Parsi Khabar founder Arzan Sam Wadia is also intimately involved with the Zoroastrian Return To Roots Program that just concluded the 4th trip in India. Arzan was invited by RJ Rohini Ramanathan of 91.1 FM Radio Nasha in Mumbai to speak about the program. Below is the radio interview that was broadcast live at the end of December 2017.
If the above link does not work, click here to listen on SoundCloud
Before Ambedkar Bose and Nehru were born; when India was under the British rule, Sorabjee Dorabjee started the Dorabjee & Sons. The restaurant was established in the year 1878. Sorabjee Dorabjee started his journey with a small tea stall where he used to sell the Bun Maska and Irani Chai. Later, on the demand of the locals, he started selling full-time meals. The restaurant is located on the Dastur Meher Road near Sarbatwala Chowk in Camp, Pune.
Today, the restaurant is owned by the fourth generation descendant, Mr Darius Marazban Dorabjee. Mr Darius has been a fine gentleman and a cheerful person. He is proud of his great grandfather’s legacy. Mr Darius expatiates his story and concludes by giving the assurance that the restaurant will never close. He says, “Dorabjee is one of the oldest restaurants in India. We have been serving here for the last 137 years and I assure you we are not going anywhere as long as I am here.” Mr Darius has been always busy because he does everything around the shop, even if it’s cooking or managing the restaurant. He just loves his job.
Dorabjee & Sons are one of the oldest Parsi restaurants in India. The famous cuisines which every Punekar loves here are the famous Dhansak, Dum Biryani, Keema and Bheja. I had Keema Pav and the raspberry drink for the breakfast. The old Irani style Keema Pav was worth going all the way there and the raspberry drink was perfect with my Keema.
The raspberry drink or raspberry soda as we call it, it is actually known as icily. You can find this drink in almost every Parsi Irani wedding. If you ever get a chance, try Keema Pav and raspberry soda at Dorabjee & Sons for breakfast and I also recommend you to try the famous Dhansak and Dum Biryani. A perfect home cooked meal is served at Dorabjee & Sons.
Their menu includes all the pure and authentic Parsi food items. They still preserve their different menus from the bygone era, from the year 1940 – where currency exchanges were in the Annas and not in Rupees.
1940 menu
Taking a peek at their menu from 1950’s, I noticed the difference in currency exchange into Rupees and back then the Chicken Pulav only cost around a Rupee!
1950 menu
They don’t have to put up expensive chairs or tables or they don’t even have to serve fancy-looking dishes for people to get attracted. People all around the shop goes there as they know that the restaurant has always been serving healthy, home-cooked food with 100% satisfaction of their money.
Dorabjee and sons
If you want to have good Parsi Irani food, then the best place to have it in Pune is the Dorabjee & Sons. Now they have chairs and tables, but back in those days, they didn’t have chairs and the customers had to sit on the floor and eat. See this picture below of Balasaheb Thackrey having lunch at Dorabjee while sitting on the floor. Many notable celebrities have visited Dorabjee like Rani Mukherjee, Balasaheb Thackrey and many more.
Balasaheb Thackrey
If you want to know more about Dorabjee & Sons, you can visit the restaurant and they have all the information available in writing, which further tells the history and success story of Dorabjee & Sons. Mr Darius is a wonderful host and the food here surely gives you the satisfaction of home-food. Coming here at Dorabjee took me back to the memory lane, back to to the 1870’s. There are only few Irani cafes and restaurants that are left and we want these places to last for many more years. Having a breakfast at the restaurant which is 137 years old, meeting an owner who is an amazing host and a hard-working person and having some delicious food was surely a wonderful experience.
We are glad to share that our dear friend and global health guru Dr. Mickey Mehta has been awarded the honour The Icon of Health and Wellness in India conferred by The Economic Times last Saturday at an event BODY EXPO 2017 -2018. The award was handed over by – Mr Rishi Kapoor – Sr. Vice President – The Economic Times and Mr Nick Orton – CEO of ‘BodyPower’ GLOBAL and ‘Physique Elite’, two global fitness media companies.
Recently Mickey was also invited to speak at GUJRAT LITFEST in Ahmedabad. Dr. Mehta spoke about his latest book The Shoonyam Quotient – The Light of Life by Dr. Mickey Mehta. He emphasized on the concept of “Icchamrityu”…..Purpose of life optimised, Living Maximised , Fulfilment Super-sized ….and get Mickeymized!!!
During the same trip to Ahmedabad, he was also invited at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management to talk about his work and his new book.
‘Name?’
I say my name, in full.
‘Date of birth?’
I say my date of birth, in full.
‘Religion?’
‘Half Parsi, half Muslim,’ I say. In full.
Article by Shaista Tayabali |Sister-hood
She looks up at me. I am standing in the classroom, as each of us must when the roll call reaches the letter of our surname in the alphabet. ‘How can you have two religions?’ she asks. Maybe she is smiling; maybe she isn’t. I cannot remember, because this process occurs every single year, on the first day of school after the monsoon holidays are over. ‘I don’t know’, I say, although I do. I have two parents. And two religions.
‘What is your father?’ In India, this is quite a common way of asking which religion you belong to. ‘What are you?’ begins with this classification, if your name doesn’t already ‘give you away’. ‘My father is Muslim’, I say, and watch her write it down. I protest. How young I was when I began protesting is unclear to me. All I know is that by the time I was ten I have already decided that I have had enough of my mother’s religion being erased from my identity. For that is how I perceived the act of a figure of authority deciding on my behalf that my father’s religion was the defining classification of my personhood.
I am a feminist. I came to an understanding of this word first through the writings of Alice Walker and her fulsome, inclusive definitions of womanism. But that was at university. So until then I had no words for what I felt at the thought of the denial of my mother’s religious identity. In India, this is more than the place of worship you are allowed to enter – it weaves into every aspect of life: your birthing ceremony, your childhood years, your teenage relationships, your marriage, and then the decisions that will affect the lives of your own children. My mother had a spiritual, emotional and psychological crisis when she fell in love with my father, because she had always assumed she would marry a Parsi like herself. Parsis are now a tribe, technically, because after a thousand years after leaving Persia as a result of Arab persecution, and after sheltering in India under the promise of never proselytising the religion – Zoroastrianism – we now number less than 70,000.
You notice I have only just mentioned the ‘other’ religion. Indians know that to be a Parsi is to be Zoroastrian in a way the world does not want to know that to be Muslim is to be Malaysian, Kurdish, French, Moroccan, Norwegian, Somali. Naming ‘Zoroastrianism’ has only become a reality since we moved to England. A non-reality, ultimately, because no one has heard of Zoroastrianism. Well, unless you happen to be a bona fide Freddie Mercury fan, or you are a Professor of Iranian or Avestan Studies. The Jehovah’s Witnesses who used to knock on our door heard ‘Rastafarian’ every time my mother opened the door to explain that she did have religion in her life.
What was my Parsi mother’s greatest fear when marrying my Muslim father? That her children would be neither one thing, nor the other. Where would we belong? Individually, or as a family? Nowhere, she feared. And in part, her fears proved to have substance. When her father died, the Zoroastrian priest would not permit my mother to enter the sacred area where my grandfather lay, wrapped in white muslin sheets, ready for his sky burial. She had been made impure by marrying outside the community. The pure land was no longer available to her. His cruelty broke her heart.
We make our choices. One day, when the need to visit the fire temple and light aromatic sandalwood became too great, my mother drove all of us to the agiary (fire temple). The sign outside clearly stated, ‘Only Parsis allowed.’ My father prepared to wait outside the entrance. My mother, my younger brother and I began to troop inside. One small figure was missing. My older brother, clutching our father’s arm, refused to leave his side.
We make our choices. Are you Muslim or Parsi? What is your father? When I was ten I placed the secret of my heart upon my mother’s palm. I knew no one would ever order me to prove myself a Muslim. If they did, couldn’t I simply burst into my favourite surah, ‘Alam Nashrah Laka Sadrak’? Hadn’t my mother painstakingly taught herself Arabic so she could in turn teach us the calligraphy that would forever be written upon the scripts of our souls? Secure in my Islamic and Arabic traditions, I wanted to ensure my Persian Avestan traditions. But the formal investiture was time-conditional. Parsi girls may only enter the Zoroastrian faith through the navjote ceremony before we begin to menstruate. Oh, that gatekeeping, so beloved to the male priestly communities across the globe, across time. Blood, the river of life, which runs free through all human veins regardless of gender, suddenly turns into such filth that God himself would forsake us when it is associated with women. He would be Himself here. Herself would merely commiserate over the monotonous banalities, send waves of abdominal healing and draw us ever closer.
It didn’t make much difference; and it made all the difference in the world. My Parsi-ness, my Zoroastrianism, remains invisible: the secret I placed upon my mother’s palm remains the secret of my heart. My delightful father, who I worried would feel betrayed by my deliberate choice, was only moved to tears that his daughter felt so deeply about her relationship to the liminal, the mystical unseen ever-thereness of the spiritual world. I pray, as he does, in surahs and in gathas. A thousand years ago, his people may have persecuted my mother’s people. In me, persecution will not be internalised. Love made its decision so firmly, so deeply, that surely some tiny bat squeak of an echo is even now ricocheting back in time, to press my secret into the palms of forsaken hands. Here. Remember this. Love is a choice, waiting.
