that his followers in India, the Parsis, call gahambar or gahanbar – a middle Persian name for community feasting held at the end of six seasons of the Zoroastrian calendar – was held through the year to celebrate the creation of the sky, water, earth, plants, beneficent animals, mankind, and fire. Each festival originally lasted one day, but following a calendar reform, was extended to six, and finally reduced to five – the first four days dedicated to prayer, and the last to communal eating where everyone participated, either by bringing dairy, meat, legumes and vegetables or offering their cooking services.

“Currently, a gahambar is celebrated as a community event for Zoroastrians, where a thanksgiving meal is preceded by a jashan or prayer. The feasting may be sponsored either for a living person or in memory of the dear departed or simply as an act of spiritu- a l merit,” says Ervad Dr Ramiyar Karanjia, Zoroastrian scholar and priest. Most gahambars are free, with coupons distributed at landmark Parsi stores and colonies, while some are ticketed. The menu can vary as can the guest list.

Bharuch, a city that sits at the mouth of the Narmada, recently served as venue for a mithai gahambar, where the menu was dedicated to desserts. Some feasts are reserved only for women or men, with the express purpose of hewing down boisterous crowds that don’t shy away from fighting for their share of salli ma marghi.

Prepping for the big hour

In a more leisurely time than ours, the rich and poor came together to celebrate. Bhicoo Manekshaw writes in her book, Parsi Food and Customs, “each person may contribute to the function what they can, and rich and poor come together to eat. If a person is too poor, he can even help with the preparation of the food. The meal is simple – masala ni dar ne chawal. Sometimes, someone may contribute an additional dish, which is usually a mutton dish like papeta ma gos (mutton and potatoes).”

This community service is now a memory. All the cooking and serving at modern gahambars is handled by professional caterers, who charge a smidgeon of their regular fees as a service to their community.

Kurush Dalal, archaeologist and caterer at Katy’s Kitchen, has manned the kitchen for Dahanu’s once famous annual gahambar, known to draw 4,000 guests from across the country. Dar-chawal (dal-rice) and stew tend to be staples, he says, although deep pockets often mean that a mutton dish is thrown in. “At the Dahanu gahambar,” he recounts, “we served 200 kg of mutton.” The dal remains the beating heart of the meal, especially in the towns scattered across Gujarat.

Dalal, who remembers his grandfather recounting gahambar tales, says intrepid gahambar-goers would carry lemons in their pocket, because caterers wouldn’t serve lime wedges to squeeze over the dar. “This was later confirmed by my father. In fact, Gustaad Irani, who hosted the Dahanu gahambar, told him he was proud that he was one of the few hosts to serve the guests an abundant supply of lemons.”

The five-day affair may have been pared down, but preparations continue on a daunting scale. Cooking usually starts the previous night. “We bring in the meat at about 3 am before leaving it to marinate for an hour in aadu-lasan (ginger-garlic paste). It’s then slowcooked in giant handis overnight, on mango wood,” says Dalal. The catering staff works overnight to finish prepping, so that the dar can be shifted to the stove to slowly bubble away. “This is because most gahambars are held at lunch time.” The tapelas (pots) are so large, four adults could sit in one. Naturally, once mounted on the fire, they aren’t moved until after the service.

The big Mumbai feast

Philanthrophist Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, an orphan who made his fortune by trading in cotton and opium with China, is often credited with reviving Mumbai’s gahambar tradition by donating a handsome sum to the Bombay Parsi Punchayet for the same. Now, most feasts are organised by individuals or charity trusts set up exclusively for the purpose. “We usually hear of them in Parsi newspapers, or through friends. I start queuing at noon to get a seat,” says Bakhtavar Batliwalla, a gahambar regular. But as night falls, crowds swell at Charni Road’s Albless Baug, a common venue for Parsi weddings. Unlike Manekshaw’s frugal meal, some gahambars rival wedding feasts. “At the last three feasts, there was salli marghi, tarkari par eeda (eggs on vegetables), egg curry rice, cold drinks, achaar and ice cream,” says a satisfied Batliwalla.

At the Dadar Parsi Colony gahambar (in pics) held by the Mancherji Edalji Joshi Memorial Trust, Godiwala served saas ni macchi, dabba gosht, mutton pulao dal, salli marghi, foil chicken, akuri, custard, ice cream and chocolate lava cake. At the recent Shapoorji Pallonji gahambar at Turf Club, waiters plied hungry diners with everything from samosas to gulab jamun.

