Ariana Vafadari is a singer and along with her team at Quart de Lune has produced a new album of music titled: Gathas, Songs My Father Taught Me.
Here is a youtube trailer of her album.
Ariana Vafadari, vocal; Habib Meftah Bousheri, percussions; Haroun Teboul, oud, tanbur, ney; Mohamed Hafsi, double bass; Julien Carton, piano
The post Ariana Vafadari: Gathas, Songs My Father Taught Me appeared on Parsi Khabar.
HERITAGE LOST: The Parsee Cemetery
Author: Faiyaz Shafique Ansari
The Parsees– one of India’s smallest minorities – have been worried about their dwindling numbers for decades.
During British Raj many rich business class Parsees migrated to Darjeeling.
Among them were the Dinshaws and Madans who owned hotels and Cinema Halls.Avari Saheb was an icon figure. Others were in medical profession namely Dr K.N Master.
My visit to the Parsee Cemetery below Singtom Fatak in Singamari gave me the opportunity to know more about the vanished community.
Sadly to say the condition of graveyard is very much unlooked and abandoned. The apartment for the dead body is used by drug addicts. The caretaker quarter is in diaplated hunted condition.The pathways are full of wild bushes. The grave stones are destroyed only some are intact.
I appeal to the erstwhile Parsee families of Darjeeling to take notice of the same.
Please do contact District Magistrate or the Department concerned to appoint one full time caretaker to look after the Cemetery.
Due to limited space, I guess only Parsee people are buried on the grounds.
In Mumbai, where most Parsis live, the controversy over last rites has been of a slightly different nature. Orthodox Parsis believe in the tradition of putting their dead in Towers of Silence where, as per religious tradition, the bodies are left open for vultures to prey on. With vultures almost extinct in the subcontinent, reformists in Mumbai are increasingly opting for cremation or burial.
Reformists are also more open to the idea of inter-community marriages and do not oppose conversions to Zoroastrianism. The orthodox, on the other hand, do not welcome non-Parsi spouses of such marriages into their fire temples, even though inter-community marriages make up close to 40% of all weddings in the community. Besides, they only accept children of inter-faith marriages if their father is Parsi: if a Parsi woman marries outside the community, her children are not officially allowed into a fire temple or funeral room.
At the heart of the disagreement between the orthodox and the reformists is the debate between race and religion.
Many Indians assume that Parsis are synonymous with Zoroastrians. In fact, Zoroastrianism is a religion that has around two million followers around the world. The term “Parsi”, on the other hand, refers specifically to those Indian Zoroastrians who arrived in Gujarat around 1,200 years ago, fleeing persecution in Iran.
Today, there are just over 69,000 Parsis around the world. Reformists believe this is partly because of the community’s focus on maintaining racial purity.
Conservatives who are opposed to sharing burial space with non-Parsi husbands and wives of community members, the sanctity of their race is as important as the practice of their religion.
Parsees are very ethnic community and their heritage and ethnicity should not be diluted any further.Non-Parsi spouses are invited to other social events, but their funeral grounds, which were given by the government exclusively for the Parsis, would be de-sanctified if outsiders were allowed in.
Darjeeling Parsee population has no count.
The community didn’t included more people among the Parsis but I think radical changes should be made by the community to save the community. Such changes must come as decisions made by the community as a whole.
Reforms within the community is must to include more people.
But the orthodox think that by being exclusive, they will be able to survive and preserve their ethnicity. But the truth is that Parsee population is in decline, and unless a race is dynamic, it will die out.
The post The Parsee Cemetry of Darjeeling India appeared on Parsi Khabar.
THE YOUNG BOSS: ‘I HAD TO DEMAND TO BE HEARD’
At 23, Delhi-born Anahita Dhondy took up her first job in a professional kitchen. Armed with a grand diplome from Le Cordon Bleu, London, she joined as chef manager, a title which put her at the top of the kitchen’s pecking order. It was also a title that would become one of her biggest challenges over the next three years.
“Being young and a woman acted doubly against me,” says Dhondy. “I was seen as flippant, someone who would leave the kitchen in a few years when I wanted to ‘start a family’. The immediate perception was — this girl has been hired because she looks good and can chat with the guests.”
Dhondy’s team at SodaBottleOpenerWalla — an Irani café-themed restaurant chain based in Delhi — consisted of 13 men, ranging from interns to fellow chefs.
“I was in charge of men with ten and fifteen years of experience. They would not take me seriously,” she says. “If I suggested flavour inputs for dishes, for instance, they were never implemented.”
Dhondy says it took three months of uphill work before she was taken seriously.
“I had to learn how to compete in a kitchen full of men,” she says. “That meant making a change to the way I acted. It wasn’t enough to just be the boss; I had to explain my expertise to them. I had to be clear that though I lacked the hands-on experience that they had, I more than made up for it with my technical and creative expertise. I had to be forceful about my inputs, repeating myself and standing firm. I had to demand to be heard in a way that others didn’t have to.”
Dhondy says she didn’t verbalise these concerns to her seniors. “I felt it was important to handle it myself,” she says. “But yes, the professional kitchen is a very sexist place in two ways — it’s hard for women to enter, and once they do they have to work doubly hard to prove their mettle.”
Restauranteur AD Singh, owner of the SBOW brand, says it is harder for women chefs in India. “They have to work much more to stand out. We get very few female applicants. Anahita is articulate, attractive and Parsi, with many amazing stories of her own and of her family to tell. Of course, she is also a very talented chef, who last year was one of two employees who made it to the Asia finals of an international competition for young chefs.”
Dhondy is still the only full-time woman employee in her kitchen, which is among Delhi’s most popular. “We had a girl in the Mumbai branch, but she’s quit,” Dhondy says. “I want to be impartial in how I hire chefs, but at the same time I want to encourage other women, so it’s a balancing act. Things are changing, but very slowly.”
Continue reading the entire article at Hindustan Times
The post Trial by fire: Women chefs and the challenges they face in kitchens appeared on Parsi Khabar.
His centennial birth year is an opportunity to celebrate the man who set up the Border Security Force and laid the ground for the first Public Interest Litigation case
Though he was born a Parsi on May 22, 1916, Khusro Faramurz Rustamji, one of modern India’s most celebrated police officers and the first Director General of the Border Security Force, was cremated, according to his wishes, as per Hindu rituals in March 2003. A passionate nationalist, Rustamji also wrote extensively on minority rights of Hindus and Muslims, and rued the fact that his journalistic writings were not acknowledged. However, now, in the 100th year of his birth, Rustamji’s writings are finally being acknowledged as religiously as his remarkable leadership in the police and BSF.
Article by Navneet Anand | The Daily Pioneer
In 1971, in an acknowledgment of his leadership capabilities, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wrote a letter at the end of the India-Pakistan war, in which Rustamji had so brilliantly deployed the might of the BSF, a force he nurtured: “As the first lie of our defence, the Border Security Force had to bear the immediate brunt of the enemy onslaught. The manner in which they faced the fire and support they gave to the army played a crucial role in our ultimate success.” Defense Secretary KB Lall, in his letter to the Home Secretary also praised the role of the BSF: “A special word of thanks to the Director General of the Border Security Force and to the men and officers under his command, is overdue. It is their initial initiatives, their boldness courage and, if I may say so, imagination, which provided eventually an opportunity to the Defense Services to do their part.”
In the midst of Pakistani fury when Bangladesh was preparing for the swearing-in ceremony, selection of the place was critical. Rustamji was clear he wanted this historic ceremony to be witnessed by the maximum number of people. The spot also had to provide for the possibility of strafing by a Pakistani plane which did this ruthlessly all over East Pakistan. Accordingly, a triangular piece of land jutting into India with a beautiful mango grove was selected in a village called Baidyanathtala which later became Mujib Nagar. It was a unique way for the new Government of a new nation to be sworn in, in the midst of a global Press.
Rustamji nicely summarised this. He said, “The first process of Government of a newly born nation was to commence not in a man-made, gaily decorated and illuminated building of carpeted floor and chandelier decorated ceilings but in a place which had for its canopy the sky, and for its decoration the trees. Decades or centuries hence when the citizens of Bangladesh would look back on the birth of their country and the tragic circumstances attending it, they could legitimately be proud, among other things, of the fact that their first Government sworn to democracy, secularism, and socialism came in an area where nature had bestowed her gifts in profusion and in the wake of ceremonies which were not only immaculate but also daring in their conception and courageous in their execution.”
After his retirement in 1974, Rustamji was much sought after for his expertise. As Special Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, he structured the BSF, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Central Industrial Security Force in the Central Police Organisation. He also initiated the formation of the Indian Coast Guard and was responsible for setting up the National Police Commission. He later became its member from 1978 to 1983.
Not many know about this but, in 1978, Rustamji visited the jails in Bihar and wrote about the conditions of the undertrials languishing for long periods. Two of his articles in The Indian Express formed the basis for the first Public Interest Litigation case, Hussainara Khatoon vs State of Bihar, which led to the release of 40,000 undertrials all over India.
The post KF Rustamji: India’s iconic police officer appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Female Entrepreneur: Zeenia Master | Founder, Xenia Hospitality Solutions
Interview by Ashish Bhardwaj, wearethecity.in
Tell us a bit about yourself, background and what you do currently
Being hospitality professional with degrees from Switzerland and London, I have climbed up the ladder from waitress to manager by the time I left my last remunerated job. I have worked in London, Dubai, Kuwait for international brands like Hyatt, Sofitel, Shangri – La, Hotel Missoni and the Landmark London. With my expertise in food and beverages I have recently discovered a passion for event design and production. Combining my two loves of being a restaurateur and an event planner, my company Xenia Hospitality Solutions now provides clientele a complete 360-degree service solution for their every single event requirement. This venture landed wedding events in the Turf Club, NSCI etc.
With this business I realized that there are a lot of people looking to host small parties for 50 to 100 people but no venue to do so especially in South Mumbai. Hence, Yiamas: The Experimental Space was born. I am planning on turning Yiamas into a cultural hub where people feel comfortable in hosting anything from a string quartet to a private wedding or sangeet.
What inspired you to start a business?
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. It only seemed natural that I would one day start my own venture, as I wasn’t interested in the logistics industry. I remember reading the book Kane and Abel by Jeffery Archer and that actually was on reason why I started thinking about the hospitality industry in the first place. The more I researched the more I fell in love. First day of college in Switzerland my academic said “There is beauty and grace in what we do. It’s like you are on stage and everyone is enjoying the show.” I was sold!
What are the greatest challenge and the greatest reward in being your own boss?
Greatest Challenge was breaking in a market with immense competition and where everyone thinks they are event planner. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of people I have met that will turn around and say “We have planned a lot of events.” Not realising they have still outsourced it to professionals like me for execution. In a country where everyone gets involved in a wedding getting people to trust that you will do an equally good job if not better is tough.
Greatest Reward was on Feb 15th this year when I opened my first banquet space. For a person that has been waiting to put her name on a door since she was 13 this day left me smiling from ear to ear.
What motivational tips can you give about goal setting and managing both successes and failures?
I strongly believe in that being safe is the riskiest thing you can do because society has evolved so much and there is so much more out there. Do something that scares you and makes you anxious. Because that is something worth trying, as that fear will force you to create art and who doesn’t want to buy art.
Poke the box a little you will be amazed to see what you can achieve if you push yourself out of your comfort zone just a little every day.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced as a business owner?
Finding quality vendors that provide you with good customer service and products. What lands up happening since you are a lady and you are a start up the vendors think you aren’t serious. Often times your career is considered a “hobby” rather than an actual business venture. And gods forbid you come from a family of means then it is guaranteed that they will not take you seriously. I have had to keep four vendors on stand up in my initial project days.
How have you benefited from mentoring or coaching?
I was blessed to have my father as my mentor. He is a beacon of light for me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for his guidance. Even after everything he has achieved he still has the same level of gusto in every project. Even in Yiamas he has taken a very keen interest coming to site every week to ensure we were on schedule. He helped me avoid a lot of small faux pas, which would have cost me a lot.