‘The vultures of the Parsi Cemetery’ is from a collection of stories called The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told. The stories are translated by Muhammad Umar Memon.
The story has an interesting beginning where all the vultures suddenly stopped visiting the Parsi cemetery one particular day. It says,
It was all so unexpected. They were stunned. They put the stretcher down abruptly, gawked at the dead body, then looked at each other with a million questions stirring in their eyes. Their eyeballs moved dumbly in their sockets for quite some time, and when they stopped, the two shrugged their shoulders uncomprehendingly. Then, simultaneously, they grimaced, severely straining their necks and letting their gaze hover over the dense trees of the Parsi cemetery. Not a single vulture!
Homroz and Bhatina were having a regular day at the Parsi cemetery. The dead were coming in and the rituals were performed after which they were left at the cemetery for the vultures. But that day the dead bodies were accumulating but there were no vultures.
The entire story fits between them realising the scarcity of vultures and finding out the reason why they were not coming to their cemetery.
The street is littered with corpses. One right on top of the other. Piled high. Our vultures – well, they’re having a feast there. And that police commissioner… he said that after the street’s been cleaned up, the vultures will come back on their own accord.
The story is a social commentary on the deaths for foolish hatred caused in India. A resigned voice says:
‘Even if the street’s cleaned up, so what? What makes you think the vultures will return? This fucking India… there is a riot every day here, every day a fire, every day people die. The vultures’ll come back? The hell they will!’
I absolutely loved the simple writing and judicious utilisation of words. The story also talks extensively about the death rituals. It is the story for all those who love diverse writing.
This collection of short stories is turning out to be great so far! Read about the previous story that we read from the book.
Just look. Look at the life of a Parsi.
Life?
Yes.
What about it?
His youth runs super fast but his old age merely crawls along like a freight train.
Join us in discovering new stories each day. Share stories that you would want us to read! Actually, read along with us!
Zahra giggled. “What a strange lot we Indians are, don’t you think?”
“I’ll confess, after years of study I’ve come to the same conclusion – only, now, I’m bored of such strangeness. We don’t actually want more freedom, as some people imagine we do. That would be so mundane. We’d rather have a world of piety and prohibition so we can preach morality to others – all the while trying to circumvent those very same rules.”
“Hmm. So, lots of incest, too? What a world.” Zahra whistled, an act that curiously became her, the way priests can look their most charming when they run cassocked into a football game. “Sorry if this is boring for you, Dr Billimoria. I’m just curious about these things because I’ve been away from India so long, and I want to know how our society is changing. And who better than you to know the secret life of the Indian mind?’
“Ah, no, I’m sure my guess is no better than any other. How long have you been away?”
“Forever! Let’s see…I left in 1996. So, fifteen years. Yes, I know, that makes me very old. Older than you probably thought I was. But that’s not such a terrible thing. A woman must just accept, at a certain point, that her best years are behind her.”
“What a shocking thing to admit. If my opinion is of any value, I don’t think you’ll be getting there for many years yet.”
“Really? And how was that – is that?”
Zahra laughed. “It was like one of those diploma courses – it lasted only a year. The guy was Irani, but from Las Vegas – he worked in a casino there. Yes, I know. What was I doing? But I was so young. My head was full of all kinds of romantic illusions and fantasies. Eternal love and perfect union and all that.”
“Very interesting. And then?”
“Then? I already had residency when we broke up, so there was no point returning. I drifted around a bit. In the strangest places. Dayton, Ohio; Eugene, Oregon. Anywhere but Bombay. I knew that if I returned to my world of parents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Ness Baug, I’d become an object of sympathy, of pity. Everybody would go out of their way to be nice to me, and that niceness would be more terrible than anything else. In this world, it’s okay to make one wrong move. But you mustn’t let that lead you to another mistake.”
“How smart!” I said, with genuine respect.
“Just find some way of keeping your head above the water till you work out what you want to do next.”
“Exactly what I’ve said to many people who’ve come my way.”
“I read it in a book by Enrico Sanchez. Did you, too?”
“Enrico who?”
“Enrico Sanchez. He’s a bit like – a bit like Richard Bach. Or Paulo Coelho. Only better. Those two are pop. They write for money. This man is serious. His last book was The Secret of the Secret. But that’s not so good. His best is What You Didn’t See from the Centre of the Room. From the mid-90s. Isn’t that a great title?”
“It is.”
“To look out of the window?”
“Dr Billimoria, now you’re laughing at me. But think about it. It’s true. All my life I’d been in the thick of it. Good-looking, popular, well-connected. People around me full of love for me; doors and windows open on all sides, positive energy in every direction. Then, suddenly, something terrible happened – in this case, my divorce – and the room became empty. For no fault of mine – but that’s how it was, that was the truth. To get to another room, find another centre, I had to first learn how to move around my own room. Oh look, here are our drinks. Well…cheers. What shall we drink to?”
“Why not aim high? Cheers to life,” I said, with a sudden flash of happiness and optimism brought on by the face in front of me, the last rays of the sunset, and a fresh sense of the pastness of my past and the promise of my future. “To the puzzle that is life, and to the pleasures of thinking about that puzzle. To the secret of the secret.”
Zahra laughed. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me, but I don’t care. These books changed my life. Actually, I love reading. And I love going to book launches, too. Just to see the mind of the person who made the book. I think a book becomes more interesting when you have some sense of the personality of the writer.”
Zahra pointed a finger at me. “There’s one in Bombay tomorrow. Want to go? A big one…at the Trident. My sister told me about it.”
“Sure. Whose book is it?”
“It’s an Indian novelist. Very famous. He lives in America and he’s visiting. Amitav…Amitav Ghosh! It’s his new book. It’s a novel…but a novel about things that really happened. About Indian history. History that we don’t know. About the opium trade and Bombay, I think, and China. I read all about it by googling it last night. It’s called Cloud of Smoke. And, best of all, it has a hero who is a Parsi! We must go, for the sake of solidarity if nothing else. We Parsis have no literature about us at all. Iranis even less so. Hindus and Muslims have taken over the past of this country. But actually, we’ve had a bigger role in its making…at least if you count per capita.”
Zahra’s arousing laughter floated up into the sky, where the personal secretary of Zarathustra entered it in his logbook as an offering.
“Interesting. An aunt of mine, Freny Doctor, wrote a Parsi crime novel. It’s called Dikra, Your Days Are Numbered. The title is better than the writing though. Anyway…I’d love to go to this Ghosh thing.”
“It’s a plan,” said Zahra. “I’d like another Bellini. What about you?”
“I’m still only halfway through this. But okay. You sure drink fast.”
“I love champagne. Don’t you?” said Zahra. “Oh, look! The sun’s all gone. How beautiful it all looks. I know it sounds weird, but sometimes I think Bombay is more beautiful than San Francisco.”
Excerpted with permission from Clouds, Chandrahas Choudhury, Simon & Schuster.
Indian American Boe (Benaz) Mendewala, an undocumented Ph.D. student studying physics at the University of California-Merced, travelled to Washington, DC Jan. 19 to urge members of Congress to pass a clean DREAM Act, permanently protecting 800,000 Dreamers from deportation.
Article by Sunita Sohrabji | India West
“I love science. It is such a beautiful way to understand the world. But I don’t know whether I will ever be able to pursue my dream of doing research in physics,” Mendewala, who has lived in the U.S. since the age of five, told India-West, explaining that her DACA status expires in April 2019 — just after her expected graduation date — which will leave her without a work permit, and no relief from deportation.
Boe Mendewala second from left.
“I went to DC to show Congress that this affects real lives, and is causing real damage,” she said, adding that she wants Congress to pass a DREAM Act which includes a path to citizenship, along with comprehensive immigration reform to fix a broken system.
“Dreamers have already proven they deserve a chance. We have held up our end of the bargain by going to college and serving in the military. We contribute to the American economy. It is the morally right thing to do to grant us our basic rights,” said Mendewala.
During her visit to the nation’s capital, Mendewala — who traveled with UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland and several other undocumented students — met with Indian American Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, a consistent advocate for Dreamers who has a sign outside her DC office that translates to “Dreamers are welcome here.”
“Sen. Harris was wonderful. She told me she was very proud of me,” Mendewala told India-West.
Harris was the first senator to mandate that provisions for Dreamers be included in a stopgap government spending bill. The government briefly shut down Jan. 19, as the administration and Democrats came to an impasse over immigration, but resumed Jan. 22 when Democrats signed the funding bill without protection for Dreamers.
Undocumented students have protested the Democrats’ acquiescence. Harris, along with California Sen. Diane Feinstein and a handful of other Democrats, did not sign the funding bill, which passed on a vote of 81-18.
Mendewala, a Parsi from Mumbai’s Grant Road, arrived in the U.S. with her family on visitors’ visas. When those expired, the family tried to apply for legal permanent residency, but their applications were denied. The family appealed their case all the way up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but were denied.