Clearly, the feast serves as social glue, braiding the scattered community. “It fosters a spirit of unity. It goes beyond the rich-poor divide and works to the common end of progress and prosperity,” says Karanjia.

GAHUMBARS OF GUJARAT

The stories behind why each gahumbar is held are sometimes as delicious as the eats served on the occasion.

In Variav, a village that sits on the banks of the Tapti river in Surat district, once lived several Parsi families ruled by a brazen Rajput king, who taxed his subjects mercilessly. The Parsis rebelled, and to quell the protest, the king sent mercenaries to Variav. The men were away at work, with only women and elderly at home. Not to cower in the face of a challenge, the women dressed in male attire, drew their swords and fought the mercenaries. It was only when one of them noticed a earring on one of the ladies’ that they realised they were about to be beaten by women. Furious, they came on stronger, forcing the women to retreat and jump into the river, to avoid capture. The elderly lived to tell the tale.

Forever and after, the men of the village held a gahambar on that day each year to honour and remember the feat of their brave wives and sisters. It is said that the only dish to grace the table was vaal (a type of white bean); its bitterness a reminder of their sacrifice.

In the sleepy hamlet of Sanjan, on November 17 every year, a gahumbar is held to mark the occasion when Persian refugees fleeing Muslim Arab invaders in the eighth century, landed in Gujarat. Parsis celebrate the occasion as Sanjan Day by hosting a grand vegetarian gahambar. Last year, the Flying Ranee that shuttles each day between Surat and Mumbai Central, even made a special twominute halt at Sanjan, for droves of Parsis rushing there.

Elsewhere, a less momentous event draws families from Thane and Valsad districts. The junglewasi gahambar sees men who manage their farms come together with their wives who live and work on the coast, once a year. In the pre-prohibition days, palm wine or toddy was served to cool parched throats. “It’s a great place to catch up on who got married, who died, who had children and who ran away,” laughs Kurush Dalal, who has catered for the junglewasi gahumbar in the past.

The post Eating in Thousands: The Parsi Gahambars appeared on Parsi Khabar.

One of the oldest area in Mumbai, the Dadar Parsi colony area’s residents came out, on Sunday in large numbers for anti-hawkers protest march.
The protest which began from Five Gardens had residents and well-wishers turning up in large numbers to support the anti-hawkers stand.

Here is the glimpse of the protest march that followed.

All pictures by Suresh K.K published in Mid-Day

The post Dadar Parsi colony residents fight for hawker-free zone appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The heritage precinct is both, a tree spangled island and the last bastion of a threatened community. To its residents, the BMC’s move to fill its streets with hawkers has become a metaphor of loss.

Jimmy Gymkhanawalla is flexing his muscles. Homi Homeopath looks like an overdose of Nux Vomica. Soli Solicitor is preparing a brief which is anything but. Dadar Parsi Colony has never been so agitated – and certainly never so united – in living memory.

Article By Bachi Karkaria, Mumbai Mirror

Mani Manor, Villoo Villa and Tehmi Terrace have been shaken to their foundations. While nibbling eclairs at Cafe 792, buying Bombay duck at the Katrak Road bazaar, flirting on the Five Gardens railings, waxing legs at Cinderella salon, practising a Shiamak sizzler, swotting for the CA exam, or even lighting a divo at the Rustom Framna Agiary, there’s only one demand: Save Us From Death By Hawkers.

The Damocles sword is the Street Vendors Act 2014, passed on the double-edged premise of “livelihood”. Some 1,800 hawkers have been “allotted” space across Dadar Parsi Colony, Hindu Colony and Matunga. Signature campaigns have been launched, the media co-opted, authorities appealed to. The municipal corporation has thrown up its helpless hands, saying that only the Supreme Court can decide on the matter. It would indeed be a landmark case, calling for a great leap out of the box.

Today, residents and “well-wishers” will march in protest from the police chowky to the statue of the Dadar Parsi Colony’s founder, Muncherji Joshi. The foresight of this Bombay Improvement Trust civil engineer created a residential haven for Parsis in 1920, far from their traditional concentration in congested, plague-ridden “Fort”. Joshi is remembered gratefully by their descendants who live in the spacious, airy, three-storied houses cosseted by a benign and profuse botanica: not just the spreading rain trees or the banyan – “wad” which gave Wadala its name, but also rare ebony and mahogany.