What advice can you give about the benefits of networking?
Someone once told me that your “Net worth” is only as large as your “Network”.
As a business owner, most of the times people will give you business because they know you. The more people know you or rather the more popular you become the more people want to be associated with you. Its uncomfortable to network at events alone which is why I always try and bring someone with me.
What are your tips for scaling a business and how do you plan for and manage growth?
Find a new project as that expands your services and helps you put more feathers in your cap.
Be present on as many portals as possible within your trade. Visibility helps a lot.
Set Targets and divide them within your company that way everyone is on the ball to bring in business.
Keep a work journal. Every new idea you have write it down. I guarantee you every one of those ideas helps.
What does the future hold for you?
Having an international presence for sure in the near future. Expansion in a few more verticals like a café etc. is on the cards. Also, becoming a personality within the wedding planning industry, kind of like a Martha Stewart but for events.
The post Female Entrepreneur: Zeenia Master | Founder, Xenia Hospitality Solutions appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Delhi residents, and visitors lucky enough to be in the city right now, have a week left to visit a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Museum. The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination, a landmark exhibition in more ways than one, closes on 29 May.
Article by Sidin Vadukut | Live Mint
One of the key ideas of the exhibition, Sarah Stewart said, was to show that there is more to the Parsi community than popular stereotypes and caricatures. “So while the Parsi community in India has shown tremendous interest in enjoying the exhibition, what we really hope is that everybody else will also enjoy it,” Stewart said.
Stewart, a lecturer in Zoroastrianism at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, is one of several experts jointly curating this major exhibition that was originally organised at SOAS’s Brunei Gallery in London in late 2013. This March, after months of planning and, as Stewart explained, a mammoth logistical effort, the show reached the National Museum in New Delhi.
The show, “a visual narrative of the history of Zoroastrianism”, brings together a stunning range of 300 objects from all over the world, including from lending institutions such as the British Museum, the British Library, the National Museum of Iran and the State Hermitage Museum. It is unlikely, Stewart said, that such a collection will ever be shown again at the same place and at the same time.
The exhibition is a rich retelling of the history of the one of the world’s greatest religions. One of the highlights is a replica fire temple installation, modelled on the Maneckji Navroji Sett Fire Temple in Mumbai. This is the closest that many visitors will ever get to seeing the insides of a Fire Temple. Mint on Sunday asked the National Museum’s Joyoti Roy to pick out some of her favourite pieces from this great show and tell us why they are so important.
The post Encounters with Zoroaster at the National Museum appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Endearingly called Billy by his friends, Lt Gen FN Bilimoria, PVSM was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished and dedicated soldiers in the Indian Army. His family lineage too was uniquely illustrious. Among his forebears were a naval chief, a vice chief of the army staff, an army commander, a corps commander, a governor, an ambassador, an inspector general of police and a chief justice to boot. There couldn’t have been a more pre-eminent genealogy. Faridoon Bilimoria himself retired as an army commander. If all this high ranking ancestry was not enough, Bilimoria’s older son Karan added a unique niche to the family lineage by becoming a peer – the youngest and the first Parsi to enter the portals of the House of Lords.
Article by Raj Kanwar | The Citizen
In a simple but fascinating narrative, Maj Gen Ian Cardozo writes about the Life and Times of Lt Gen Bilimoria. I can do no better than reproduce this quote from the book’s blurb “It is the story of the soldier who by his personal life and example extolled the virtues of the army and his Regiment. He lived life to the full in keeping with the values given to him by the simple Gorkha soldiers from the hills of Nepal.”
His love affair with the army began when he joined in 1949 the 2nd Course in the Joint Services Wing – a forerunner of the National Defence Academy in Clement Town, Dehra Dun – and continued virtually over much of his life. From the Joint Services Wing to the Indian Military Academy, it was a seamless transition for the young Faridoon.
Bilimoria was not even 20 when he was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Gorkha Rifles. The ‘Second Five’ was proudly known as the ‘VC Battalion’ as three of its soldiers had won during World War II Victoria Cross, the highest gallantry award in the then British Empire. Two of the proud winners were Gaje Ghale and Agan Singh Rai. It was thus a fortuitous happening that these two Victoria Cross winners were in the ‘Second Five’ Battalion when Billy joined it. It was therefore no wonder that the two VC winners became Billy’s mentors; he was a great learner and these two helped him further hone all the skills needed in commanding the troops.
As a young captain, he was chosen as the ADC to the president Dr. Rajendra Prasad. It was during that tenure that Billy happened to meet his future wife Yasmin at a function during the President’s visit to Hyderabad. Yasmin greatly captivated Billy, and in January 1960, the two tied the knot at Secunderabad. Yasmin was a great pillar of support to him; she happily and proficiently performed each and every activity that came the way of an army wife. Her role became more and more pronounced as Billy rose higher and higher in the army hierarchy.
Over the years, Faridoon achieved one distinction after another. Much later, he was the Colonel of the Regiment – the highest and most prestigious appointment that anyone could aspire for. Yet another exalted honour came his way when he was appointed president of the Gorkha Brigade. Suffice it to say here that Gen Bilimoria bestowed extra lustre to whatever he did in the course of his brilliant career in the army. He loved every bit of the army. The book highlights many important landmarks in Gen Bilimoria’s career. He truly epitomized and even lived the Chetwode Credo, “The Safety, Honour And Welfare…… Always And Everytime”. In fact, if there ever was a soldier’s General, it was Faridoon Bilimoria, more or less in Sam Manekshaw’s mould.
Bilimoria had also developed a pronounced liking for Dehra Dun; he was just 11 when he entered the Doon School. After five years of schooling, he spent some more years at the Joint Services Wing and the Indian Military Academy Dehra Dun. It was also home to his Battalion and the Gorkha Brigade. He was also the deputy commandant and chief instructor at the Indian Military Academy. Thus settling down in Dehra Dun after retirement was an obvious choice. He meticulously built a beautiful house in Dehra Dun’s upscale Vasant Vihar – in close proximity to his alma mater, the Indian Military Academy. He died at age 72 on 31 August 2005.
Yasmin Bilimoria is still socially very active. She lives here with her younger son Nadir who is in publishing business.
Maj Gen Ian Cardozo deserves compliments for the painstaking research that must have taken a good deal of his time. This well written biography brings to life the many qualities of head and heart that Gen Bilimoria embodied.
Lt Gen Bilimoria – His Life & Times
By Maj Gen Ian Cardozo
92 Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research,
United Service Institution of India 2016
For Private Circulation
(Raj Kanwar is a Dehradun based veteran journalist and author.)
The post Lt Gen Faridoon N Bilimoria: A Soldier’s General appeared on Parsi Khabar.
She does not look like it. She simply does not. You would be forgiven for mistaking Phiroza Dhanjishaw Anklesaria as a gentle old lady, demure and happy to trundle along the path of the orthodox.
You would be completely wrong.
Designated in 1999, Phiroza is one of a handful of women senior advocates practicing in the Bombay High Court. But that is not the only interesting thing about her. For her life’s story is a tale that begs to be told. There are ups and there are downs, and there are fights, scraps if you will.
Plenty of scraps.
And it all began in 1946, when she was five years old.
She was just five years old when she knew she wanted to be a lawyer; her father had wanted to be one. When he could not (“he was extremely naughty”), his daughter took up the career path. With great enthusiasm.
“I would put on my father’s bush shirt. Stand on a chair, and insist on speaking on anything and everything without even understanding a thing. Sometimes I found it difficult to even complete sentences but I always thought I was making sense. And my parents encouraged me by sitting across and nodding their heads with great delight. And exchanging glances.”
As a student, she excelled at debates and college competitions (“anything that required leadership through talking”), she was head girl of her school, and the best student of her college. After a degree in Arts, it was time to study law. She headed to Pune Law College.
“I owe a good deal to the professors of the law college. One of the finest human beings I can remember is GV Pandit, the Principal. Then there was Prof. Ranade for contracts. Exquisite teaching, absolute devotion to the study of law.”
She may have graduated decades ago, but her professors clearly made quite an impact.
“You may forget the substance in the law but what is inculcated and developed in you is the power of reasoning. ‘This is so. Why? That is so. Why?’ If that “Why” is understood by you in the most irrelevant of situations, you will do well in the legal profession.”
Years later, Phiroza too would end up as a teacher, taking up posts in Government Law College and giving tuitions. But these were not out of choice.
With a law degree in hand, it was time to join the profession. And, even back then, she knew that Pune was too small a city for her.
“Pune had a small legal fraternity and the big legal names were perhaps not ready for a woman who wanted to stand up and argue. Anyway, these lawyers were not in my vision. I wanted to be the Attorney General.”
She was twenty-five years old.
Armed with a letter of recommendation written by a family friend to Porus Mehta, she ended up in meeting up Mehta in his chambers. When she told him about her plan to become Attorney General, Mehta laughed.
“That made me more angry. What is there to laugh about? He told me that it was a very hard road, but now that I have an aim I should try and reach it. ‘Even if you fall short, you will still be a success.’”
Mehta in turn wrote a letter and asked Phiroza to go to one of the best solicitors firms in the city at that time: Little & Co. It was a firm where she would spend close to a decade of her life.
“Little & Co had government work, and a lot of this work was available for juniors like me. If you were ambitious, you could do quite well for yourself. I did a lot of government work; I was briefing people like HM Seervai – a man of impeccable standards. I learnt a lot from his discipline, his way of approaching matters. His outstanding junior Atul Setalvad was also quite inspiring.”
Some of the lessons she learnt had very little to do with the law.
“I used to think everything the government does had to be defended, whether it was right or wrong. I remember there was this one matter where a civil judge’s PA was regularly asked to work overtime and was not paid for it. He had filed a writ in the High Court.
Now his service conditions did not mention payment for overtime, which is what I told Seervai. He told me, ‘Forget about the conditions of service, what do you think about it? Do you think that is fair?’
That stumped me; that there were ways of looking at things differently. Not everything that is right is not wrong, and not everything that is right is not wrong. A good lawyer learns to discern, to read between the lines.
That petition was ultimately settled by Seervai by sending the government a letter saying that if the PA is regularly made to work over time, then he should be paid.”
Other lessons were also learnt during her time as a junior at Little & Co. Soon enough, she realised that “desk work” and briefing barristers was not where her heart lay. Far from it.
“I told [Little & Co Partner] Mr. Vakharia that I happened to be [at the firm] because I have no other alternative. My heart lies in arguing cases, I am a frontline lawyer. I would like to argue cases.
He was very kind to me. He kept on giving me briefs. A lot of city civil matters were argued by me. A lot of labour court matters were argued by me.”
She may have been getting time in court, but was still being paid a salary of two hundred and fifty rupees a month (“barely enough to keep my head out of water”). And other problems too began to crop up.
“A lot of the Partners at Little & Co were very kind to me but there were some who were not so nice. There are a lot of people who rise up by climbing on other people’s shoulders.
One of them would not let any ambitious, young junior to come up. Instead he would use you, take credit for your work. The increments were nominal. But you had to stick to them because you had nowhere to go.”
It is an issue that she feels strongly about, and always has been. In fact, it was an article she wrote in 1982 that would prove to cause a lot of problems. But more on that later. She was thirty-two years old when she decided to leave the country.
“I had a very good friend called Mr. Patrawalla who used to be a Minister of State at one point of time. The Almighty sends these people if you do right. Patrawalla helped me get a scholarship; I took a loan from the Parsi Panchayat that I eventually paid back.
I joined Queen Mary College for a LL.M. in income tax and company law. It used to be one of the toughest combinations there. I passed in the first attempt. I worked as shop keeper, at a bar, a teller at the horse races.
And then I came back to India, to Little & Co., only to be told that if I wanted to become a Partner, I would have to work for another ten years.”