When she was 16, Mendewala and her family got their final orders of deportation. They continued to remain in the country so that Mendewala and her younger brother could attend college here.
When she was a junior in college in 2015, President Barack Obama created under executive order the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provided a two-year renewable reprieve from deportation, along with work permits and drivers’ licenses to undocumented youth.
President Donald Trump rescinded DACA Sept. 5, 2017, ordering Congress to come up with a permanent solution to protect Dreamers by March 5, 2018. Two weeks ago, the White House and members of the Senate butted heads over remarks the president made regarding immigration from African countries and Haiti. Trump declared an immigration deal effectively dead, blaming Democrats for the stalemate.
UC Merced has the largest proportion of undocumented students in the UC system: an estimated 600 students and faculty. Several of them — like Mendewala — are the first in their families to attend university, and the first to attend graduate school.
Many Dreamers epitomize Trump’s vision of granting permanent residency based on merit. “This country has already invested in me. Why wouldn’t they want to use my skills?” she queried, noting that — if she has to leave the U.S. — her two degrees will be hugely useful to enrich research in another country.
“Every day, hundreds of people are losing their status. I think about losing my status all the time. I’m living in a daily uncertainty that does not allow me to plan my future,” she lamented to India-West.
“There are so many young people like me who have slipped through the cracks and are not afforded the amazing opportunities this country has to offer. It is really tragic,” said Mendewala.
Jal Bharucha died peacefully in Middletown, Connecticut, at age 92, having lived a good and full life. He was born in Bombay, India, in 1925 to Nariman Bharucha and Aloo Bharucha (née Patel). Jal’s chronic poor health as a child led his parents to enroll him in a school in Panchgani, nestled in the Sahyadri Mountains (the Western Ghats), where the climate is considered to be ideal, with plenty of opportunities for vigorous outdoor activity.
The school, Parsi Boys School (today called Billimoria High School) was formative for him. His love of nature and the outdoors stemmed from that experience, as did the value he placed on self-discipline. His ill health led him to practice yoga (which he studied with B.K.S. Iyengar) and to embrace Ayurvedic medicine, to which he attributed the long and healthy life he led. After graduating from the College of Engineering in Poona, he traveled to the United States by ship in 1947, and received a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan, specializing in pre-stressed concrete structures. There he met his future wife, Elizabeth Emily Robinson, who was majoring in music at Michigan. They married in Bombay in 1950, and lived there until the late 1970s. Jal had a distinguished career in India as a consulting engineer.
He was called upon for structural projects that were unusually complex for the time, in Kerala, Gujarat and Bombay, including the iconic Marine Drive flyover bridge in Bombay. In the 1960s, he became the first practicing engineer in India to use computers in structural design — work which he conducted at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). In 1962, Jal and Elizabeth joined with several other couples to found the Bombay International School, which was highly progressive for its time, and where they enrolled their three children.
During a period of political strife in India in the mid-1970s, he joined the movement to oppose Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s claim to emergency powers. She was defeated in the next election, and civil liberties were restored. His unique approach to the resistance captured who Jal was: he wrote and distributed his political messages on used computer punch cards – always the engineer, environmentalist and political activist. After moving to the US in 1979, Jal worked on software systems on Wall Street. He retired to Bradenton, Florida in 1994, where he and Elizabeth spent many happy years. An avid environmentalist, Jalvolunteered as a technical consultant to the Sierra Club in a successful campaign to prevent Florida Power and Light from bringing tankers with a controversial fuel, orimulsion, from Venezuela into Tampa Bay. In 2013, Jal and Elizabeth relocated to Middletown, Connecticut to be with their daughter Annaita Gandhy.
Jal was known for his brilliance and integrity. He was deeply influenced by the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein. He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Elizabeth, children Camille Bharucha, AnnaitaGandhyand Jamshed Bharucha, grandchildren Riyad Gandhy, Roxanne Irani, Sarah Griffin, Christian Griffin, and Arthur Bharucha, and great grandchildren Anya Irani and Jahan Irani. To share memories or send condolences to the family, please visit www.doolittlefuneralservice.com.
Amyra Dastur, who has acted in Bollywood films like Isaaq, Kung Fu Yoga and Kaalakandi, is making her Telugu debut with Manasuku Nachindi which also marks the directorial debut of Manjula Ghattamaneni. The film also has Sundeep Kishan and Tridha Chowdhary in lead roles.
Article by Bhawana Tanmayi | Telangana Today
Born and brought up in Mumbai in a Parsi family, Amyra is a BCom graduate. As part of the promotions for the film which is releasing on February 16, the actor spoke to the media and shared how she managed working with an alien language film.
“On one fine morning, Manjula madam called me and narrated the story. She asked me if I was interested in working for a role which is now played by Tridha. She somehow thought that I would fit in the role Nithya. That’s how it went on,” said Amyra.
Amyra plays a yoga teacher in the film and she further added that she liked the role because it was very much like her. She has already worked in a Tamil film as lead actor next to Dhanush, and says that Manasuku Nachhindi has helped her in building her confidence. “Telugu and Tamil are two alien languages to me and managing the movies was difficult. But, I am glad that I did both of them well, which has increased the confidence levels in me that I can opt for films in any language by working a little hard,” she added.
When asked about the experience for working with actors like Sundeep Kishan and Nassar, she said that both of them helped her on sets. “Nassar sir played my grandfather in this film and he helped me in delivering my dialogues better. Every time I was desperate to learn speaking Telugu, he asked me to relax and just keep working and told me that I will learn only with work and not just randomly whenever I want. He was very supportive, and an amazing person to work with,” she added.
When asked how was the experience of working with actors like Jackie Chan and Sonu Sood in Kung Fu Yoga, she said that the film helped her in learning a lot about acting and how to excel in the field. “I played a guest role in Kaalanakandi and that was just because the director wanted me to do. The Bollywood films I’ve acted till now matter a lot to me.”
The actor is already shooting for her second Telugu project Rajugadu, next to Raj Tarun which will release sometime in this year.
The secular condolence ceremony for Homi Bhabha of which no photographs were found has remained firmly etched in the scientists’ memory, and the religious one was forgotten.
On 24 January 1966, Homi Bhabha, physicist and founder of India’s nuclear programme, died in a plane crash. The Kanchenjunga — a Boeing 707 aircraft — had crashed into the Glacier des Bossons of Mont Blac at 4,807 metres. Bhabha was on his way to Vienna to attend an Advisory Committee meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Conspiracy theories about the crash being triggered by a bomb circulated then, as they do even today. But how was the news received in the two institutions he founded in Mumbai? With deep distress and a numbing sense of disbelief that remains even now, decades after the event.
Opening of the “Atoms for Peace Conference” with Dr. Homi J. Bhabha (second from right) as the President of the Conference ((Geneva, Switzerland, August 8, 1955) | Flickr
The institute had organised a condolence meeting almost immediately. And those who attended it recalled that Professor Rustom Choksi spoke. He was a member of the Tata Trust as well as the Council of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), which Bhabha had founded in 1945. The resolution that was passed spoke of Bhabha’s patriotism, his leadership and his efforts “to build with unremitting toil and exalted vision that nobler India in which skilled technology in the service of man would give to the lowliest among us the beginnings of a decent life”. These fine sentiments perhaps served to hold in check the intense anguish that many of those present felt.
In 2002, when I began the task of putting together the archives of TIFR, the condolence meeting and Choksi’s speech was what most of the older scientists and administrators of the institute remembered until I found a set of photographs. These striking black-and-white photographs depicted a Parsi Uthamna ceremony in progress. On closer look, the ceremony seemed to be taking place right at the foot of the staircase of TIFR’s library with everyone watching from the colonnade space outside.
The secular condolence ceremony of which no photographs were found had remained firmly etched in memory and the religious one had been forgotten.
Among the scientists, there seemed to be a slight sense of embarrassment about the religious ceremony being performed inside the hallowed portals of a science institute. Almost as if there was a schism between the two worlds that the two ceremonies represented. When pressed, many of the scientists told me that the Parsee ritual was only held to honour the wishes of Bhabha’s mother (who was also the daughter of Ruttonbai and Framji Panday), Meherbai. She was close to many of the scientists at the institute. What came as a surprise was that she was close to some of the workers too who went to see her regularly and who met her even after Bhabha’s death.
As G.V. Vasudevachar, Bhabha’s laboratory assistant who had moved from IISc Bangalore to TIFR in 1945, recalled, Meherbai had said, “Vasu, Homi told me he would be back soon. Now he won’t come back.”
Indeed, the personal dimensions of the institution-building came through sharply in many recollections. But institutional memory had replaced such personal stories with official narratives about science and nationalism. In 1967, an exhibition on the life of Homi Bhabha was put together by his institute and displayed at Royal Society London. Later, this exhibition was put up in the auditorium foyer of TIFR. The auditorium was named the Homi Bhabha Auditorium and inaugurated by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 9 November 1968.
What lurked beneath such objective acts of institutional commemoration was the fact that Bhabha’s death had triggered inconsolable grief that was individual, subjective and only privately expressed.