The colony is a heritage precinct, spared Mumbai’s marauding concrete by a trust deed which does not allow high rises and by a vigilant NGO led by Joshi’s intrepid granddaughter, Zarine Engineer. It has actively kept out encroachment, and demanded accountability of corporators squandering funds on ugliness in the name of “beautification”. But now, as many as 94 “pitch licences” have been given for the very thoroughfare named after the visionary aesthete, Muncherji Joshi.

The irony is compounded by mindless indifference to the user communities. Located here are the revered agiary to which most of the residents make their daily way to pray, and the secular JB Vachha High School for Parsi Girls and Ranina Day Nursery. The other Parsi Colony hawker licences are for the radial Firdoshi Road, also the site of the inclusive DPYA boys’ school – and the precious mahogany trees.

If the allottees come, can the illegal ones be far behind? One only has to get to the main Khodadad Circle, or worse, cross Tilak Bridge to Dadar (west) to see the raucous, littered fate that awaits the sylvan Parsi Colony at Five Gardens.

Middle-class Mumbai has been fighting a (mostly losing) battle against hawkers. Look at the gaudy merchandise which has obliterated the equally historic bungalows and churches of Bandra’s Hill Road, and turned pedestrian movement into a hazardous obstacle course. Gauge the rage over such a wholesale takeover of pavements from Mumbai Mirror’s 2013 campaign, “Talk the Walk”, the overwhelming public response to which brought even Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte on to the subverted streets.

But the hawkerfication of Dadar Parsi Colony cuts at something deeper. Yes, the sprawling eponymous Five Gardens and smaller parks are a breather for the thousands who descend here from miles around. From morning-walk bank managers to the Sunday congregation of bhaiyas; from taporis pumping iron at the al fresco roman rings to canoodlers and elders huddling closer for different reasons. Yes, it’s arguably the only middle-class area spared from hawkers; bar the handful of paan, pav bhaji, kala khatta and “Chines” stalls.

But, deep down, at the heart of the protest is not just paradise lost, but a bequest betrayed.

The Dadar Parsis study, shop, socialise within this enclave. It’s the home of their robust forefathers and their hope for an increasingly iffy future. The “Colony” is an island entire unto itself; a rare urban, mostly monocultural ethno-sphere. It’s the world’s largest concentration of Parsis/Iranis; every fourth Mumbai Zoroastrian lives here.

Being the creation of a Parsi for Parsis makes it akin to ancestral legacy, with all the attendant sense of entitlement. Belonging to a demographically threatened “molecularity”, the Dadar colony Parsis are far more obsessively possessive of their turf. Therefore the call to the barricades, the resistance to hawkers rattling at their genteel gates is much more than the usual NIMBY factor – Not In My Backyard.

Today’s collective indignation is laced with trepidation and paranoia. In 2009, the Dadar Colony may have won a six-year legal battle to stay exclusively Parsi, but already its architectural and ethnic signatures are smudged. The non-“covenanted” houses are being replaced by high rises, which has meant more non-Parsis moving in. A community which once created almost all of Mumbai is deeply wounded at now not even being allowed to hold on to its last little acre.

A COLONY PROTESTS

Zarine Engineer

It was a herculean task for my grandfather to change this jungle into a paradise — with planned, open spaces, trees, schools, a library, fire temple, gymkhana and madressa. Now, suddenly, after nearly nine decades, the authorities want to turn our peaceful, residential area into a commercial zone. Parsi Colony alone is to be invaded by 214 hawkers, 96 of them on Muncherji Joshi road. Are our school girls and their parents expected to walk on the road? And what about the senior citizens of our ageing community? It’s the responsibility of the present generation to preserve the integrity and distinctive character of the colony; it’s an inheritance for future generations.

Dinshaw Tamboly

I do not see the point of hawkers’ zones thrust on a residential area. Not only will the tranquillity of the place be severely compromised, the clean and green space will be replaced with filth and waste. How will the safety of the children in the two schools here be ensured as crowds throng? The Wadala Market and shopping complex at Dadar TT are all close at hand. So, where’s the need for hawkers in the first place?

Zubin Zarthoshtimanesh

The hawkers’ zones will not just be a physical infringement but a mental invasion of our space. Taking the populist route, the BMC is trying to grab the few empty footpaths left in Mumbai. Our colony is one of the last few green lungs, and it will be left gasping for air – and privacy. Every effort has to be made to fight this onslaught on our rights – and sanity.