It was not something she was willing to do. It was not an easy decision for her, but one she did eventually make. Of course, with a little help from her friends.
“I had a very strong friend who I call Mehru Aunty. She was a woman of very strong character. She told me that if I don’t show guts now, I would never reach anywhere. If I cant stand on my own two feet why did I go abroad and spend so much money?
She came with me to Little & Company. This particular Partner tried to browbeat me. I told him,
‘Look here, if I don’t stand up today, then I am not fit to be a part of the legal profession. I am trying to prove a point to me not to you.’”
She left.
In the second part of the interview senior counsel Phiroza Anklesaria talks about what happened to her after she left Little & Co, a foreign degree in hand but with no job at hand.
A foreign LLM in her hand, no job and “seventy rupees in my bank account”.
Although Meru Aunty offered her house to stay, Phiroza declined. Instead, she ended up as a paying guest to one Mrs. Clarke.
“She was a wonderful woman, and used to run a canteen at Liberty cinema. A first rate human person who knew how to deal with people. She and her hookah!”
Those were some trying times; even though she does not say as much, it is clear that it was one of the tougher periods of her life. But it would not last forever. Phiroza had a habit of sitting in the High Court’s library, and it was here that she found her next source of employment.
“There was a lawyer sitting next to me in the library. A small-time lawyer with political inclinations. He told me, ‘I am looking for assistant government pleaders. Will you come on the panel?’ I agreed. He gave me a place to sit in the office and I joined as Assistant Government Pleader.”
It proved to be a fortuitous change of circumstances; over the next ten years she would rise to become the Chief Government Pleader. Just a year before she was made Chief GP, there was a proposal to appoint her as judge of the Bombay High Court.
“I was around 42 years old. But destiny takes its own course. The proposal went far but was eventually shot down on an excuse that I feel embarrassed to tell you about.”
There is a brief moment of silence, and for once, it looks like the senior counsel is at a loss for words. She continues, it was an article she wrote on the legal profession that may have cost her dearly, an article titled “Profession thy name is trade”.
Published in the All India Reporter in 1982, the article is a no-holds barred look at the legal profession.
“I brought out the difficulties of a rank junior without connections and without money.
Who assesses your merit? Nobody does.
Who assesses your lack of money, your lack of connections? Everyone does.
You are subjected to virtually slave labour. Who is going to remedy this situation? Must you be connected? Must you join a big chambers so that [the senior] makes you carry his books and his gowns? And apply for adjournments when he argues before other courts?
So I wrote this article, disclosing the manner in which I was treated. I disclosed the common practices of that time. For instance, I disclosed various practices of groupism.”
Expectedly, the article was not taken too kindly.
“In fact, that was the article on which one of the then Chief Justices apparently said, “My god, she can’t be made High Court judge. She will upset the whole system.” Because his sons and sons-in-law were virtually doing this. The solicitors were virtually a dalal industry And I suffered a great deal.”
With no chance of becoming a High Court judge, Phiroza went back to government work. By October of 1986, when she was appointed Chief GP, Phiroza was leading a team of nearly fifty lawyers.
“I was never put under any kind of pressure. I enjoyed working with government officers. I enjoyed working in extremely heavy matters. I did the basic work of arguing, and distributed the smaller briefs to the have-nots. I knew how hard it was.”
As Chief GP, Phiroza also had to master the art of team-work, an art that lawyers often find it difficult to learn.
“A former Advocate General once told me that he always tried to treat his office subordinates with humaneness and with kindness because that is the basic quality. When you work ahead in administration or anywhere, you need to take people along with you. You cannot travel alone.
That is when I learnt the lesson – to cross the finishing line, you don’t have to come first. Cross it. And the more people with you, the more your ability.”
She spent twelve years at the top post, appearing in a number of high-stakes matters. And then, with a change in government (“we shared ideological differences”), she resigned from the post.
A fighter for most of her life, Phiroza now had to fight for timely payment of her legal fees; fees that were being withheld by an officer in the new government.
“I filed a writ petition in the High Court, “Give my fees. I am entitled to it as a matter of right.”
The petition came up before Justice Ajit Shah, who had argued government cases against me. He said, “She has done crores of work for the government. Her integrity is impeccable. You don’t pay her fees? I want to know why.”
Someone tried to frighten me, tell me that they would make allegation of corruption against me. Let them make I said. I have never been corrupt. I don’t get scared like that.
How do I deal with bullies? I face them. It is the people who are scared and run away who will be bullied.”
She did get her fees, but once again, she was left with no private practice to speak of. She may have been a government counsel for two decades, but clients were hard to come by.
“So I just sat through, gave tuitions and lectureships on any subject I could cover. I wrote articles. There is nothing I could do beta. I am not the sort who visits solicitor firms and ask for matters. I am not that type.”
Some of her articles are as relevant today, as they were when she wrote them. Perhaps more so. Sample this from a 1982 article on Legal Education,
“A major flaw of the commercialised approach to education lies in ignoring the basic purpose of all instruction. This purpose is the cultivation of a right thinking and socially responsible person.
The legal world….spare little or no time for disinterested and constructive research, whether jointly or singly….Original thought is a casualty and dispassionate appraisals are unknown.”
There are a host of others, churned out with regularity and all marked by an incisive look at prevailing practices.
In 1999 Phiroza was designated by the Bombay High Court, joining an extremely small club of women senior advocates which now includes the likes of Rajani Iyer, and Gayatri Singh.
“I would not have applied but there was a very dear friend who was a senior counsel in Delhi. He told me to apply. Here I was struggling for work, so far away from becoming Attorney General, and here was somebody suggesting I became a senior!
He said that he had been asked by some senior person to ask me to apply. Now I being suspicious by nature, I thought they wanted me to be out of the way. Because to be a senior counsel, you have to have a junior. So I said what little work I have, that also I will lose.
Anyway this friend insisted and I applied. Ajit Shah happened to be a judge at that time. He took it to BN Srikrishna who knew me because I used to argue cases in his court. They said, “Of course, she should have done this a long time ago.”
In the end though, it was her performance as government counsel that eventually secured her some work.
“Satish Gavai who was the CEO of MHADA, he started giving me briefs. I was being briefed on huge matters at a very enhanced fee. At least, it seemed very enhanced to me.”
As MHADA counsel, naturally the stakes were high and Phiroza managed to get a number of judgments in their favour. Once again, she says that it is the “Almighty above” who helped her out in times of need.
“Just remember that there is someone above. You will face annihilation, and go through a deep depression but you know that you will still come out of it. Do not succumb to injustice, fight back. But not by denigrating people, but fight back for yourself and try and reach a higher pedestal. And remember always that there is someone above who helps you.”
She means it.
It is not empty talk. Coupled with her deep belief in the “someone above” is a strong work ethic and dedication.
“I make extensive notes. I begin by reading the title and the addresses. I try and find out if the petitioners and the respondents are connected. Who is made a party? Does it sound like there is some sort of agreement between the parties? Does it seem honest?
What kind of stand do these people take against each other. For whom am I and how do I score my goal. I read extensively. I even go to the extent of finding out the subject matter, is the subject matter wrongly stated? What is the relief sought and are you entitled to that relief? Is the cause of action made out?
I read very thoroughly. I find cogency, I find the cause of action. I make sure that without saying something against the law, I try to make a defence. And I aim to win.
I aim to win.”
There may be a slight quiver in her voice but her determination is amply clear. As is her sharpness; this is a lawyer who will fight, and fight hard. And, bit by bit, she shares some of the skills learned along the way.
“One thing you have to keep in mind beta is to watch the judge. He is also a human being like you. Watch the judge. His reactions in other matters. These are far more relevant than his reactions in your matter because you can predict him.
What you really need is sharpness of the mind, awareness of the situation. And law is really a very basic common sense.”
It is very important for a lawyer to look presentable, receptive to the other side’s point of view, a sense of humour. A consideration of what is going on. Not the “I am right I am right” you are only right when the judge says right. There is nothing right that is wrong and nothing wrong that is right. Learn to discern.
And that receptiveness of the other person’s point of view – that is important.
A good lawyer is a humane person.”
But what is the judge is not inclined to see your point of view?
“Persuade. You are not entitled to relief all the time. Of course not. That is why I told you that a good lawyer should know how far to go. If you know that something is wrongly done, try and repair it. Put your submissions in a measured manner. Put your submissions in an acceptable manner. Don’t hurt the other side, don’t insult or humiliate. And in turn, do not get brow beaten. If necessary raise your voice.”
This is advice born out of experience, out of being one of the few women in a profession that rarely has space, or acceptance, for women.
“You see there is something about this profession which does not create equal confidence in the competence of a woman as against a man. And where does that come from? From the stone age.
That tendency ultimately trickles down to the mind. “What does she understand? What does she know?”
But they don’t realise that a woman in the field of law is equally good. Because that is something to do with the mind, not the physical qualities.
I remember one lawyer started arguing on my behalf. I was quite amused. The judge, I think it was justice Gandhi, said, “You are arguing on her behalf?” he says “Yes, poor woman. She may not be able to argue so I am arguing for her’
I thought it was a very kind gesture, he was just trying to help me. So I got up and said, “I am deeply grateful for your arguments but believe me I will argue for myself and for you.”
There is that sharpness once again, that refusal to accept nonsense of any kind. It has been a long fight though.
“It is a very hard, a very cruel profession. At this age, if you get everything, it is too late. At 74, what can I do? Look at the struggle that one has to go through.
But that suffering has to be part of you. You cannot abandon the race and run away because somebody is ahead of you. As I said before, you don’t have to come first to cross the line.
If you are interested, prepare to suffer.
A single person must not have the audacity or the arrogance to believe that they can change everything. But that does not mean that I will not try to bring some change. I will try till my last day.”
The post Phiroza Anklesaria: In Conversation appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Author Amitav Ghosh shared unknown facts about the roots of trade between India and China and the role played by the Parsi community. Sharang Bhaskaran reports
That the Parsi community was at the forefront of all major trade activities in India during the 18th and 19th centuries is a well known fact. But what many people don’t know is that Parsis, along with several Indian, European and American traders were also present in the Chinese province of Canton in its trading colonies during that period. Now rechristened as Guangzhou, the former river town of Canton was a significant hub of the opium trade in China during the 19th century. During this period, trade relations between India and China were at its peak when the East India Company produced opium in India and exported it to China in large quantities. Many American and European traders made their fortunes in the opium trade in the Canton province of China.
Article by Sharang Bhaskaran | Daily Pioneer
In a recently held exhibition organised by Parzor Foundation, a Parsi cultural organisation, many rare documents, artefacts and paintings retrieved from Guangzhou and from private collectors alike were put on display. As a part of the heritage exhibition, novelist Amitav Ghosh delivered a small lecture that gave us a glimpse into the history of the trading colony in China that was home to several Parsi traders and many Indian trading communities. Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy of novels is based in the city of Canton in the 19th century, and revolves around the opium trade taking place in the region and the subsequent trade wars between the various Chinese and European factions inhabiting the river town.
The writer, while researching for his novels, discovered that the Parsi trading community had a considerable presence in China and played an important role in the trade of opium from India to China and other parts of the world. In his lecture, he also spoke of how Europeans and Indians lived in the town of Canton in close quarters and shared an equal social status, unlike the British colonies of India where Indian commoners were considered inferior to the British and racial segregation was widespread across the subcontinent. “India under the British rule was highly segregated on the basis of race, wherein Indians and the English did not live close to each other. Even soldiers in the army were divided on the basis of colour, so much so that an Indian and British officer sharing ranks did not share their social status,” said Ghosh.
The writer also spoke on another well known fact about how the Parsis were great patrons of art and were instrumental in bringing a lot of art from the around the world to India and introducing Indians to European art even before the British. One of them was Jamshetji Jeejeebhoy, a Parsi businessman and trader who made his fortune in the opium trade in China and was an influential figure in the city of Bombay in the early 18th century. Jeejeebhoy, influenced by the many Chinese and European artists he met during his stay in China, wanted to do something to promote modern art and art education in India.