Unnoticed by the world outside, another incident, deeply significant to the life of the institution, was passed over in silence. Bhabha’s office at TIFR was never occupied by the directors who succeeded him. I learnt from Professor M.G.K. Menon, who became the director when Bhabha died, that he had felt emotionally unprepared to occupy the space where he had worked with Bhabha. Menon’s successors too had a similar response. The office remained unoccupied until Professor S.S. Jha became director in 1997.
Bhabha’s office with its furniture was moved into a museum-ised space in the auditorium foyer. Thus, 31 years after his death, Bhabha’s office on the 4th floor of TIFR was once again occupied by the director of TIFR. Bhabha’s desk, the bookshelves, his Eero Saarinen Tulip chair could now be viewed through the enclosing glass wall, evoking a strong and haunting absence.
What do the forgotten ritual and the unoccupied office tell us about institutions and their commemorative acts? Forgotten narratives often linger beneath official ones, that private reflections offer explanations very different from what are visible, public actions. But they also alert us to the inability of institutions to acknowledge and express grief and then engage meaningfully with the legacy that they have inherited.
Indira Chowdhury heads the Centre for Public History at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru. She wrote a book titled ‘Growing the Tree of Science: Homi Bhabha and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research’ in 2016.
“It is all like a dream now…” I stand in the thicket and look over the board to read an article written about my grandmother. The bulletin is full of clippings about the great Mrs. Bhandari. For some strange reason the journalists who had the opportunity to talk to her, ended the article in the same way. Poached eggs, tea, marigolds…a repetitive reference to the past.
Article by Shirin Bhandari
Mrs. Bhandari started the guesthouse in the 1950s, catering to the High Commissions of Delhi and what is now Pakistan. Rumour has it, people paid to sleep on her floor and use her American style bathrooms. People came for her and the Golden Temple. The place gained a good reputation for overland travelers as well, where they could park, plug in and camp. With four children, widowed twice, she managed the place alone considering how male oriented Punjabi society is. The famous people she met, makes one wonder how many interesting yarns one could have been written about her life and times. I was just too young to ask.
The gardens, the main house, its art deco interiors are all intact. Time has stood still and my words to describe it will never do the place justice.
Ratan my aunt was chosen to continue my grandmother’s legacy. She willingly decided to live in India. The rest of Mrs. Bhandari’s children made their own lives abroad. The younger generation have little affinity for the house or India. But occasionally the siblings took turns looking after their mother through the years. But for any sane person, one can’t live within those four walls forever. But my grandmother did.
I was asked a year ago by my father to fill in for him to keep my grandmother company and assist in managing the house. It seemed like a good idea, I was in a stage in my life where Manila bored me, and I couldn’t seem to find a job that would keep me for long. I had always traveled to India to visit her. It’s good to come back to your roots.
Mrs. Tahmi Bhandari was an over powering, strong willed woman. And a Parsi! Despite her diminutive frame, she held her own in a crowd. The staff cowered, and she managed to either shock or make people laugh with her dry and cutting humour.
Charlton Heston sent her a holiday card every single year until the day he died with an undisclosed amount of money, after staying with her twice. The great writer Mulk Raj Anand was another admirer. She affected people and her graciousness made guests keep coming back.
I had arrived into Amritsar with no expectations. Suppose that is the way to travel and it was liberating to come into India on my own. A challenge to deal with the filth, noise – and the chaos of Punjab. Your life is an open book your existence is everyone’s business. This time, I was an adult not to visit but to help. I did not speak a word of Hindi or Punjabi. The staff a little over 20 in all barely spoke a word of English either. I had dug a hole for myself, and questioned my sanity when I had agreed to this proposition – regret came as I boarded the plane. The staff took pride in my stupidity and it was infuriating not to know what went where. You don’t break routines in this house you follow them to the hilt. Each carpet, cushion-cover, fan blade, exists for a certain time of year. Labelled, covered, knotted and kept. It baffled me to see a system – after all the years of perceiving disorder. For the life of me, a garden was a pot with a plant in our flat back home but to face massive mounds of earth and plant it with the proper flowers of the season, just daunting. An entire routine, day by day laid out by her. How to upload it is the million dollar question.
At 98, my grandmother is still strong, and manages to go about with the help of a lady who has cared for her for the past 30 years. Conversations are non-existent. Her days and nights go from one to another, without an end, a never ending cycle. Like her house.
It is difficult to see her frail from age but she still recognizes me. My recollections of her were vivid. She ran the show. Now childlike, her eyes still have that spark and as she looked into mine – she understood the reason why I had come. The tables had turned. Journalists always wrote about her past, and fail to see her right now. A year over and it is an honour to learn of how she lives and lived. I walk through the empty halls of the main house, her entire life contained in it. I’m going home in a few weeks back to the Philippines and wonder what will be. And as I lay down to sleep and hear her call out at night through the thin walls of her room, I say to myself, no it is not a dream.
Jiloo Billimoria writes in informing us about a book that she has reprinted.
I have recently reprinted the prayer book shown in the picture above.
It is a wonderful translation & transliteration of the Daily Zoroastrian prayers into simple English with meanings and insightful explanatory notes which, when read along with the daily prayers, gave me a new joy of understanding, comprehending and analysing, rather than simply reciting by rote the words that I knew out of habit.
I strongly feel that Framroz Rustomjee’s timelessly relevant words of advice stand good for all of us, be it parents teaching their children the Navjote prayers or adults seeking to understand the philosophy of Zoroastrianism better.
It is available for Rs 200 at the Parsiana bookshop, Zoroastrian Studies bookshop and & Minoi Meher outside the Anjuman Atashbehram in Mumbai. Or contact me by e mail : jiloob@gmail.com
Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to charity.
Jiloo Billimoria
Two weeks ago on the 1st of February my mother Behroz Sam Wadia passed away after a brief illness, in a mind numbing suddenness that is difficult to comprehend. Mummy was 70, having been born in the year of India’s Independence on November 2nd 1947. Just a day or two before she passed away we were all discussing the travel plans of a long awaited family vacation to New Zealand and Australia that would have culminated at the 11th World Zoroastrian Congress in Perth in early June. And the next moment we were mourning her loss.
To the umpteen number of friends, family and many strangers who called,emailed, Whatsapped, FBmessaged and texted their condolences, I can only say that I was overwhelmed. Friends and families from near and far came for the funeral and prayers. To all of them we are thankful. Many people wrote beautiful messages that resonated with what we all were going through. My dad who’s always been the unshakeable rock especially in crises was so for most of the time. My sister Mehernaaz (co-founder of Parsi Khabar) donned on the role of the clear thinker, that would have made Mummy beam with pride seeing her little “mitthu” taking care of the family. Just one example was Mehernaaz coordinating with my friends in NYC to make sure I would be OK and would get on the quickest flight, all this while having suffered the biggest tragedy in her life. My brother-in-law Shovir showed unbelievable calmness in executing one of the most difficult tasks any one has to undertake….telling a son that his mother is no more on the telephone. I don’t think I would have the same maturity and calmness if I had to don that role.
And Mehernaaz was saddled with the one task that she had never imagined she would have to prepare for….telling Ava that her Mamaiji had gone to “Dadarji’s house” and then answering all the innocent questions that a worried 4.5 year old granddaughter had. What will Mamaiji eat ? Who will wake her up in the morning ! As Mehernaaz patiently answered all these myriad questions and concerns, she had to keep her composure lest Ava be even more upset.
As I left work and drove home in a daze, to pack and catch the next flight out, Shirin’s presence and urging made me grieve; all while I was trying to put on a brave face. They say those who are lucky have friends who are like family. Vikrant is one such who nearly booked my tickets for me as I was getting back and frantically searched to see if he had my passport number from vacations past when we have travelled together. And then dropped me off at the airport.
Mummy left us all suddenly, however we all take solace in that she did not suffer and be in pain in the end, for too long.
Her values, teaching, manners and leading by example will be things that Mehernaaz and I live by and will continue to do in the years ahead. And we are glad that Mummy had a chance to be a part of Ava’s life in the formative years and in the next generation will live the spirit and memory of Mummy…..as Mamaiji now becomes Ava’s Fravashi !
Mummy’s sense of fairplay and being decent human beings in general was her strong point. One incident from childhood sticks out. In a period when there were some family feuds, Mummy and Daddy had both made it clear that irrespective of whether adults agree or argue, Mehernaaz and I had to always show respect to every single family member when we met them ….wherever…in functions, on the road, etc. It instilled in us the value of respecting elders that has lasted all these years and is ingrained into our psyche.
Mummy spent nearly 35 years with Bank of India working in various roles, departments and locations in the Head Office. Her work ethic and professionalism was something we as children saw and learnt to emulate. It didnt matter if Bombay flooded during the monsoons. If there was one train or one bus that was working, you could bet she was on it heading to office. Having started working in the age of typewriters she could type and take shorthand at blinding speeds till writer’s cramp ailed her right hand and slowed her down a bit.
Having lost her own father at the age of 17 she grew up much earlier than her years and took on the mantle of taking care of her mom…my mamaiji ably supported by my Dad once they got married.
Mummy and Daddy grew up on the same lane…Wadia Street, and dated for nearly 8 years beffore they got married. This January 4th when we all went to Ling’s Pavilion for dinner, it was to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary !
