Living History India has a wonderful overview on the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai that were designated a World Heritage side by the United Nations.

Many of these buildings were built by eminent Parsis of that generation. And today many of the leading citizens who made the designation happen are also Parsis.

Check out the video to know more.

The post Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Bolting from their village homes to build better lives, plucky young boys landed in Bombay with no more than a coin rattling in ragged pockets. Years of slog later, they contributed considerably as entrepreneurs, entertainers and educationists. Track

Stage comedian Jangoo Irani (extreme right) with Burjor Patel, Dinshah Daji, and Ruby Patel in the Adi Marzban caper, Ari Bethela Erachshah. Pic courtesy/ Meher Marfatia: Laughter in the house: 20-th century Parsi theatre

Article by Meher Marfatia | Mid-Day

IT was a camel, a mule and a Karachi-Bombay train that he jumped on. Nothing could stop the 13-year-old peasant boy from Yazd travelling 2,500 kilometres to the city of his dreams in 1929. Khodamurad Meherwan realised his prospects were dim in sleepy Mazrekalantary, where men slaved on dry fruit farms and women stoked kitchen fires in long-sleeved, handwoven dresses worn with white jute slippers called maliki.

“He was running away from no real future in Iran,” says Khodamurad’s daughter Banoo Kalantary, retracing her feisty father’s flight. Stopped at the Afghanistan border on a donkey, Khodamurad was asked his surname. “I don’t have one,” he replied. That’s why he became Khodamurad Meherwan Afkham.
He started sweeping the floor of 1860-established New Majestic Restaurant & Stores below Capitol Cinema at VT for five rupees a day. “My father had no home, only hope, but an attitude of gratitude in his heart,” Banoo says. He slept on the footpath outside, with a thin gunny sack lining the cold ground. Slogging for years, he got a modest partner share in Majestic at the age of 20. With his wife Vahbiz, from Alliabadi village, he raised five children in a flat on Gunbow Street, Fort, accommodating an aunt with her five kids too.

Khodamurad’s first son Jehanbux was born in a goat stable in Iran, the rest here. In a city of military marchpasts on streets that were washed daily, the Afkhams’ front door was always wide open. On Fridays, sigri-simmered fish curry was ladled to anyone dropping in. Between chores, the lady of the house somehow caught shows of her adored Raj Kapoor-Nargis starrers at Capitol.

Kapurchand Mehta with Prithviraj Kapoor in 1960. With his brothers Zaverchand and Kevalchand, Kapurchand helmed wide-ranging businesses interests in textiles, real estate and films

Not far from the Afkhams, an iconic cinema and trio of Marine Drive buildings stand centrestage in the story of Nemchand K Mehta’s sons. Their grocery-to-glory saga is threaded together by generations after, in Zaver Mahal, Kapur Mahal and Keval Mahal. Nemchand sweated, struggling with meagre earnings from his vegetable shop in Vadal, Saurashtra, to provide for 11 children. Kapurchand, Zaverchand and Kevalchand were born two years apart from 1900 and 1904.

At under 12, Kapurchand boldly left home, walking impossible distances, hopping on to a buffalo buggy and finally steam train. His granddaughter Uma shares an account narrated by her father. “Exhausted and famished, Kapurchand met a woman who gave him one of her two rotlas.” He saved a scrap—which, incredibly, Uma has preserved in a casket. “Anything from the hands of a kumarika, an unmarried virgin, was an auspicious shagun offering.”

At Bombay Central he was spotted by a Marwari seth and employed in his cloth shop. Buying a lottery ticket, Kapurchand was stunned to find a jingling cascade of coins suddenly his. “Back to work,” Nemchand urged his son who returned to Vadal with the surprise treasure. He headed to 1920s Bangalore, opening Kapurchand & Co. in Chickpet. Stocking blankets of the Lal Imli Mills, Kanpur, he invited Zaverchand and Kevalchand to join him.