As a result, the JJ School of Arts in Bombay was born which would go on to become the foremost art school in India and introduce modern art styles in the country. “The Parsi community and their trade connections exposed them to the art and artists from around the world which in turn led to their patronage of such visual arts. The Parsis themselves were proponents of the arts and had their own artistic heritage as well,” Ghosh said. “Jamshetji Jeejeebhoy was instrumental in introducing India to western art techniques through the JJ School of Arts. This tradition of patronage was taken forward by the Tatas in the late 19th century and 20th century when they collected art from abroad and brought it to India,” the author added.
The post Amitav Ghosh: Of Facts and Fiction appeared on Parsi Khabar.
As one of the smallest communities in number, the Parsis have made a phenomenal contribution in India. Firstly in business enterprise, and then richly in the fields of the visual arts, film, theatre, poetry and literature. Their contribution is being celebrated over the past two months in Delhi, at the National Gallery of Modern Art, the National Museum, India International Centre, India Habitat Centre, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the arts: in exhibitions, talks, films, theatre, cuisine.
Article by Geeti Sen, theweek.in
At the NGMA, the exhibition titled ‘No Parsi is an Island’ sums up the essence of Parsi culture; of being both cosmopolitan and yet rooted. As mentioned by the co-curators Nancy Adijania and Ranjit Hoskote, the “key concepts for this exhibition are ‘relatedness’ and the ‘worldling’ of the Parsi artist”. Selected from private collections and galleries and well researched, the show exhibits the work of 14 artists over 150 years.
As quoted above, these artists possess a remarkable ability to relate their work to both India and beyond. A painting by Pestonji Bomanji reveals this in his painting Feeding the Parrot. The play of light and shade suggests his understanding of Vermeer’s paintings from 15th century Europe; yet, in a corner, the artist introduces a narrative scene from the Ajanta frescoes. Portraits by Pestonji and Pithawalla from the collection of NGMA itself are in a full room introducing us to women in the sari draped Parsi fashion over the left shoulder. Most outstanding are two self portraits by these senior artists born in the 19th century, using the colour tonalities by that great master of realism, Rembrandt.
Exhibits include the work of senior sculptors Piloo Pochkanawala and Adi Davierwalla, both working in an era dominated by Henry Moore. Piloo Pochkanawala experimented in many mediums from wood to metal to stone to terracotta to cement, but fibreglass was not being used in her time. I knew her as a feisty woman who worked along with Kekoo Gandhy of Chemould Gallery to have the NGMA established in Bombay [now Mumbai]. Her dynamism is seen in her open-air installation titled Spark, which has been long destroyed but preserved here in a model. Adi Davierwalla’s images in iron and metal are minimal but intensely poignant as in his Crucifixion, and in the Greek myth of Icarus who wanted to fly but fell to the earth, his wings [made of wax and feathers] burnt by the sun.
Many artists lived and worked in Bombay, the metropolis of modern art till the 1990s. Among them is Dr Gieve Patel, whose work is contextualised and seen along with that of his contemporaries and friends who are not Parsis: Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya and Sudhir Patwardhan. The hall is dominated by Gieve Patel’s powerful work Man in an Irani Restaurant. The setting and focus remind us of that genre on the working class introduced by the Flemish artist Pieter Breughel, which becomes the major focus for several Bombay artists from the 1980s.
In the same genre Off Lamington Row by Patel introduces a street scene of men, women, children, goats, a horse, cycle rickshaws, a flute player and a drummer. Contrast this with the bold colours of violence in Patwardhan’s Riot or the witty comments by Atul Dodiya titled Dr. Patel’s Clinic in Lamington Row (Dodiya’s homage to Gieve, which also includes his homage to artists Bhupen Khakar and Tyeb Mehta) and we realise that paintings by Patel remain tentative experiments. His small bronzes, however, are strong statements. These include two works of the hand with four fingers of Ekalavya, the tribal youth who was cunningly made to cut off thumb by Dronacharya so he could no longer be the finest archer and a rival for Arjuna.
We cannot overlook the Parsi contribution to dance, film and theatre, which is highlighted here with videos of the work of Jehangir/Jean Bhownagary, and in the dynamic energy in drawings of dancers by Shivaux Chawda. For me the most interesting thrust of the exhibition is the fine balance between European influences and an Indian identity.
The post The Parsi phenomenon appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Threads of Continuity — an exhibition on philosophy and culture of Zoroastrians in India is currently on in Delhi. MONA MEHTA reports on what she learnt about the Parsis from the show
Half way through ‘Threads of Continuity’— a living culture exhibition on the 61,000-strong Zoroastrian community in India,I run into two senior citizens I had bumped into at the entrance of the IGNCA gallery, Delhi. By now, I had schooled myself well through the many exhibits on the philosophy and culture of the community better known to us as Parsis — their ancestors had come to India from Pars in southern Iran some thousand years ago to escape religious prosecution. I had already learnt about the birth of their faith; about the linguistic similarities between the Rig Vedic Trishtubh Mantra and the gathas of their prophet, Zarathustra, who lived in Central Asia. The only records of the prophet and his teachings are 17 hymns of the five gathas, dating back to 1800-1600 BC. By now I was understandably curious to know what the two elderly women I had met at the entrance felt about the show.One of them,Prem N Singh, said,“It has brought back memories of me singing Ahura Mazda,Ahura Mazda, as a child at school.”
Article by Mona Mehta | The Speaking Tree
“A poem on Ahura Mazda? Are you a Parsi?” I ask. “No, no, but much like the Parsi community,my ancestors too came to India as refugees.They were Armenian Christians who had to leave their home when they were hounded by the Turks,” says Prem.“Ahura Mazda was part of a longer poem,I think by Sarojini Naidu,” she says.“We were all expected to recite it during our scriptures class at the Sadhu Vaswani School in Lucknow. I am talking about pre-Independence days,” she adds, laughing. Back in office later, I quickly googled Sarojini Naidu.She had indeed written a poem titled, The Call To Evening Prayer, that scholars said, ‘celebrated the fraternal coexistence of diverse creeds in a single place’. Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar! From mosque and minar the muezzin are calling,Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar! Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Devoutly the priests at the altars are singing,Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda! How the sonorous Avesta is flowing! Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda! Naray’yana! Naray’yana!
Hark to the ageless, divine invocation! Naray’yana! Naray’yana Indeed, the Parsis in India have a shared history with us that goes back several centuries.Their sacred fire rituals appear similar to the Hindu yagnas; their use of the coconut on auspicious occasions,down to the lime powder designs lining the walls in the corridors are much like our traditional rangoli or kolam designs meant to keep insects away.Their designs though are a mix of Zoroastrian symbols of fish and pomegranate and Hindu symbols of good luck. The exhibition has a section showcasing Zoroastrian artifacts borrowed from museums in Tehran. On display is a replica of a large headless sculpture of Darius the Great, a powerful Persian king, dressed as a nobleman. It had inscriptions in three different languages of the empire and in Egyptian too — a fine example of art adapting to surroundings, while keeping its identity intact.
This proved to be a valuable trait of the Parsis — at one time the Persian empire stretched from the Danube to beyond the Indus into China. So it has been for Zoroastrians in India. Known to wear their sacred kushti, a handwoven string, and sacred sedreh, undershirt, but outwardly, as in the Persian empire and in India, they are all for ‘acculturation’ to the group surrounding them. “At the core of Zoroastrianism is a sense of moderation; that’s why we’ve called the exhibition ‘Threads of Continuity,’ says Shernaz Cama, director of the Unescoinitiated Parzor Project that partnered the exhibition.“You don’t say ‘I am superior’, or ‘I am different’, you fit in.
And India has always allowed people to keep their core values intact,” she adds. Far from being refugees, Zoroastrians have coexisted and contributed handsomely to society, by way of philanthropy and institution- building.And they are inspired by their faith. “While tying the kushti that is worn around our waist,we recite a prayer, ‘action’ with ‘good thoughts, good words, good deeds’, meaning man has to act with and for Creation, not as ruler of Creation. It is not a self-centred faith at all, but one that believes in making bounteous this cosmos,” sums up Cama.
The post Speaking Tree: Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda appeared on Parsi Khabar.
In 2014, just weeks after a major surgery for a cancer diagnosis that two-years earlier had thrown Dilshad Master’s life into some sort of chaos, she found herself leading a trip to the Everest Base Camp. It was but a step in a journey that saw her go from launching television channels in India to becoming a startup entrepreneur and finally a full-fledged explorer. Well-known on the Indian speaker circuit for her sane advice, Master spoke about her journey – and what she’s learned along the way.
Article by Ambika Behal | Forbes
After over 20 years in a career that saw her launching and managing eight television channels of various genres – Master was instrumental in National Geographic’s India foray, and was also formerly COO of UTV (since acquired by Walt Disney Company India) – she decided it was time to move on.
Initially working with television channels in the digital marketing space, she worked with a couple of friends on the creation of a web-marketplace for travellers with off-beat travel experiences, called the FarInto.
Having beat cancer, and made the Everest Base Camp trek at 45, Master today works alongside her husband as the Director of Operations at family-operated Mercury Himalayan Explorations, who have hosted several well-known documentary makers and expeditions within the lesser-traveled parts of India.
What do you feel you learned from your experience working in the Indian media and entertainment industry?
Dilshad Master: Media was still an unexplored field at that time – we’re talking 1988, when we were still a one-television-channel country. I think the idea was just to leave home and live on my own. So I applied for the Social Communications Media course at Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. I was told it was tough to get into that course and the drop rate was almost 20%. I love challenges! I got in and I completed the course, and so began my journey in the crazy world of entertainment.
I’ve learnt four crucial things from the media business, things that I have carried with me into the travel world:
What did you find you could apply from what you had learned from launching television channels when you joined your husband in the travel business? Master: My programming and marketing experience gave me a better understanding of the business and I took over the content and marketing side and set out to change how “adventure travel” was perceived in India. The first thing I addressed was the “adventure” bit. A quick survey showed us that the word adventure was akin to danger, risk, and fear.
We slowly began to project the idea of “adventure holidays” rather than “adventure travel”. We changed the brand logo, set up social media accounts; and are probably one of the most digitally active adventure travel companies in India today.
I realized that I didn’t want to be at the mercy of website designers. We needed flexibility – if there was a landslide on the Spiti Safari route, I needed to have our website reflect that and so it was important to regain control of our content. My team and I have personally constructed the Mercury Himalayan Exploration website from scratch. We re-wrote all the content, added in new experiences, made it SEO friendly, brought in monthly contests, synergized our other digital platforms to ensure that one message was getting out at any point in time.
All my learnings in marketing and content management have been applied here. The only thing that limits us is budgets and there’s a learning there too – how to maximize your audience reach with limited funds at your disposal.
Your greatest moments at Mercury Himalayan Exploration?
Master: Oh there have been so many in the last two and a half years! But I think my most favourite moment was when I stood side-by-side with the great Reinhold Messner! The world’s greatest mountaineer and a man that I felt was surely super human – he was the first to summit Mount Everest without bottled oxygen, solo, no team of Sherpas, nothing! An amazing man with a plethora of quotable quotes – one of my favourite ones being “Fear is good. It’s what makes you careful.” He was in India to film a documentary on the Himalayas and its people, and we handled the entire operations for him and his filming team – from the eastern-most regions of the mountain range in India all the way to the Siachen Glacier.
Last November we organized a gigantic expedition, Ganga Source to Sea – a 55-day expedition led by Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft – the first women to sail and ski across the South Pole. It was amazing to meet these women!