Although born in Bombay, Mummy’s entire family on both sides descended from Navsari. There was no one prouder of being from Navsari than Mummy and she always made it a point to wear that as a badge of honour. Navsari….”Dharam Ni Tekdi” was what she would tell us and describe life growing up as a child in Navsari, during her vacation days, that sadly today is just collective memories, in a fast changing world.
My mums maternal grandfather was a farmer in Anklaach village a small hamlet on the Dharampur Vansda Road in Navsari District, not far from Ajmalgarh. When her uncles sold off their ancestral farms, Mummy urged Daddy to buy them and so she became a third generation owner of the same farmlands. Daddy through sweat equity and a passion with Mummy’s urging converted those farms into a thriving mango orchard with hundreds of trees, and over the last quarter of a century have been growing myriad crops all around the year. Going to “Gaam” was mom’s favorite activity, and she loved being there in nature for days on end. One of the last things she wanted to go before she passed away was to go to Gaam ! Ava has got the same love for Gaam and as a fifth generation owner of the same farmlands, she is completely at home there, playing for hours with the cows and goats and in the husk and grass, with nary a care in the world. Mummy was very proud of the fact that those genes had been passed on to the next generation !! 
A religious person, Mummy would visit the Agiary often. My earliest memories of going to a fire temple are during the Muktad Days when I was about 5 years old and my Mamaiji had passed away. We would stop outside the Batliwala Agiary opposite our house, and select and buy fresh roses to put in the vase for my Mamaiji, before I went off to school.
And in the years after I moved to New York, it became a ritual for the two of us to go and visit the 4 Atashbehrams in one morning, once; everytime I was down in Bombay.
In late 2012, the announcement of the arrival of the next generation induced a sense of purpose and an energy boost like no other. It was like the clock was turned back a few years as Ava was born. And Mummy took on the role of Mamaiji in all seriousness, and nothing had brought her that much joy in my living memory as the birth of Ava did. She would indulge her like only a grandparent can their first-born grandchild. Reading stories to her after she came back from school or feigning disgust when Ava offered a Singapore crab claw to her vegetarian Mamaiji brought peals of laughter on Ava’s face and big smiles on all our as we saw this intergenerational love and bonding.
Mummy’s love for history and geography opened up mental horizons much before we ever set foot on an airplane. Her depth of both subjects and the passion in teaching me and my sister through our school studies is responsible for the sense of adventure we both have lived with since our childhoods.
Lastly this very website came about as an afterthought when she would read my forwarded emails on Parsi themed topics in the early 2000’s; and then ask me a few weeks later to re-send it as she wanted to read them again.
Mehernaaz and I are glad that both our parents induced in us the idea of helping others without ever expecting anything in return. We continue today to live by those standards and our involvement in community matters is a manifestation of these same ideals.
As we all as a family come to terms with this, the happy memories help tide over the sadness generated by the vacuum left in our lives. As a dear friend wrote in a condolence message….”The loss of a mother leaves one with an incomprehensible sense of void and a dull aching pain that is marked by an absence felt in the heart. One can in time only replace this void with the happy memories shared, the calling out of one’s name, the things said and so familiar that you can hear them still. This is the strength of memories through which our loved ones live in us forever.”
For the first time in nearly 14 years of Parsi Khabar, this 15 day period has been the longest time we have gone without posting an update. We will resume our regular updates after today.
The below announcement was printed in the Parsi Times and we thank the Editor of Parsi Times for this beautiful “In Memorium”
We are happy to inform our readers about a new book on Parsis, “Like Sugar in Milk” is now available for pre-order. The book by Majlend Bramo shall be launched around Jamshedi Navroze 2018.
This is a story that many people might not know.
The story of the Parsis, a small community which follows one of the oldest religions on Earth – Zoroastrianism.This is the story of how they arrived on the west coast of India 1200 years ago, when their homeland, Persia, was invaded by the Arabs.
They arrived in India as refugees asking for asylum and promised to melt in the Indian society like sugar in milk. And so they did, making India their new home.
This is also the story of a community trying to survive against its diminishing numbers.
1200 years on, the Parsi community runs a real risk of being lost forever. From having 110,000 members back in 1961, the number had dropped down to half, about 57,000, by 2011. The government of India has also taken unique measures to revitalize the community. But is the government’s efforts enough to preserve one of the world’s oldest cultures?
Like sugar that has melted in milk… The Parsis too can only be diluted or integrated into the society, not removed. There will always be some traces of them. But still, when you can’t taste the sugar anymore, how does one know that there was sugar that went in at some point?
This story exists to be told that day. To leave traces about this community, that once came all the way from Persia to India, and now is struggling to survive.
A visual documentation of the Parsi community of Mumbai. A poetic representation of reality. The result of 4 years of research and contact with the Parsi Community (from 2014 to 2017).
More than 130 photos to tell a story that started 1200 years ago.
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Details: 194 pages, hardcover, 170X240mm 300 copies for pre-sale
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Pre-sale price: 1800 INR – 27 USD
Majlend Bramo is a documentary photographer based in Italy, traveling worldwide to document human conditions. He has been working with the agency Massimo Sestini News Pictures for over 6 years as a photographer and photoeditor, covering major events in Italy, and has been published in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, Le Figaró, L’Espresso, Il Corriere della Sera, Oggi, La Stampa, The Sunday Times.
In Europe, where he comes from, the Parsi’s story hasn’t been heard enough. He believes that the story of Parsi’s positive communal integration in a foreign country can be an example that Europeans can learn from, in light of Europe’s recent refugee crisis.
To Pre-order individual copies go to www.majlendbramo.com
For queries email: info@majlendbramo.com
For bulk orders directly contact JAK Printers:
amf@jakprinters.com
Shipping will start on the 20th of March, 2018
My first encounter with Dadar was back in 2004 when I used to travel from Churchgate to Dadar during the evening rush hour. Most of my journey would go in planning my exit strategy from the crowded local train. Dadar has since been synonymous with crowd and chaos and something that should be avoided at all costs.
Article published on Suitcase Of Stories
A decade later I have finally come to see the other side. The side that is calm, quiet and lush green! Welcome to Dadar Parsi Colony, the largest Zoroastrian enclave in the world designed and founded by Mr. Mancherji Joshi during the British rule more than 80 years ago.
Take a walk in this quiet neighbourhood and you might forget that you are in Bombay. The roads are wide and outlined by trees, parks at every corner and old buildings have a distinct charm about them. People are friendlier too. They smile and patiently wait for you to take their pictures (like this couple here), wave at you from their balconies (like this lady here) and sometimes even offer to show you the best and oldest buildings near by. Here are some pictures to give you a peak into this quiet part of town that has been home to some famous personalities including the likes of Freddie Mercury.
Starting with the Fire Temple – the place of worship for Parsis. Unlike other temples and religious places, non-Parsis are strictly prohibited from entering a Fire Temple.
Like I said earlier, the streets are outlined with trees – makes walking a pleasant affair even during summer months.
Dadar Parsi Colony
Originally, no buildings were allowed to be more than 3 storeys high. Thankfully, not much has changed over the years.
A building in Dadar Parsi Colony
Almost every street ends with a park.
And where there are parks, there will be dogs… Lots of them! Like these guys who were out for a walk.. apparently.
Dadar Parsi Colony takes you back in time.
Almost vintage
If you are a Parsi or a local who knows more about Dadar Parsi Colony, do share some interesting tidbits in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you. If you are few of those lucky folks who actually live here, I would really appreciate receiving some old pictures and stories from the past. You can write to me at suitcaseofstories@gmail.com.
Contemporary science is validating light and color as a beneficial therapeutic tool. It has been generally accepted that light and color affect the mind and body. Violent juveniles placed in a pink detention cell will relax, stop banging and yelling, and fall asleep within ten minutes. An estimated 1,500 hospitals and correctional institutions have incorporated the pink color in at least one room in their facilities.
Conventional medicine uses color-light therapy in several ways. Blue light therapy is used to treat jaundice in newborns as well as to control chronic atopic dermatitis. Light therapy is also being used in treating seasonal affective disorder.
These are just a few examples of the implementation of the ideas as proposed back in 1920 by a man far ahead of his time: Dinshah P. Ghadiali (1873-1966).
Who was this mysterious Parsee Indian? Why was he branded a quack by the AMA? Because laypersons could be trained to use his light healing science – called Spectro-Chrome – on themselves, it threatened the livelihood of health professionals. The medical establishment, drug industry and U.S. government relentlessly pursued him. They tried every which way, repeatedly bringing him to court; Dinshah was jailed ten times, but convinced of his science was unstoppable.
Within five years of introducing Spectro-Chrome, Dinshah had trained, by his estimation, some 2,000 health professionals and laypersons in his healing art. The system received unanimous praise from its myriad users.
Dinshahs lonely journey into the mainstream world of health care, fervently followed by legions of physicians all over America, is an exciting, controversial and unforgettable story. If you like to read about it, look for by Steven M. Rachlin, M.D., and Harvey Rachlin.