Penaz Masani

Our colony is not just a green belt for us residents but for thousands of Mumbaikars who come in religiously every morning and evening to walk and exercise. Five Gardens is our heritage, carefully preserved, with its gigantic trees and beautiful parks. To think of a hawking zone here is absolute madness.

Katie Bagli

I feel sad. During my walks through Muncherji Joshi Road and Firdoshi Road, instead of the yellow flowers of the Copper Pods, and the red winged seeds of the Mahogany, I’ll be forced to look upon ungainly tarpaulins and whatnots belonging to hawkers. The avenues of trees which are so much a part of Parsi Colony would lose their pride of place as they would be hidden from view. With it, the colony’s property value will also drop.

The post Longing and Loss at Dadar Parsi Colony appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Despite an eviction notice from the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), the tenants of Metro House in Colaba, which houses iconic establishments such as the famed Café Mondegar, have refused to vacate the premises. The port trust will initiate legal action, if the tenants fail to vacate the premises by Sunday.

Article by Sumant Salunke | Hindustan Times

According to a source from the trust, the notice was issued because the leaseholders flouted the conditions mentioned in the lease agreement and also made illegal alterations to the structure, which cannot be regularised under the current rules.

“The matter is not of pressing importance, it has been exaggerated astronomically. We don’t plan to vacate the premises anytime soon, because we have done nothing wrong. Our tenants and our businesses will continue, and you will find Metro House exactly as it is today even two months later. If forced evictions begin on Sunday, we will approach the court for a stay. This is a case of misjudgement, as we have explained in our legal reply to the port trust authorities,” said a spokesperson for the Metro House.

“We will not vacate the premises. The notice has been delivered to the landlord [Metro House], and the issue is between them and the MbPT. My contract is still valid, and there is no way I’m giving up my shop. I will approach the court if someone tries to forcefully shut my shop,” said Rudramuni Biradar, owner, Search Word bookstore in the building.

A spokesperson for Café Mondegar previously told HT that the café too had nothing to do with it, as the legal tussle is between Metro House and the MbPT.

The post Café Mondegar, others won’t vacate Colaba’s Metro House building appeared on Parsi Khabar.

In the age of information, data rules. A new supercomputer has been installed in the basement of the Wham Education Building to keep SIU on the cutting edge of technology.

SIU is the second Illinois state school to have a clustered supercomputer available to the faculty, said Rustomji Vania, deputy director of research computing and cyberinfrastructure. There are other clusters on campus, but this is the only one that is not department specific.

Article by Sam Beard | Daily Egyptian

The supercomputer, which is actually 40 computers wired together, is centralized, meaning it is available to any researcher or faculty who demonstrates the technological need, Vania said.

The high-powered computer will sharply increase storage capacity and computation efficiency for its users, allowing for larger and more comprehensive research projects.

The “research overhead” fund allocated by the chancellor’s office covered the $356,000 cost of the machine.

“This is a Ferrari,” Vania said. “In terms of computers, it’s some of the best gear you can possibly have.”

Vania said the centralized supercomputer will enhance research prospects for all departments on campus.

The computer has four terabytes of RAM — about 500 to 1,000 times more than the average laptop. It is open source, meaning there are no inbuilt restrictions to what can or cannot be done with it.

Vania, the supercomputer facilitator, said he is glad that computer is open source as opposed to running on a closed system, because it is ideal for research.

“You’re not trapped by a [software] vendor’s decision to do something you don’t agree with,” Vania said. “I can sleep at night because I can regression test it all day and night to make sure it’s going to work.”

Aside from faculty and researchers, students can utilize the power of the rig, too.

“This is a very big move for the university,” said Babak Ahsant, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering from Iran. “There used to be some other clusters [on campus] but they were not well maintained.”

Ahsant said this was a wise purchase, and he is excited for the computer to go online this summer.

Several faculty members are being given accounts on the machine in order to undergo a variety of operational tests and an outside specialist will be brought in before it goes online.

Given the half-life that technology has, the supercomputer will remain state-of-the-art technology for about half a decade, Vania said.

“If it was on a five-year replacement cycle that would be good,” he said. “Technology is twice as fast and twice as cheap every two years.”

The prized rig is backed up by an outdoor diesel generator and will never lose power unless the building collapses. There are also two air conditioners and a ventilated floor to keep the equipment cool, Vania said.

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