And of course, on a more personal level, the day I reached Everest Base Camp in May 2014, after battling with cancer and numerous surgeries the past two years. I just cried when I got there. I never thought I’d make it. It was physically, the hardest thing I’d ever done until then. It had always been my dream – this trek. Ever since I came up with this crazy docu-reality show while at National Geographic Channel in 2003, where we sent five Indians to Everest Base Camp with the Indian Army, who were planning to summit that year – I had waited 11 years for that moment, and when it came, I just crumbled and cried.
If you had to look back and advise your younger self on how your career path would pan out – and that you would find yourself an entrepreneur, what would you say?
Master: Start early. If you think you want to work for yourself, want to leave a legacy behind for others to take over, then start early. I started at the age of 47, there’s way less time to make mistakes and learn from them. I was lucky to have a fantastic mentor and guide in my husband who knew the business well, but not many people have that advantage.
Secondly, reinvent yourself. Every five to six years, reinvent yourself. Try and tackle a field you know nothing about; bring the skills you leant from the previous one and broaden your thinking, your knowledge, your experience.
Get out of a job that confines you, one that doesn’t make you think, the ones that traps you with its golden handcuffs. Get out. Be brave. Shut a door, only then you’ll see a window open.
The post How Dilshad Master Applied Learnings From Launching A Television Channel To The Travel Business appeared on Parsi Khabar.
May 16 was Meghalaya’s first chief secretary Nari K Rustomji’s birth anniversary. Glenn C Kharkongor recalls his contribution to the Northeast
NARI K Rustomji studied classical Latin and Greek, was secretary of the Musical Society and played the piano and violin at Cambridge University. Such a background would be considered unusual for a bureaucrat today. Perhaps it was these sensibilities that made Rustomji one of the most endearing political administrators of his era and his affection for the tribals of Northeast India is legendary.
This week is the 94th birth anniversary of the first chief secretary of Meghalaya, who died a decade ago.
The Northeast has all but forgotten this remarkable bureaucrat, whose grasp of geopolitical matters and understanding of tribal cultures made him one of the most sympathetic and understanding administrators of the Northeast in the transition to and in the early post-Independence era. He and Verrier Elwin were often described as romantics. They were close friends and Rustomji in fact, edited a volume of Elwin’s selected writings. Their advice was relied upon greatly by Nehru and resulted in a policy for the Northeast that has been described as Nehruvian humanistic paternalism. Sadly, that benevolent policy has lapsed and has been replaced with a chaotic and befuddled mindset in Delhi, which results in cultural aggression and headlong underdevelopment, characterized by insensitivity and greed.
Rustomji was influenced greatly by Plato and Socrates, and intended to become a school teacher, but was persuaded by his teachers to apply for the ICS. It was during World War II, and at the interview he was asked about his contribution to the war effort. At the time he was a member of the Royal Observer Corps, keeping a tally of enemy planes that flew overhead. When he mentioned that he was a plane spotter, the examiners inquired how many planes he had spotted the previous week. His reply was a solemn “I’m sorry sir, that’s top secret”. There was an amused murmur of approval among the greybeards and he felt that he had clinched the appointment.
At the end of his ICS probationary training in Dehra Dun, Nari K Rustomji was assigned to Assam, which he accepted whole-heartedly. One of the main reasons for this enthusiasm was Assam’s proximity to Sikkim and Bhutan. He had been introduced to these countries, India’s neighbours in the Northeast, by his friendship with the crown prince of Sikkim, Thondup Namgyal and his cousin, the prince of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji who were probationers along with him in 1942. These lifelong friendships were cemented during Rustomji’s posting as Dewan of Sikkim from 1954-59 and when he was appointed as Adviser to the Government of Bhutan in 1963.
Rustomji spent most of his career in the Northeast, spanning from his first appointment as district publicity organiser in Sylhet during the Second World War, a kind of propaganda post to develop and deliver positive messages to the public in favour of the Allies, to being the first chief secretary of Meghalaya in 1972. In between he served in various administrative posts in Maulvibazar, Lakhimpur and Dibrugarh. Perhaps the most noteworthy position that he had was adviser to the Governor of Assam on tribal affairs, during which time he exerted considerable influence on the formulation of policies for the hill areas.
He was associated with the implementation of the early seven-year plans in Sikkim and Bhutan. Significant in these development efforts were a visionary intent to protect the environment and biodiversity of the region and to protect the region from unwanted kinds of development. He was also careful to ensure that cultural traditions and sensitivities were protected in implementing the Plans.
Rustomji was deeply drawn to the tribals of the region. In his book Enchanted Frontiers, Rustomji says, “The people of the hills have had for me a special pull. I feel utterly and completely at home with my (tribal) hosts. I am at heart, very much a tribal myself. I share much of the bewilderment and loss of identity of the tribal of today”. He learned the local language at every posting and even wore indigenous costumes to work. Much of his scholarly writing are on the anthropology and sociology of the tribes and these articles have appeared in journals such as Himalayan Environment and Culture brought out by the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
As Dewan of the Chogyal of Sikkim and adviser to the Government of Bhutan, he immersed himself in the cultural milieu of those countries, learning the Sikkimese and Bhutanese languages and wearing the local costumes. He would wear the Sikkimese gown, the ko, even during his trips to Delhi. This led the foreign secretary to comment wryly that while the Dewan might wear Sikkimese dress in Gangtok, he failed to see the point of his wearing the gown in Delhi.
During the governorship of Sri Prakasa, he played a pivotal role in obtaining the accession to India of the maharajas of Manipur, Cooch Behar andManipur. Though varying amounts of duress were exerted in these efforts, Rustomji came out each time with the respect of the maharaja. On each occasion his services were requested as the first Chief Commissioner of the accessed kingdom.
He had a part in the negotiations with the Naga and Mizotribals. He tried to convince the Government that “right principles, rather than force of arms” was the right policy. He spoke out against the tendency of officers to pontificate patronizingly about “uplifting our tribal brethren”. Himself a Zoroastrian, he tried to convince the tribals that they were free to practice the religion of their choice, by arranging special broadcasts of Christian services on Sundays in English and in the various Naga languages. He describes his poignant interaction with a Naga prisoner, discussing letters that the prisoner had written about a cat who was his sole companion in jail. He discussed with General Shrinagesh about a sympathetic approach to the hearts and minds of the tribal people. Sadly, they were not many in the political and military establishment that shared his statesmanlike approach.
In 1951, when he was stationed in Shillong as advisor to the Governor of Assam, Rustomji got married to Hilla Master, daughter of Jal Ardeshir Master, chief conservator of forests, Madras Presidency. They had met in Bombay the previous year; he was 31 and she was 23. Their daughter Tusna was born at Welsh Mission Hospital in 1952. Sadly, Hilla died of complications soon after. He married again in 1963 to Avi Dalal, someone the family had long known.
An unfortunate outcome of Partition was the closure of trade between the Khasi Hills and the contiguous areas of East Pakistan. Perishable oranges and betel nut from the border plantations now had no outlet market and Rustomji approved the request of the local traders for an airstrip in Shella, so that the produce could be flown to Calcutta. Regrettably, this never happened.
As chief secretary in the new state of Meghalaya, he determined to set up an efficient administration, leading by example. Each morning he walked from his residence, Lumpyngad, followed by a clerk, who dutifully took down notes on the way to the Secretariat. He once visited a district headquarters unannounced and found the deputy commissioner absent from his office. Rustomji sent for the absentee officer, who on hearing that the chief secretary was around immediately declared himself sick. Rustomji then sat in the DC’s chair and spent the day disposing of pending files.
If you Google his name and browse the internet, only snippets about Rustomji appear, brief lines in a scholarly article or a blog. Most of what is available are accounts in the five books he has written. In these idealistic, analytical and balanced accounts, he carefully blends the history, culture and politics of this complex region as a background for governance and administration.
Surely the man deserves weightier evidence of his contribution to the Northeast. Indeed such an analysis would provide clues to achieving better solutions to the continuing myriad problems of the Northeast, many of which can be traced to the post-Independence era in which misguided and heavy-handed policies were framed. The politicians and mandarins of today seem to continue in the same vein. They should study Rustomji’s books.
The article appeared in the Shillong Times in 2013.
The post Remembering Nari K Rustomji appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Firoz K Pestonji who heads the organizing team of the 11th World Zoroastrian Congress to be held in Perth, Australia in 2018
G’day All Zoroastrain friends,
Exactly 2 years from today – Perth will be the place to be – as the Zoroastrians from around the world congregate in our beautiful city.
We are pleased to inform you that Australia had been awarded the 11th World Zoroastrain Congress (Adult) for 2018 on 25 December 2015 during the Global working group meeting, at the time of the Iranshah Utsav in Udvada
The Congress dates are from Friday 1 June 2018 to Monday 4 June 2018.
City hosting the Congress is Perth – Western Australia
This being the first time the Congress is gracing our shores it is a historic event for us all .
Our Zoroastrain brethern in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane & of course Perth look forward to your presence here at the time
We shall endevour to make this Congress a fun time, entertaining and with interesting lively discussions. A fresh approach to your Congress are planned.
Time for local sightseeing, meeting other Zoroastrains from the world wide diaspora, for business people, specialists & enterprenuers time for meeting their counterparts in Australia to expand their contacts & influence
And if you have some interesting thoughts for the Congress, do let us know, we will appreciate your input to make it a memorable Congress
Do browse our website for more information www.11WZCperth.com.au or just Goggle 11 world Zoroastrain congress and register your interest
So do join in, spread the world around to your family & friends & we look forward to Welcoming You to Australia – The Aussie way.
Enjoy life
Firoz K Pestonji
for
The BAWAZ Team & the Federation of Australian Zoroastrains
The post Dates Announced for 11th World Zoroastrian Congress 2018 in Perth Australia appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Here is a 2007 interview where Dastur Dr. Kotwal is in conversation Dr. Shernaz Cama; Chair of the UNESCO PARZOR Project.
This interview originally appears on the PARZOR website
Dastur Dr. Firoze Kotwal is a High Priest of the Parsi Zoroastrians of India and perhaps their greatest scholar in the Priestly tradition. From the age of 19 he has spent many hours each day studying Zoroastrian Manuscripts, particularly at the Meherjirana Library, Navsari, Gujarat. He has been Advisor to the UNESCO Parzor Project in its Module of Manuscript preservation. In this Interview, he talks about his life and his work.
The Priestly Background
My forefather’s whole line was filled with excellent Priests, of the Navsari Bhagaria clan, who understood rituals very well. When there was any problem of rituals, priests from all over India would write to the Navsari Anjuman. In my genealogy, I am the 29th descendant of Neryosangh Dhaval, the great Sanskrit Scholar Priest of the 12th century. We have a printed Vanshavali of 1897 of the whole Bhagaria group of Priests and from that genealogical chart; we can trace the line of any Bhagaria Priest in the world.
My grandfather’s grandfather and may be his grandfather too, for some period lived in Surat, since Pindaris (dacoits) used to attack Navsari. They moved to Surat with the sacred fire of the Atash Behram and then stayed there for several decades before returning to Navsari.
On links with Iran
There are some Priests in Sharifabad near Yazd. The last Priest of Iran to keep up the old traditions was Khodad Nevyosanghi . As a boy he was trained in the first batch of student priests, Navars, at the Dadar Madressa. I saw him in Iran, still taking baeshrum with gloves and we kept in touch during his lifetime, he even sent photos to me. There is no more following of the high liturgical rituals left in Iran.
On his Education
I have had a love for rituals from childhood. I decided, I can either be a good chef or a good full fledged Priest, you have to choose what you want to be. I used to go to Navsari but trained at the Cama Athornan, at Andheri in Mumbai. My Principal was Dasturji Dabu. From 1947 when I was admitted, I kept the bond for the next 30 years. First as student, then student teacher, then researching Avesta – Pahlavi as major subjects. I was the only member of the batch to take up research. It is hard work, younger people want freedom. Work as a researcher has to be part of a very disciplined life.