ISBN 13: 9789492371645 (ebook) ISBN 13: 9789492371638 (paperback)
Publication date: 4 February 2018
276 pages, B&W illustrations
Amsterdam Publishers
Contact:
Liesbeth Heenk
Company: Amsterdam Publishers
Address: Willem de Zwijgerlaan 14, 2341 EJ Oegstgeest, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 6 51858260
It is a welcome decision of the Indian government to fund new fertility clinics to help save its dwindling Parsi population which is now under threat of extinction. The Parsis should be grateful that the Indian government actually cares about preserving their community and is even on board monetarily to reverse the decline. The government has also launched a scheme called ‘Jiyo Parsi’ in order to reverse the declining trend of Parsi population.
Article by Vinod Dixit | Afternoon DC
The Parsis are an illustrious community and their contribution to India and its development is starkly out of proportion to their tiny numbers. Today they are one of India’s most successful communities with Parsi figures playing leading roles in commerce, politics, the military and entertainment industry. Their numbers have declined by 12 per cent every census decade — India’s population increases by 21 per cent. The birth rate of the Parsis has dropped dramatically to below replacement levels. They are projected to plummet to 23,000 in the near future, reducing this sophisticated, urbane community to a “tribe”. India’s Parsis have been facing a relentless demographic decline. In the decade till 2011, when the last national census was held, their numbers fell from 69,601 to 57,264. Their numbers have been falling every decade since 1941, when it had reached a peak of more than 1,00,000. Between 1971 and 1981 it fell by 20 per cent, the sharpest decline till the latest decennial count.
Having attained a certain level of education and profession, the girls want boys from a higher status and standing if not equal and that leads to late marriages or single status and consequently fewer children. The average age of marriage for Parsi women is 29-30 and 35 for men. Fertility rates have fallen below viable levels; only one in nine wholly Parsi families has a child under age 10. Thirty per cent of the community never marries. Many girls marry outside the community and so they and their children are not considered Parsis. One in every 10 women and one in every five men remains unmarried by age 50.
Depression among the elderly people, migration to foreign countries and the drastic decline in fertility — after three decades, their population is estimated to fall to 40,000. Their numbers are down to a critical 61,000, and diminishing by the day; another 40,000 are scattered across the world with an even greater struggle to hang on to their distinctive identity. Since 2001, the Parsi population has declined to 57,264, an approximate 18 per cent drop from 69,601. The tradition of marrying only within the community resulted in large numbers of people remaining unmarried in the 70s and 80s. According to an estimate, close to 30 per cent of Parsis in the bigger cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Pune are marrying outside the community. Time has now come when cognizant effort is needed by the young Parsi generation to make a change in their socio-psychological attitude. They should get married early at the right time and should not delay the birth of children for the sake of better careers.
Even the hard to please Baburao Patel, in his Filmindia review of the Nargis-Dilip Kumar-Munawar Sultana starrer Babul (1950), had to concede, “Babul is a rich and pleasant picture with maddeningly beautiful photography. Fali Mistry, the cameraman, has turned the camera into a painter’s brush and make every frame a canvas of art and beauty. If Hollywood can improve on this work of Fali, we would like to see it being done.”
Article by Karan Bali | The WIRE
Born in Bombay to a Parsi family on February 17, 1917, Fali became one of Indian cinema’s greatest cameramen. Along with fellow cinematographer and younger brother Jal Mistry, he was among the early cinematographers who brought into sharp focus the importance of the cameraman in our films. Otherwise, our technical crew – particularly those from the past – have rarely got their due in our cinema. A new generation may have seen his work but would have little idea who was behind it.
Fali was known for the imaginative imagery he created out of a dramatic interplay between light and shade, bearing influences from the classic Hollywood and European cinema of the time. In particular, both Fali and Jal were known for shooting their stars in high glamour; their effective use of diffusers made their leading ladies look stunning. They were also, in the fashion of the times, Film Noir, known for their expertise in low-key high-contrast lighting in night scenes. Not surprisingly, they became a source of inspiration to many other cinematographers including V.K. Murthy and Nariman A. Irani.
Fali began his journey as a cinematographer in 1942 with Mata. However, his breakthrough film, where his camerawork came in for a great deal of acclaim, was the Sabita Devi-Prem Adib starrer Amrapali (1945). Even as Filmindia declared it a “beautiful waste of film” and panned Devi very harshly, it reviewed Fali’s photography quite favourably, saying that “Technically the picture is beautifully framed, almost every second shot having been taken with great care. The photography, though inclined to be shadowy on the whole, is exceptionally good in parts.” Fali was to recall later how proud he was when Devi, at the fag end of her career, then remarked that if she had such photography in her films three or four years earlier, her story would have been different.
Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Jan Pahchan.
After filming the tragic love story Mela (1948), with Dilip Kumar and Nargis, and Babul, Fali branched out into film production and direction. He co-produced and directed Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Jan Pahchan (1950) and Dev Anand, Nimmi and Shyama in G.P. Sippy’s Sazaa (1951). Both films were photographed by Jal.
Taking a cue from the expressionist lighting pattern of the Film Noir movement in post-war Hollywood, the opening sequence of Sazaa, in particular, is a standout: in an eerily, dimly-lit house, the audience hears a woman scream off-screen and then sees the panic-stricken hero come running out into the room, rushing out on to the street and coming under a car. The moody lighting in the sad songs Aaja Aaja Tera Intezar Hai and the film’s most popular song, Tum Na Jaane Kis Jahan Mein Kho Gaye, are the other visual highlights of the film. In an interview to Filmfare in the 1950s, Jal mentioned that while you could only glamorise a face within its own limits, there were some faces that brighten in front of the camera and Nimmi’s was one of them.
After directing Dev Anand and Madhubala in Arman, which was also produced by him, Fali returned to cinematography, filming Vyjayanthimala’s big breakthrough film Nagin (1954), that co-starred Pradeep Kumar. In an article written for Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema, Govind Nihalani says that, “Fali Mistry’s Nagin reveals a distinct influence of comic/graphic art in his compositions and high-contrast lighting schemes. Its setting, a forest with tribal communities of snake catchers, provided the right canvas for a highly graphic treatment of images.”
A major highlight of the film were the portions that were shot in Geva Colour. Speaking about glamour versus realism, Fali mentioned in an interview that the leading ladies had to be glamourised as he felt that audiences did not pay their hard-earned money to see the heroine the way she looked in real life.
Fali reached the peak of his career with the Navketan classic Guide (1965), based on R.K. Narayan’s highly acclaimed novel, The Guide. The film is directed by Vijay ‘Goldie’ Anand and stars Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman. Everything – the script, the direction, the acting – came together perfectly, but the landmark film, above all, remains an amazing collaboration between Vijay Anand and Fali, who would win his first Filmfare Award for Best Cinematography.
Guide is superbly shot by Fali in Pathe Colour and thanks to the production house Navketan’s foresight in having the film processed at the Pathe Lab Inc. in New York, the film’s print at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune retains its rich, vivid colours till date and strongly reinforces Fali’s evocative lensing with each viewing. The highlights in Guide are many – the exquisitely filmed song Tere Mere Sapne Ab Ek Rang Hai in just three shots during magic hour or the gay abandon of Rehman dancing away her blues in Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai.
Rehman, while speaking to Nasreen Munni Kabir in the latter’s book, Conversations With Waheeda Rehman, reminisced about the amazing high angle circular shot at the end of her memorable snake dance in the film. “In those days we didn’t have crab trolleys and the cameras were bulky and heavy. In the middle of the set at Mehboob Studio, they built a raised platform on which the camera and circular tracks were placed… Fali Mistry, his assistant and Goldie sat there with the camera tilted down for the top shot. I danced round and round and the camera followed me on the circular tracks.”
With Guide, Fali forged new ties with the Navketan banner – their films were almost exclusively photographed by V. Ratra till then – and rebuilt his professional acquaintance with Dev Anand, whom he had directed earlier in Sazaa and Arman. He would go on to shoot a number of films starring the evergreen hero including Prem Pujari (1970), Johny Mera Naam (1970), Dev Anand’s international venture The Evil Within (1970), Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), Heera Panna (1973), Joshila (1973), Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974), Jaaneman (1976), Darling Darling (1977) and Des Pardes (1978).
Other films where Fali’s work can be seen include Ek Musafir Ek Hasina (1962), Neel Kamal (1968), Humsaya (1968), Manchali (1973), Fakira (1976) for which he would win his second Filmfare Award for Best Cinematography, Mr. Natwarlal (1979), Ram Balram (1980) and Do Premee (1980).
Fali was one of the cinematographers who made the transition to colour from black and white quite easily. Sadly though, the quality of most of these films post-Guide failed to match up to his earlier work.
On the personal front, while working with Shyama in Sazaa, the two fell in love, getting married in 1953. Their son Faroukh, a graduate of FTII, is a reputed cinematographer in his own right. Fali died on December 16, 1979, leaving behind a legacy of great cinematography that spanned four decades.
Karan Bali is a filmmaker based in Mumbai who is also the co-founder of Upperstall.com, a website on cinema of the sub-continent.
In 1922 card-carrying communist Shapurji Saklatvala was elected on a Labour Party ticket, becoming the first MP of color in the party’s history.