Avesta Pahlavi Studies
There are only 14 letters in Pahlavi and most vowels are absent. Yet every difficulty can be overcome with practice. I like Pahlavi more than Avesta. I read it everyday, so I am used to the difficulties, I believe that practice makes one perfect. My Avesta – Pahlavi teachers in school were the Head Master Framroze Patel. I took it up subsequently at Bombay University since Mr. Homi Chacha of the Madressa was attached to Bombay University. At University we were affiliated to St. Xaviers College. Dastur Hormazdiyar Mirza and Dr. Jamshed Unwalla were the great scholars of that time. Dr. Unwalla knew 15 to 20 languages. He had taught in Paris for 10 years. Scholars must feel a love for their subject in the heart and not just work for a degree. But I can’t blame people in India; there is no opening for research in this subject.
I did my M.A. and PhD. under Dasturji Dr. Mirza. My PhD Topic was a Pahlavi Text “Supplementary Texts to The Shayest–ne-Shayest”. The text is concerned with what is proper and what is seen as improper in the religion. It has many admonitions. It explains the meaning of each of the 30 days in the calendar. It gave me in-depth understanding of our rituals. There was no external examiner in India, so the University sent my thesis to Father Menasce in Paris. He approved of it and I received my PhD, from Bombay University.
Thereafter I wrote to the great scholar at Berkeley University, Prof. Henning. He liked it very much, but felt it needed revision. I needed to understand the Middle Iranian dialects, to help in my Pahlavi studies. Prof. Henning’s health was failing; he could not take up any research students. It was he who sent my thesis to Prof. Mary Boyce and asked her to guide me.
Prof. Boyce was delighted since I was a full-fledged Priest. She could understand the rituals from me. Recently a Feitschrift Volume is being prepared for presentation to me, it is being published in America and edited by Prof. Jamshed Choksey. Jamshed asked Prof. Boyce to give her impressions of me for this publication. She has known my work from 1966 to 2006. So she wrote my biography and finished it just before her death, putting aside all other publications.
On Prof. Mary Boyce, Prof. Emeritus SOAS, London
Ever since I knew her, from 1966 at SOAS, due to her bad back she was always on a sofa and did all her remarkable work lying down. I worked both at SOAS and at her house from 10 am to 4 pm. I worked for 6 hour daily with her. She taught me and then would ask me questions on rituals. I translated pieces on many subjects, in Old Gujarati and Gujarati. She taught me a great deal. She always said ‘Firoze you must have 2 things in writing, clarity and brevity’.
The Financial Problems of Research
I was financed in 1966 by the Bombay Parsi Punchayat, where Lady Hirabai Jehangir was the President and by the Wadia Trust. I required Pounds 14,000 for my research. After the devaluing of the Rupee, I had great difficulty in raising finances and was still running short of funds. Lady Jehangir asked me “Dr. Kotwal is there anything else you require?” I told her I needed 7000 Pounds still. She took out her chequebook, wrote the cheque and gave it to me; this was her encouragement and generosity.
Life In Europe
I lived at the European Hostel at Taunton Hall. My room was on the ground floor. Prof. Boyce had arranged the room through the Dean of the Hostel, for the whole year. I loved winter. Everyone else would be huddled in gloves and coats but I enjoyed it. The Warden would comment ‘Dr. Kotwal, you are always cheerful even in this weather’.
I visited the British Museum; saw Iranian history preserved there. I had the great fortune of visiting Cambridge, where I met Sir Harold Bailey at Queens College. Sir Harold Bailey gave a dinner in my honor. I drank beer out of a Viking horn. I also visited All Soul’s College, Oxford where I stayed with Prof. Zaehner for 3 days. Zaehner’s approach is very different. He was a staunch Christian. He was the most brilliant scholar on Zurvanism.
In Pahlavi Scholarship, Prof. Boyce remained unique. Her approach was not just Philology but also tradition. She told me, “You should not discard tradition, it has many clues to provide philology”.
In her article she has written ‘for me, Dr. Kotwal was a bonus”. I was a student but also a teacher to Prof. Boyce. I translated old documents of the Parsi Prakash for her and documents from the Meherjirana Library. There was a constant crunch for money but I lived a frugal life of work only. One day Prof. Boyce gave me an honorarium in an envelope. I declined to accept, she insisted. I said, ‘I cannot take anything from a teacher’. She was so considerate that she made the University of London give me Pounds 150 and I used it to travel and meet international scholars across Europe.
She even drew up a Timetable and sent me to Switzerland for a vacation at St. Moritz as well as Lucerne; she wanted me to see both the mountains and the lakes and gave me a complete holiday.
I returned to Paris and met Father Menasche. I also met Prof. Phillippe Gignoux at Paris.
I traveled to Germany to meet the late Prof. Jehangir Tavadia’s wife. She, a German knew I was from Navsari and helped me make contacts. In Germany I visited Hamburg University, Gettingen and then traveled to Copenhagen. There I met Prof. Vahman, an Iranian Bahai at the Embassy. He helped me go to Iran. Prof. Asmussen was also in Copenhagen; he remained a jovial friend till he died in 2004. I then went to Oslo University, Norway to meet Prof. Morgenstierne, Prof. of Iranian languages. All these scholars were philologists.
Prof. Menasche however understood tradition and had translated the Pahlavi Texts including the Dinkard.
I had heard about the importance of Copenhagen from Prof. Boyce. She wanted my thesis made perfect. She even helped by sending all my hand written papers to her sister – in – law at Taunton to type and arrange. She had then sent my whole Thesis to Sir Harold Bailey at Cambridge. When he read it he offered, “It should be published ”. Prof. Boyce wrote to Prof. Kaj Barr, at Copenhagen who took the thesis to the Copenhagen Foundation.
Every bottle of Carlsburg or Touberg Beer sold provides 1 ore to the Copenhagen Foundation. This money is used to publish work of outstanding scholars anywhere in the world.
The team examined and approved my thesis. I received my PhD in 1966. In 1966-67 I went to the UK and revised it with Prof. Boyce, by 1969 it was published in Copenhagen.
Return To India
On my return I had no Panthak (Family Priestly Organization). So I worked at the Cama Madressa, Andheri as a teacher and then became Head Priest simultaneously of the Tata Agiary, Bandra. As Priest of Tata Agiary I worked till 10am everyday looking after the Fire. The morning Prayers of Havan Gah I would perform the Boi of the Havan Gah at 6am. I would then return to the Madressa. At 3 pm I returned to the Tata Agiary and would perform all the ceremonies like the Uthamna, Lagan, (Weddings), or Navjotes.
All my life I work for 6 hours continuously in the daytime. 3 hours in the morning, lunch, a rest, then 3 hours in the afternoon. After 40 years of this routine, I have completed the Herbadestan/ Nirangestan. The 4th and last volume is to be published this year in Paris.
The Most Important Work That I have achieved
The Nirangestan was written in Sasanian times in Avesta and translated into Pahlavi with glosses. It is very difficult to understand. The more difficult a work is, the more I enjoy it. My mind pores over a word, even when I am resting; I sometimes suddenly get a flash of illumination and get up to see that my intuition is often correct.
I have not inherited any Manuscripts from my own family. But I have been presented many by private collectors. My most precious Manuscript is from Dr. Unwalla’s collection. It was given to me by Dastur Meherjirana. It is in the Devnagiri Script, 450 years old and was written in Ankleswar. It is correct but ironic that this Ms will now go back to the MRL as I have promised Parzor.
My Faith
There are plenty of Nirangs or Incantations used in our Faith but these are mainly in Pahlavi or Pazend. I put more emphasis on the Avesta Prayers. I can recite the Behram Yashtt fully by heart; after all I used to recite it daily in my Fire Temple.
What is the meaning of our Prayers?
No one understands, even scholars can’t understand a dead language but we have to not just look at etymology. Our attempt at understanding the Avesta is that it is the words of a Holy person and has value in its vibrations. A translation is not so important in rituals, the holy vibrations of man in communication with God, the word of sages that is very important when we recite the Manthras.
Our prayers are called Manthravani. The most holy Gathas or the words of Zatrathushtra himself are Hymns. Gatha means to sing Hymns. The ancient Gathas were chanted in groups of Priests. We have references to this in the texts.
Music, especially in the Madressa, Classical India music was very important. We learnt on the harmonium. Minochaer Vimadalal of Andheri used to teach us Bhajans, Parsi geet and monajats. The Monajat tradition of chanting and communicating with God is now almost lost.
Chanting is important for priestly training in that it gives the correct enunciation. Also when you recite and sing, you remember it very well.
Importance of the Meherjirana Library Navsari
The MRL has different types of work: Avesta, Pahlavi, Gujarati, Old Gujarati, Pazend, Arabic and Urdu even Kashmiri Manuscripts.
There are so many questions and answers in the Rivayets, they explain our rituals and our Faith. Some of these works are very old and very precious. The first Dastur Merherjirana’s father’s Manuscript is also there. He was Rana Jaisanghi, his Ms of the Jamaspi in Pazend is there, it is over 500 years old.
The Jamaspi is a work about the future. Jamasp was a soothsayer in the time of Zarathushtra and all the forecasts of the future are attributed to him in later times.
What is Truth and what is the True religion?
In the Madressas our Parsi Priests are not educated like the Christians. The calling of a man to religion and his acting like the Shepherd of the flock is not engrained at the Madressa.
I believe that Goodness is Universal. It is not the prerogative of only priests. Our religion is the religion of the good life, there is no monopoly on Goodness.
My most spiritual experience
As a full fledged Priest when I perform the high liturgies in the Navsari Vadi Dare Meher, (Fire Temple) in Dastur Vad, when I am in the Pavi (Consecrated space) I feel elevated. I was the first Priest to perform the exalted Nirangdin ceremony after my PhD, in 1966.
The Hamkar Priestly ceremony is also very moving. It is mainly performed in Navsari.
It means a gathering of those who work to keep the religion alive. Hamkar comes from the word Ham-Together, Kaar- Work. Those Priests who work together share a consecarated meal, in a very special environment.
How can the NMM help the Zoroastrians?
We have lost far too much, both in our community and in our textual Ms collections. A lot has gone abroad where it has been at least looked after, studied and preserved. But our traditions must continue in India we must have a chair of Iranian Studies as there are in foreign Universities. If it is well endowed, we can appoint good scholars, bring in some of the great foreign scholars to train our researchers and priests on modern lines. That will help keep the tradition alive in India.
At the Cama Athornan, my alma mater, there are only 2 students left. We should use these institutions for the good of the priests, the community and the traditions of our country. Our traditions are shared with the rest of India. I haven’t studied Sanskrit officially but we have all to study Sanskrit because our Aashirvaad (blessings) are in Sanskrit. I can recite it like a Pundit. When we went to meet Chief Minister Narendra Modi at Udvada, I gave him a shawl and recited an Aashirvaad and he was most surprised and pleased.
I know Avesta, Pahlavi, Pazend, Persian, Gujarati, English, Sanskrit-7 languages.
Future of the Priesthood
I believe in the old type of training for priests. They must learn, by heart, the entire Avesta, the Yasna, Visperad, Yashts all 72 Ha’s or chapters. Their training must also explain the meaning of their work. Then they will perform the ceremonies with interest and scholarship.
We must have young Priest to study languages and be disciplined scholars. We also need original scholarship.
Message
The NMM interest is a very good omen for our community. I hope that with this not only will our Ms be preserved, but the knowledge embedded in them will be diffused all over the world. If we get international facilities in Navsari, then any researcher can come and visit, our culture, both Zoroastrian and Indian will be protected, preserved and propagated.
Lecture – Brief Synopsis:
Dastur Firoze Kotwal in his learned lecture on Zoroastrian Manuscripts explained how the oral Avesta was converted to the Avestan Script in the period 531-578 A.D. in the time of King Noshirwan Adil. So the Bronze Age words are now based on the Pahlavi alphabet. Though we have no proof, Avestan was possibly closest to Aramaic. It is stated that there were 12000 chapters written in letters of gold giving the entire teachings of Zarathushtra. These were destroyed in 331 B.C. when Alexander of Macedonia killed Darius III.
Greek and Roman culture have borrowed greatly form Persia.
In India, he explained, using Sanskrit etymology, the Parsis have preserved the Holy Fire without letting it go out for 1000years, from the landing at Sanjan till today when it burns at the Iranshah Atash Behram at Udwada. It has been preserved with the lifeblood of the priests.
Dastur Kotwal explained a text and colophon found at the Meherjirana Library. The greatest collection in India is to be found in this library at Navsari. He also told the audience that the oldest existing Zoroastrian Ms is to be found in Copenhagen. He has studied Ms at Copenhagen, London, Oxford and Paris as well as in other parts of the world.
He emphasized the importance of preserving books and Ms, quoting ‘The words of a book’. He also told us how there is so little respect for Ms in India, that sometimes hand written Ms are sold to raddiwallas and have been rescued from grocers shops.
The Ms E1, which he discussed, belonged to Dastur Erachji Meherjirana, it was written in 1601 A.D. in two parts, the 1st part in Navsari by Shahpur Dastur Hoshang Asa and the 2nd part in Khambat, (Cambay) by Moviandan Shahpur. It is in 400 folios and is indispensable for both priests and laymen.
Dastur ji Kotwal is about to complete his Magnum Opus, which will be published shortly abroad.
The post Dasturji Kotwal In Conversation with Shernaz Cama appeared on Parsi Khabar.
When the beloved Café Samovar shut shop in the March of 2015, the city’s cognoscenti mourned.
The Jehangir Art Gallery’s (JAG) chairperson Adi Jehangir, however, was determined to make something better out of “a cafe that bloomed beyond everyone’s imagination“. In fact, in an interview with the Mumbai Mirror last year, Jehangir pointed out, “Wouldn’t it be financially feasible to give all of the six licensee’s spaces out to a posh restaurant or private gallery, and charge them South Mumbai rentals, while keeping only three auditoriums for India’s young artists? But that’s not the objective with which my grandfather established the gallery.“
Article by Alka Dhupkar & Reema Gehi | Jehangir Art Gallery
Jehangir was referring to Sir Cowasji Jehangir, who funded the public art institution for emerging artists that opened in 1952. JAG receives 2,500 applications annually, of which only 450 can be accommodated at a nominal rent of Rs 3,500 per day (exhibition hall). An artist has to wait for a minimum of five years before heshe can exhibit his work here.
On Thursday, Jehangir confirmed to the paper that plans to make an art gallery at the place of Cafe Samovar was unanimously passed by Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) in meetings during March and April. “The Heritage Committee has informed us that the proposal has been passed. But due to some red tape, the heritage committee has not provided a written letter yet. So without that important document, we cannot go to the BMC to get further approvals,“ he said.
According to Jehangir, “Although we had originally planned it as a sculpture gallery, we may change it to a gallery for paintings. The gallery will be standing in front of the current Jehangir Art Gallery, so we are planning to build see-through glass walls. We are not sure how much time we need to get all the permissions. But once the permissions are obtained, the new gallery can start operating within a couple of months. Apart from the glass, small changes will be made to the roof, and the flooring will also be altered with lighting arrangements.“
JAG is also set to have one more gallery of around 1,200 sq feet area that will be built underground. “At present, we have openings only in 2021 at JAG. This is not fair for the artists. But we are helpless as bookings are full. So there is a waiting list of five years. If we start the underground art gallery and a new gallery where Samovar was located, it will reduce 30 per cent pressure of the current bookings. For this gallery, we will just wait till the monsoons get over. We have finished water-proofing and will do renovation in July. Civil work will be done after we get confirmation that there is no leakage.“
Members of the art fraternity have welcomed the plan. Abhinit Khanna, a creative arts manager based in the city, said, “I feel any additional cultural space adds value to our city. We have plenty of cafes that open in Bombay every day but we don’t have enough cultural spaces that exhibit provocative work.With this move, not only emerging artists will get space to exhibit their work, but we can also see various emerging mediums of art such as sound, performance, folk and craft. I see it turning into a hybrid space. Nonetheless, Samovar will still be remembered as a place where one could bump into their favourite artists and thinkers.“
The post Jehangir Art Gallery set to gift more room to artists appeared on Parsi Khabar.
HE’S the Indian chef who takes the guesswork out of cooking with spices, but Cyrus Todiwala is at home in Wales as he is in his native India. For now, at least…
WHEN it comes to familiar faces at the Abergavenny Food Festival, Cyrus Todiwala is definitely up there with the best of them.
Article by Nicole Garnon | South Wales Argus
The Indian chef known for Parsi cuisine has been a stalwart of the Welsh food fiesta for so many years there could be a danger in him looking like a part of the – albeit delicious – furniture.
Of course, the award-winning TV chef behind Cafe Spice Namaste in London could never really be taken for granted.
A firm favourite on the British food scene with more than 10,000 followers on Twitter – where his handle is @ctodiwala – the instantly recognisable 59-year-old is as at home sparring with Tony Singh on The Incredible Spice Men as he is toiling over a bubbling pot of exotic curry in any of his ventures.
But top of the lot, the MBE reveals, has to be that one special weekend in Wales every year.
Well, as long as he can find it, he jokes.
“We always get lost finding our house in the middle of the night,” he laughs. “We get stuck on that one-way system every year, we’re always on that road with everyone else.”
Joking aside, Abergavenny Food Festival is what Cyrus, commonly regarded the “UK’s best Indian chef” terms “a homecoming”.
“I think Abergavenny always is the best food festival in the country. We’ve been to many and I do believe that it’s if not the best, it’s one of the very best,” he enthuses.
For one thing, Cyrus and his staff look forward to the Welsh excursion immensely.
“We know we’re going to work our socks off for it, and we start planning a year in advance.
“And the people are just fabulous. Nine out of 10 people come there to actually buy, enjoy and have a good time.”
As opposed to other food events where ‘tasters’ swing by and enjoy some of his Mr Todiwala’s range of sauces but don’t return, Cyrus says Abergavenny pulls in those who want to shop, shop, shop.
“They say ‘I want that, that, that, that and that, please put it in a bag for me’. We love that because they trust you and they’re happy to see you there – unless you don’t bring their favourite products and then you get told off by them!”
The different areas celebrating cheese, wines, meat, baking and more are all a draw for the Mumbai native – and he even has his own shopping list all ready to go.
“If I get time to wander around, the guy I have to track down sells damsons. If I find him, I buy the whole lot because then I come back here and make chutney with them,” he shares conspiratorially.
This year’s impressive Abergavenny chef attendance sheet includes MasterChef Monica Galetti – on the bill for the first time – Jose Pizarro, a restaurateur and chef known for his Spanish and Basque recipes, and even a rare appearance from Tom Kerridge, the West Country cook who never knowingly under-flavours his classic British cuisine.
Cyrus says the variety is what makes Abergavenny – and the ingredients they use are part of what makes Wales.
“Most of the lamb we use [at the restaurant] comes from North Wales from Lord Newborough’s Rhug estate in Denbighshire and we have a lot of other suppliers dotted across the country that give the very best inWelsh produce, whether it’s pork, lamb, beef.
“There are great preserves – and not to forget, Wales has great seafood. The crab meat is good, they’ve got lobsters and langoustines from the West coast. And the only sustainable sea bass that’s farmed in the UK is in Wales,” he adds.
It’s not just the Welsh produce that he’s bugging up this year, as Cyrus also has a new book for those nervy of Indian cooking.
Mr Todiwala’s Spice Box shows the fearful how they can use just 10 spices in 120 recipes – and it’s bound to be a hit with all those foodies swinging by his stall.
“Brits are still daunted by spices,” he says firmly. “The number of classes I do where people ask what spices they should have in their larder prompted me to start thinking about it.”
The book adds to his already impressive bibliography of five
Away from Abergavenny, Cyrus has a summer of food events coming up, including some Scottish dates at Taste of Grampian and Taste of Dundee in June and July with his old friend Tony Singh.
He doesn’t mind admitting that he would take the festival atmosphere over a TV studio any day.
“Festivals are more enjoyable because I’m on a one-to-one with the people there and I get my own stage.
“Working on television or in a studio is a completely different atmosphere simply because you are doing something which you do not have any control over. You are at the hands of the producer, director, whatever you do, they are the ones who control.”
But working with Tony is “great” at festivals or in front of the camera.
“We have a lot of fun together, we enjoyed Incredible Spice Men, because food is all about having fun, not getting bogged down. If they wanted another series, I would take it, but at the moment it’s on the back burner.”
Trained as a classic French chef, Cyrus has gone back to his roots with the Indian dishes he and Tony were so skilled at showing the British public, and he says nothing makes him happier.
“It was after I trained that I realised I had to switch back into Indian food and learn something about my home cooking – and that’s when the excitement came. It helped me reconnect with where I am from.
“If you look at Indian cuisine as a whole, that’s 26 different cuisines. If you live 1,000 years, you will not understand Indian food, it will take that long.”
Coming to the UK in 1991 and building on his already successful career and reputation here, Cyrus recently opened a restaurant in Goa, The River Restaurant – his first in India.
He says the opportunity to dip back into some of the flavours of his past was a proud moment.
“At the restaurant we went back to basics, what we knew as children. We grew up eating simple food at home.
“If you grew up in Mumbai you were very privileged, so privileged to grow up in a city that was so dynamic, but so open to other cultures.”
The love Cyrus has for his homeland is clear, and he reveals that he even thinks about one day returning to live there.
“I would like to spend more time in India, perhaps, maybe two, three months a year at least, and the remaining time here.
“We would love to go around India driving and cooking and learning more about the cultures along the route.
“But you cannot say anything because you never know where life may take you.”
Sounds like anyone keen to see Cyrus should make sure they get to Abergavenny – because the next step he takes could be much further afield.
Cyrus Todiwala: Mr Todiwala’s Spice Box is at the Borough theatre on Saturday September 17 at 1pm for Abergavenny Food Festival. Tickets are priced £12. For more details visit www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com
Mr Todiwala’s Spice Box, published by Octopus, is out on July 5
The post Cyrus Todiwala embraces the spice of life appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Professor Almut Hintze FBA, Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism at SOAS University of London, has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator Grant of just under €2.5 million (ca. £2 million) for a project on the Yasna, the core ritual of one of the most ancient and influential living religions, Zoroastrianism.
The project ‘The Multimedia Yasna’ (MUYA) will film a performance of the Yasna ritual, transcribe the words which the priests recite, and examine their meaning and how they relate to the ritual actions and to the tradition of the manuscripts.
Professor Hintze said: “I’m delighted to have been awarded this grant and to be able to advance understanding of the Yasna, which has been hampered by the presence of out-dated editions and translations or by their absence altogether.
Our project proposes to fill these gaps and create a film and a critical edition of the recitation text. We will examine the Yasna both as a performance and as a text attested in manuscripts. The two approaches will be integrated to answer questions about the meaning and function of the Yasna in a historical perspective.”
The research methods for achieving MUYA’s objectives unite cutting-edge approaches from digital humanities, philology and linguistics. These complementary datasets and methods will be used to produce a subtitled, interactive film of the Yasna ritual, and an online platform of transcribed manuscripts and editorial tools together with print editions, translations and commentaries of the Avestan Yasna.
The project was commended for opening Iranian philology to digital humanities and producing unprecedented visual documentation of current ritual practices. These were deemed to be critically important objectives with potential for great impact. The project was also commended for extending far beyond its primary objective of creating a multimedia package for the Yasna ritual, through the integration of the textual and the visual, while at the same time being devoid of any spectacularisation.
MUYA provides positions for three full-time and one part-time postdoctoral researchers, three fully funded PhD scholarships, and involves an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, India and Iran. The project will run from October 2016 to September 2021.