Article by Matt Myers | Jacobimag
Shapurji Saklatvala was the Labour Party’s first MP of color. A largely forgotten figure today, he was a card-carrying member of the British Communist Party and champion of both colonized peoples and the global working class. Sitting awkwardly in the history of the British left, Saklatvala offers an example of an anti-imperialist parliamentarian agitating at the heart of empire.
A lone voice in the halls of Westminster, Saklatvala saw no contradiction between the interests of British workers and those elsewhere. The achievement of socialism depended on the victory of both. “Of course, socialism means the destruction of the British Empire,” Saklatvala wrote in a pamphlet from 1926. As the ghost of the colonial past continues to cast its shadow on Britain’s political and cultural life, Saklatvala’s example offers lessons to new generations of socialists intent on reimagining Britain’s place in the world today.
Addressing crowds at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, Communist MP Saklatvala Shapurji calls for the release of the Reichstag Fire suspects in Germany. Getty
Sharpuji Saklatvala was born in Bombay on March 28, 1874, the son of a wealthy Parsee merchant. His uncle was Jamsetji Tata, the owner and founder of India’s largest commercial empire. Clashing with his family over the direction of the business and with a growing political consciousness, he was forced to depart for Britain in 1905. Saklatvala slowly became more politicized, joining the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1909. Rajani Palme Dutt — one of Britain’s leading twentieth century black British intellectuals — described his friend’s conversion to international socialism:
Traveling all over England, he saw the slums and unemployment, the ruthless exploitation of the industrial and agricultural workers … he came to realize that poverty was not just an Indian problem, but an international problem of the workers all over the world, and that its solution required the international fight of the working class against class society and for socialism.
The horrors of the First World War and the aftermath of the Russian Revolution drove Saklatvala into full-time political organizing. After becoming a prolific activist and orator in the ILP, Saklatvala was adopted as the Labour candidate for the London constituency Battersea North in 1921. In same year, he joined the nascent British Communist Party. His candidacy was supported strongly by both the local labor movement and by many of his former ILP comrades — such as Ramsay MacDonald — who were now in the leading ranks of the party.
At the time, there wasn’t a proscription on individual communists having membership of the Labour Party. As long as he accepted the Labour “whip” (the internal discipline expected of MPs in parliament), Saklatvala was able to fight in the 1922 election under “Labour’s United Front.” He fought the campaign on Labour’s manifesto of widespread nationalization, state-led house building schemes, increases to welfare benefits, women’s rights, and full adult suffrage. It was the first and only time that the Labour Party endorsed a Communist Party member for a parliamentary seat.
Saklatvala doubled the vote of the previous Labour candidate in the constituency, winning over 50 percent of the vote. He was reelected as a communist in 1924 with the backing of the local Battersea Labour Party (though without national endorsement), retaining his seat until 1929. After his electoral defeat, he committed himself completely to the communist and anti-colonial struggle until his death in 1936.
Saklatvala did not fit the mold of a revolutionary in parliament. Like Tony Benn after him, he came from a wealthy family and attended an exclusive private school in Bombay. Living in a large house overlooking Parliament Hill Fields in Hampstead, he had little or no direct experience of working-class life or industrial militancy. Compared to the thoroughly proletarian intake that characterized the early Parliamentary Labour Party, his family and educational background made him culturally much closer to the Tories.
Being born into wealth and privilege, however, didn’t stop Saklatvala identifying with the historic mission and creative potential of the oppressed. A renegade from his class, Saklatvala was driven — like Benn — not by material necessity, but by moral conviction. Never haughty or patronizing, Saklatvala refused either to talk down to those without his privileges or see working-class struggles as a vehicle for his own personal advancement. In his letter of resignation from the ILP published in Labour Leader, Saklatvala criticized “the new life on which the ILP members are launching out, namely of seeking municipal and parliamentary advantages at the sacrifice of the spirit of true socialism.” Instead, Saklatvala chose an ethic of service. He chose to fight with rather than simply in the name of the working class. One of Saklatvala’s Liberal opponents in Battersea recounts Saklavala’s political ethic:
[He would] turn up at a street corner meeting on the coldest of nights and by sheer personality and his wonderful eloquence, would rivet the attention of the audience so completely that they soon forgot their discomfort. One of the great secrets of his success was the humility of mind he displayed to the humblest member of the audience.… He knew how to time his arrival at a meeting to the minute and, with a few witty sentences and excruciatingly humorous remarks, very quickly had his audience spell-bound by his oratory.… His rage on the platform could be frantic in its expression if he found himself discussing any piece of legislation hostile to his ideals. Every fiber of his frail body seemed to quiver with an overwhelming indignation which, irresistibly seemed to transmit itself to his audience.… He never indulged in personalities nor did he ever hit below the belt.
Although always polite and humble even to his most bitter opponents, he became the bane of those who took seriously the pretenses of parliament. While other Labour MPs were enchanted by the gentlemanly culture of their bourgeois-aristocratic surroundings, Saklatvala remained unperturbed. He was the first (and possibly the last) to call the Speaker of the House of Commons “comrade” and regularly lampooned the monarchy. In a parliamentary debate discussing a £2,000 grant for the Prince of Wales to visit Africa and South America, Saklatvala mocked the hollow Labour criticism of the proposal: “If they want an Empire and a ‘Royal nob’ at the head of it [Loud cries of ‘Order’ and ‘Withdraw’]…The Royal head, I mean.” Years later, Nye Bevan described the mesmerizing power of parliament on MPs from proletarian backgrounds as like “a social shock absorber placed between privilege and the pressure of popular discontent.” Ahead of his time, Saklatvala’s position as a Marxist MP of color allowed him to question the parliamentary procedure and aristocratic sensibilities that others took for granted.
Cutting against the grain of twenty-first-century parliamentary culture, Saklatvala refused to see the primary role of the MP as that of a representative of his local constituency. In an interview to a local newspaper before the 1924 general election, he pledged to “not devote himself to the welfare of the local cricket club.… Local affairs, he holds, are for local bodies. Parliament’s concern is that of nation and empire.” As MP, he largely ignored his local authority and never raised borough-wide council issues.
Saklatvala followed Marx in linking Britain’s role as a colonizing power and the weakening of the “native” working class. In an 1870 letter to Meyer and Vogt, Marx describes how the antagonism between English and Irish proletarians was “the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization.” For Saklatvala, like Marx, the question of Irish freedom was not some ancillary question to the British workers’ movement: it was a condition for their own emancipation. Saklatvala was only one of two MPs to vote against the partition of Ireland, arguing for a united country free from British control. He spoke up for Irish men and women who had been deported back after the troubles following the Treaty, predicting that the new accords would not bring peace. As Saklatvala wrote in a letter to Gandhi in 1927:
I was just walking down the main street of Dublin last night. I saw around me a new Ireland with a new Irish soul arising out of the ashes of their 1916 rebellion for independence. I can send you no better message from the Irish heart than the one that I saw in this street, carved on the Parnell monument, and once uttered by Parnell himself: “No man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country, ‘Thus far thou shalt go and no further.’ We have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the process of Ireland’s nationhood, and we never shall.
Arguing against the Irish Free State Constitution Bill in 1922, Saklatvala predicted that “it will be the Labour party sitting on those benches which will have to afford real freedom to Ireland.” The failure of the 1924 Labour government to take these internationalist political principals seriously — failing to institute any political, civic, or even labor reform in the colonies — led to his increasing break with the party.
Although he was one of a tiny number of Labour Party members to know even a cursory amount about the empire, his expert advice was rarely listened to on the three Labour Party Advisory Committees of which he was part. The “dogmatic” loyalty of the Labour Party to the British parliamentary system noted by Ralph Miliband also involved a commitment to maintaining the British Empire and its underpinning ideology of peoples “fit” and “unfit” (or “not yet fit”) to rule. For Saklatvala, the logic justifying imperialism and colonialism was the same which the ruling class used to justify their rule at home. To struggle for socialism and against racism both in Britain and the world implied the total rejection of the myth that there are those born to rule and those born to obey. In its place, socialism contends that workers of all lands can manage the world themselves. As Saklatvala remarked in a 1928 parliamentary address, edited into a pamphlet titled Socialism and “Labouralism”:
The workers in Great Britain should realize that God has not created man to be ruled dictatorially and autocratically by another man. Through self-determination and mutual consent we should elect somebody to rule who is not a socialist boss, but a helper and adviser. If that is our essential belief, how can the people of this country believe that God has created the British Labour Party to rule the Indians and the Chinese, “We are ruling you; we are sending Commissions to your countries because you are less experienced and we are more experienced, and we want to be kind to you and tell you how you should live your lives.” That is exactly what the capitalist masters and bosses are saying to the workers in this country. They say to them, “We are more experienced in directing industry than you are, and we keep an Army, a Navy, and an Air Force to protect you, because you are less experienced than we are.” Socialism believes that that sort of incapacity is not inherent in human nature. How can the Labour Party say that they are preaching socialism and collecting the majority of voices in favor of socialism when they are pursing such a policy as I have described? The Labour Party supports expeditions to China, the Colonies and the Gold Coast.… How can those things go on?