The post Prof. Almut Hintze of SOAS awarded European Research Council grant of €2.5 million to study core ritual of Zoroastrianism appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Parsi women have tolerated discrimination for over a century, and there’s no-one to fight for them.
Trupti Desai’s efforts to seek equality between the sexes in matters of worship have been on the front pages of newspapers, and on prime time television. The government and the courts have backed her efforts. If men can enter the inner sanctums of Hindu temples, why can’t women? The Indian Constitution guarantees equal rights.
Editorial By Jehangir Patel | Parsiana
Some have suggested that the founder of the Bhumata Ranragini Brigade take her campaign to other religions as well. The mosques are open to all, but some dargahs bar women from entering the inner sanctum. Other dargahs permit entry. Desai made a symbolic entry to the 585-year-old Haji Ali Dargah but did not attempt to enter the inner sanctum.
“The trustees had decided to bar women access to the grave some time in 2011, calling the practice as un-Islamic,” a news report said. “They had said they were rectifying their earlier mistake of allowing women to touch the grave.”
When a journalist asked the shrine’s trustee, Suhail Khandwani, “Do you mean that the Saint who is resting in peace (Sayed Peer Haji Ali Shah Bukhari) would be disturbed by women devotees but not the men?” he replied, “See, these are Shariyat laws. You can’t challenge them just like you can’t challenge the Constitution.”
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Haji Arafat Hussain went further, challenging Desai to “now try and go to a Parsi temple, then we will know if she is fighting for justice or publicity”. The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) chairman, Yazdi Desai, termed the comment as “most unexpected… We hope and pray that our ancient beliefs and traditions will continue to be respected by all.”
Sadly, they are being willingly respected by Parsi women, who face discrimination. If a woman marries a non-Parsi, her children are not considered Parsis, and are barred entry to fire temples, certain religious ceremonies, some gahanbars, and funerary ceremonies.
As per the judgment laid down by the Bombay High Court judges Dinshaw Davar and Frank Beaman in 1908, a Parsi can only be so termed if he or she is born of a Parsi father.
Parsi women have tolerated discrimination for over a hundred years. Why are there no Parsi Trupti Desais? How can our community today be bereft of courageous women, when in the past we had the likes of Madam Bhikaiji Cama, who first unfurled the Indian flag, Mithu Petit, who supported Mahatma Gandhi, the Captain sisters — Perin, Goshi and Khurshid — who were active in the freedom movement, and countless others who have taken up social, political and economic reforms?
We were, and are in the forefront of fighting for the rights of others, but not our own.
At the Holiday Programme for Youth (HPY), the most successful programme conducted by the BPP, a lecturer asked the gathering of around 180 students how many would be willing to marry a non-Parsi? Maybe around 15 hands went up. They were then told that at present, 37% marry outside the faith and by the time the youngsters reached marriageable age, around half of them would marry non-Parsis. This means that around 45 of the female students (assuming that the 180 students comprise 90 boys and 90 girls) who marry non-Parsis cannot raise their children as Parsis. (This year, a child of a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi was not permitted to participate in HPY).
None of the students were aware of who Goolrookh Gupta and/or Roshni Maloo are. Both women are married to non-Parsis. Gupta is fighting in the Supreme Court for her right to enter the Valsad fire temple and be present for her parents’ funerary prayers at the local Doongerwadi when they die. Till about 2005, they were permitted, but the trustees and a majority of residents then decided women who marry non-Parsis should be barred. Parsi men were exempted.
When Maloo wanted her children’s navjote performed in Mumbai, she faced threats and even a possible disruption of the reception by Parsi vigilantes.
The students were asked how many discussed community issues during family meal times. Barely a hand went up. If parents and others do not inculcate an interest in community matters, can one blame the young for being indifferent? Or ignorant?
The youngsters would all have been aware of the sugar in the milk story even though that tale is pure bunkum. The narration of a handful of Zoroastrians landing on the shores of Sanjan and placing sugar in a bowl full of milk sent by the local raja to indicate the town had no room for them, does not appear in the Qisse-i Sanjan.
Nor is there any mention of a promise not to convert others to the religion as is often claimed. A book published by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA) explaining the religion to the young surprisingly incorporates a sugar in the milk dialog into the Qisse text. When this writer wrote to two members associated with FEZANA about this inclusion, we received no reply.
Incidentally, when the HPY students were asked if they knew about FEZANA, not a single hand went up. They were not aware of the name of the third largest concentration of Zoroastrians in the world (Iran is second). Scholars view the Qisse as a fictional and romanticised narration of the Parsis’ arrival in India. One even termed it a story written to promote the Sanjan priests. All communities have their legends. There is the story of the tooth fairy, or Santa Claus riding around in a sleigh delivering toys to well-behaved children. But as one grows older, one realises these are myths. Sadly for the Parsis, many still believe these tales. That is why we are unable to shed the shackles of discriminatory traditions that target women and children. If our apathy continues, we will continue to fall even further behind other communities.
The article first appeared in community magazine Parsiana
The post A Parsi Trupti, please appeared on Parsi Khabar.
Yesterday we published an editorial by Jehangir Patel titled “A Parsi Trupti Please”.
Below is a rebuttal to the same by Ervad Marzban J. Hathiram, Editor of Frashogard
The ubiquity of Whats-app means that even on days when prayer and reflection is necessary, the peace is broken by the incessant beep announcing one more message. When such beeps resound early in the morning, their shrillness seems even more pronounced and urgent…is it some good news, or a harbinger of doom, some calamitous occurrence or a friend on another continent sending a message oblivious of the time difference?
This morning’s non-stop messages from a stream of friends and colleagues was none of the above. As I sat down to read the hastily scanned photos of some newspaper article, my curiosity levels went up and then down, replaced by a sense of bewilderment… the author’s thinking process seemed disoriented; he jumped from one seemingly unconnected topic to another, interspersed with deep pangs of regret, sorrow, frustration, even anger! By the time I finished, my heart was suffused with deep compassion and an overwhelming need to reach for the nearest box of tissues – to pass on to Mr. Jehangir Patel, Editor of Parsiana, who seemed to have jumped from the boundaries of his irrelevant magazine to the national media…ah! some recognition at last!
But what was this? Not some jubilant celebration of another ‘Navjote’ of the child of religiously indeterminate parents, neither the raucous call to attention -‘we are dying out, let’s intermarry and die out quicker!’, nor some fake seminar or government sponsored exhibition showing Parsi dodos on the way to extinction…, nor some un-scholarly paper spouting views a million miles removed from true Zoroastrianism…
This article was none of the above…It was a cry of frustration, a wail of helplessness, a moan of resignation, a howl of indignation…all interspersed with an audacious attempt to attract the attention of trouble makers… ‘have you finished with other communities? please please, now it’s the turn of the Parsis! Won’t you come and further wreck our already troubled institutions? Won’t you come and save us from the traditionals?’ Really Jehangir, you have outdone yourself this time! Wah Saheb! Wah!
What was the real crux of Jehangir’s article? What is the take-home message? What do we infer, apart from the obviously unhinged state of the author’s nerve-wracked mind?
It is this: that despite the best attempts of the last one hundred years; in spite of the obscene amounts of money used to coerce, buy, threaten and bribe ‘priests’; regardless of the very top echelons of the Parsi community showing their disdain for traditional Zoroastrianism; notwithstanding all the scholarly and not-so-scholarly articles published in so-called community magazines like the one headed by Mr. Patel; even with the intense publicity and brazen displays of photos ‘commemorating’ and ‘honouring’ fake, illegal, illicit and totally spurious ‘Navjotes’ and ‘weddings’; in the face of long sentimental articles on new ‘prayer halls’ and ‘cremations’ and ‘burials’; despite the alarming calls to attention highlighting fake statistics and spurious tallies of births and deaths; and after spending millions of rupees of the community’s precious resources in needless litigation, despite all this and so much more, Mr. Patel and others of his ilk just can’t understand – why is the community still so resolutely orthodox? Why are the traditionals still flourishing? Why did only 15 hands out of 180 in a hall of 16-year-olds go up when asked whether they would marry outside the community? Why are female Parsis allowing themselves to be ‘discriminated’ against? Why no uproar in our community, when others are going berserk, demanding entry into places of worship which have been traditionally restricted by age or sex?
Much like the honourable Brutus on the streets of tempestuous Rome, Mr. Patel tries to arouse, instigate and rabble-rouse the mindless crowd of curious onlookers in the national media, after having failed to achieve much within the community. ‘Come, come, fight for us! Save us! Free us from the yoke of the traditionals!’ It is not that Mr. Patel does not love us traditionals. It’s just that he loves the community more! He is a learned man, who cites legal cases and definitions, drawing conclusions that would make even a first year law college student shake his head in disbelief! But of course, Mr. Patel is an honourable man!
I am so glad that a firm reformist like Mr. Jehangir Patel has finally belled the cat and called the sugar and milk story what it really is – a bogus fabrication! Perhaps that will stop some of our superbly intelligent but religiously ignorant Parsi hoi-polloi repeating the same ad nauseum, specially in front of political leaders at so-called Utsavs. It was our revered Master, Ustad Saheb Behramshah N. Shroff, who first clarified that the story was wrong – no sugar was used, it was the gold ring on the finger of Dastur Nairyosangh Dhaval which was dipped into the bowl of milk – signifying our intention to settle at the very bottom of Indian society, maintaining our unique religious and racial identity, and yet proving as precious as the ring. If it were sugar, we would all have disappeared long ago! Now wouldn’t that have been nice, Mr. Patel!
Mr. Patel, Parsis were only 2000 men, women and children when they landed on the shores of Sanjan. They did not start a community magazine at that time, they did not debate whether a mere 2000 would survive in the millions around them, they did not indulge in inter-community marriages to increase their number, they never held World Zoroastrian Congresses to ponder over their future, nor did they waste their precious resources in needless fights and litigation.
No Sir, the first thing they did after landing was to meet the generous King and ask for a very secluded place – a place so secluded that no non-Parsi could even hear what was going on – leave alone see, or participate. There they got together, and under the leadership of the Master Dastur Nairyosangh Dhaval and His team of Spiritual Adepts, Alchemists, skilled workers and others who had nothing to offer but pure labour of love for the religion – those 2000 Parsis – men, women and children set up a most powerful spiritual institution – The Pav Mahel built around the Iranshah.
It is this Spiritual Institution that is our Lord and Master – it is this Pav Mahel that has sustained us for 1200 years in this country. It is the power in this unique Foundation that has made us flourish and show our mettle and nobility, such that a mere 1 lakh can shine in 1 billion.
And it is this hidden power which resides within the Sanctum of the Iranshah that is holding this community together, despite the best efforts of Mr. Patel and many others like him. And it is this same power which will continue to flummox them and overturn their nefarious activities. They may have all the money, all the sophistication, all the influence, they may even win over those who are supposed to be the very Custodians of this Great Institution, but in the end they will never achieve success. They will keep failing.
Nearly a century ago, our revered Master Ustad Saheb Behramshah said: “Mor naachi naachine potana pag taraf joene chevate rade tem kom na sudharavalao thodi dini andhadhundhi ane khanakharabi ubhi kari sakshe pan chevate teo potej naashne pathe pugshe. Je kharabio peda padvani che tene koi purepuri roki shakvanu nathi, pan parsi kom ane Zarthosti dharamni gebi pasbani thaine ubhi rehvani che.”
“Just as peacock will dance in all its finery, but look at its ugly legs and have no option but to cry, so also the Reformists will be able to create some disturbance and disorder, but in the end they will be destroyed. The various offences and misdemeanours which are to take place in our community cannot be completely stopped by anyone. But the Hidden Masters will ensure the Eternal Protection and Preservation of our dear Faith.”
I encourage readers of Frashogard to each send a box of tissues to Mr. Patel in sympathy of his great grief.
Ervad Marzban J. Hathiram
The post A box of tissues for Mr. Jehangir Patel please! appeared on Parsi Khabar.