For Saklatvala, appeals to internationalism were not just empty rhetoric. Fighting for socialism meant actively challenging national-chauvinist attitudes existing inside the labor movement. After the unsuccessful Bombay Cotton Strike in 1923, Saklatvala sought to link the struggles of competing jute workers in the factories of Bengal and Dundee. Addressing the Scottish TUC, Saklatvala argued that “unless there was a uniform standard of wages in the Jute Industries of Bengal and Dundee, the black worker terrorized in Bengal would deprive the Scottish worker and his children of the necessities of life.… They must be unions of human beings in the trade without geographical barriers.” He asked the delegates to “set aside all their little quibbles and arguments amongst themselves and to understand that International Trade Unionism was not the ultimate development, but the first essential.” E.D. Morel — Labour MP for Dundee — rejected the overtures for common cause and called Saklatvala’s intervention “communist propaganda.” Not afraid to challenge the narrow nationalism of his fellow members, Saklatvala was often left a lone voice for his internationalist politics.
Given his family background and the centrality of the colony to the British Empire, it is unsurprising that Saklatvala gave much of his parliamentary time to agitating on the question of India. He was so prolific that in 1925 the Daily Graphic referred to him, not unfairly, as the “Member for India.” Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, called Saklatvala “a brave and intrepid soldier of freedom” for his work fighting for India’s independence. As in the case of Ireland, Saklatvala saw the impact of colonialism not solely through its effects on the colonized but on the ability of workers in Britain to act. His presence did much to bolster the nascent labor and anti-colonial movement in an extremely successful speaking tour around India as an MP in 1927. He condemned British rule in India as the lynchpin of “our people’s perpetual starvation, ignorance, physical deterioration and social backwardness.”
British rule in India means a standing curb on Egypt, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. British rule in India means an overpowering militarism by the British that compels the rest of the world to weigh itself down under the cursed burden of armaments. British rule in India mean the continual menace to the wages, to the work, and the living standard of the British masses, and an actual frustration of their trade union rights and socialist aims. British rule in India means a constant unseen war upon the rapid development of the masses in all the nations of Europe and America.
Saklatvala’s success did not go unnoticed by the British colonial authorities and the Foreign Office, who successfully agitated to remove his passport to prevent him traveling again. Much to the disappointment of his comrades in India, this was upheld even by the Labour Secretary of State for India in the 1929 government, William Wedgewood Benn — Tony Benn’s father.
For Saklatvala, the struggle for socialism also meant the liberation of women. The first political demonstration he attended was organized by Sylvia Pankhurst in 1908. Minnie Bowles, then secretary for Harry Pollitt and member of Young Communist League, remembered canvassing with Saklatvala when he was beckoned from the top story of tenement building near Battersea Park Road. Confronting a domestic fight, Bowles remembered that “Sak stood inside the door and said, quietly, ‘Now why do you beat your wife. She is not your enemy. You have real enemies. Think of the landlord who charges you rent for this slum; or your boss who pays your wages, hardly enough to keep you alive.’ And he went on in this quiet way until the man was weeping and his wife was comforting him.” The liberation of women was not an afterthought but a necessary imperative.
Saklatvala’s political commitments came at a great personal cost. His electoral opponents falsely accused him of using “terrorist tactics” and denying free speech. Police regularly raided his house and he had his correspondence tampered by the secret services. Crucially for his political interventions, he was banned by the Foreign Office from visiting Egypt, America, Belgium, and India. In 1926, he was imprisoned after a speech in Hyde Park at the start of the General Strike. He was sentenced to two months in prison for sedition, having called on soldiers not break the strike. Hours after he had been released from Wormwood Scrubs prison he was again on a tour, addressing solidarity meetings up and down the country. Rejecting all inducements to temper his politics, Saklatvala was offered the Under-Secretaryship for India if he would give up his communist ideals. Unlike many parliamentarians blinded by personal ambition, he refused. For Saklatvala, the callous response of the authorities was neither incidental nor motivated by personal dislike. As he recalled:
The open and concealed persecution carried out by Government Officials against me was largely due to their desire that a Parsee taking part in a bona fide and unadulterated anti-imperialist communist politics should be ruined to the finish to make an example to others.
Saklatvala’s failure to fit the “national” mold allowed a more natural identification with the universal interests of the world working class. As a member of the small Parsee (Zoroastrian) religious minority and a British Indian in the heart of empire, he was in a better position to see the contradictions in viewing politics through a narrow national gauge. Although a militant inside a movement which professed to be atheistic and materialist, Saklatvala’s religion played a critical role in shaping his internationalism.
He accepted the Communist Party’s condemnation for initiating his children into the Parsee faith, and justified it by saying the “circumstances were outside his control and due entirely to the peculiar position of his people.” The Communist Party condemned Saklatvala because his decision would encourage “religious prejudices,” particularly in India, which the British authorities “made use of” by divide and rule. What the party didn’t recognize was that remaining loyal to his religion was not incidental to Saklatvala’s politics. His people’s existence as a minority on the borderline of various cultural and national boundaries had shaped his wider commitment to the universal interests of the oppressed across the world.
The fact that Saklatvala is little known today tells us more about the British left than it does about the significance of his pioneering life. Not mentioned in Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism, even radical and critical histories leave him absent. A communist and anti-colonial militant being the first Labour MP of color is hard to integrate into traditional narratives of Labour Party history, often politically mobilized as an untainted struggle on the side of progress. The bitterness, recrimination, and repression that Saklatvala faced from the party makes hagiography a harder proposition than silence.
Yet Saklatvala’s awkwardness in Labour Party history emanates less from his dual commitments to the Labour and Communist Parties than the British left’s firm and often unspoken division between “national” and “foreign” issues. The latter has tended to be sacrificed for efficacy in the former. But Saklatvala’s commitment to the internationalist potential of the British labor movement shows that the choice is one Labour MPs need not and should not make. Issues deemed to be “national” or “foreign” are, Saklatvala would argue, mutually constitutive. A ruling class that can make war around the world is better able to make war on working-class living standards at home. The logic which allows imperial and neocolonial powers to divide the world between those who decide and those who acquiesce is the same used by bosses to justify workers’ powerlessness in the metropole. As imperialism and settler colonialism continue to tarnish our world today, Saklatvala’s version of internationalism is something some in the Labour Party would still rather forget. As new generations of socialists question their country’s past and assert a different future, speaking these silences and confronting these pasts is more useful than the search for easy heroes.
As Nicolas Klein of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America remarked in a speech in 1918: “In this story you have the history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.” Stuck at the first stage, Saklatvala has no statues standing in the heart of London; his portrait doesn’t appear on banknotes nor do films eulogize his name. The former imperialists he committed his life to fighting stand in his place. If “Comrade Sak” — as his friends and admirers called him — were alive today he may be unsurprised at the continuing ability of the question of empire to shape Britain’s political imaginaries. Exorcising the shadow of the empire where the sun never set and the blood never dried — to quote the radical Chartist Ernest Jones — is not an expendable accessory to be thrown at the first hurdle for more pressing “national” issues. During his decades on the parliamentary benches, Jeremy Corbyn also never saw the contradiction between socialist internationalism abroad and socialist strategy at home. The need to confront the past implies reimagining the kind of role Britain should play in the world today. The struggle for a socialist Britain — in Saklatvala’s time as today — depends on the success or failure to embody an internationalist politics in deeds as well as words.
It was an ambition and with humbleness Cobra beer could still sting the beer market with its entry. According to the founder and chairman of Cobra beer, Lord Karan Bilimoria, the combination of the two words – humble and ambitious – made his life ‘humbiciously easier’ against all odds.
Article published in the Herald Goa
Cobra beer is not only brewed all over the world but it used to be brewed in three places in India, of which, one is now forcibly closed. It was brewed in Punjab, Haryana and the most successful one which was in Bihar, is now closed as two years ago the government imposed prohibition in the State.
“It is sad to close down our brewery and leave people redundant and jobless. I believe that drink is freely available in Bihar and the State is losing all the excise revenue. I think prohibition is hypocrisy and it never works anywhere in the world. Jobs are being lost, government is losing, industry is losing and people’s investment is losing out. I hope it will be reversed soon. We have to adapt or die in business but we became the biggest beer exporters from India at one point of time,” said Bilimoria delivering his talk at the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas on success of the Parsi community. There are only 59,000 Parsis in India.
He added that he had a vision before he started Cobra before the liberalisation of the Indian economy. “There were days when people in India used to wait for gas and phone connections for months, if not years. In 1991 it opened up and it took ten years to really take off. Today the consumers who were starved for choice are now spoilt with choice,” he added.
He said he was one of the first to raise the Brexit issue in the British Parliament. “Brexit is a big mistake. We have been members of the European Union for over 40 years. Yes, there are regulations from the EU that we may not like, but overall it was good in the issue of environment, health and safety. Since the formation of EU, Britain’s economy grew by over 62 percent. There were three main reasons for Brexit. Immigration, lack of control and that we paid eight billion pounds a year as our contribution. I tell you what we paid was for the peace we had which is one percent of Britian’s annual expenditure.”