Filmmaker Vikas Desai at his Rajkamal Studio office stands below the hanging cap of his great-grandfather, Anant Shivaji Desai Topiwala (portrait, right), pre-Independence Bombay’s leading hat maker and pioneer industrialist-philanthropist. Pic/ Bipin Kokate

Bombay beckoning soon, they settled in Prarthna Samaj. Kapurchand shouldered the overall responsibility of their ventures, focusing on finance. With the Lal Imli agency for South India under their belt, Zaverchand managed the Chira Bazaar shop and midtown estates. Kevalchand assumed charge of a film exhibition operation, centred at Roxy on Charni Road, where screen history was rewritten in 1943 with Kismet totting up 192 weeks. Aspiring to a beautiful property each, the brothers commissioned PC Dastoor to create the three buildings.

Another boy bolting from Saurashtra was Shyamdas Govindji Jhaveri, of Kundal in Barwala taluka. A few years after he was orphaned at the age of five, with barely a couple of rupees clinking in his torn pocket, he clocked in unimaginably stretched hours at a Crawford Market stall set up around 1914. Shifting to Metro House, the cinema building, Jhaveri Bros continues to display trophies, silver items and commemorative coins crafted at that counter.

Gradually flourishing, the Jhaveris introduced India to a luxury legend—their door handles are still in the shape of Mont Blanc pens. Adopting the motto, “Customer is master”, Shyamdas trained staffers to adhere to ethical standards, meticulously maintaining a file labelled “Thoughts on progressive business”. Jhaveri Bros. has witnessed World Wars, civic crises, economic depressions and today’s pandemic. Shyamdas’ granddaughter Seyjhal says, “We enjoy tremendous trust from local and international clients forever loyal to us.”
A humble chana-kurmuri shack he helped his father serve Walawal villagers from, in Sawantwadi, lies at the core of compelling circumstances that brought 10-year-old Anant Shivaji Desai to Bombay. On his father’s death, the boy was forced to leave the village with nothing more than a rupee pressed into his hand by a relative. Of which eight annas, or 50 paise, paid for the 13-day boat trip ticket. Two months later, finishing the chinchuk tamarind seeds and kilo of rice his worried mother had packed, he fainted at Grant Road station.

New Majestic Restaurant partner Khodamurad Afkham and his wife Vahbiz with their eldest boy Jehanbux, now a cardiologist in Germany. Jehanbux’s sons are music virtuosos —David Afkham is chief conductor and artistic director of the Spanish National Orchestra and Chorus, while Micha Afkham plays the viola with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Pic courtesy/ Kalantary Family

Employed as a railway labourer there, he learnt tailoring at a mill during his lunch break. This skill won a series of orders and, by 1872, catapulted him to the status of Bombay’s best hat maker with a growing appreciative clientele of Parsis, Muslims and Gujarati seths. They paid well for quality caps fashioned with flair by Anant Shivaji Desai. Titled Rao Bahadur Topiwala by the British, he rose to rank among the richest landlords, whose descendants gifted Bombay the Topiwala Medical College at Bombay Central and Topiwala Theatre in Goregaon.

Anant Shivaji Desai also positioned himself as sole agent for Raja Ravi Varma lithographs, acquiring rights to the Baroda and Mysore collections after the painter’s death in 1906. Prise open the frame of a Ravi Varma print and you will most probably read: “Anant Shivaji Desai Topiwala, Ravi Varma Press”.

A stitch in time similarly saved Camilo Xavier Pereira from life consigned to the islet of Sao Mathias in Divar. Hugging a “passport” granted by Portuguese authorities then ruling Goa, he bunched meagre savings for steamer fare. In this case, the earnings were from his stint as an eight-year-old muncar (tenant) working for a well-inclined lady badcar (landowning employer). Docking in Bombay harbour, he joined hundreds of other young men from his community, living crammed yet in camaraderie, out of a trunkful of belongings in dormitory quarters called coors—waiting to seize the chance to become seamen, chefs, musicians or Konkani tiatr artistes.

Camilo had figured his forte was sewing. In Dhobi Talao’s Sonapur Lane, Tony Pereira points to St Mathias Tailors, where his father’s scissors snipped classic 1970s three-pieces for Johnny Walker and Mehmood. And bespoke safari suits for tycoon Pranlal Bhogilal who smiled when Savile Row-accoutred tycoons in London asked with admiring looks, “Who cuts your clothes?”

Shyamdas Jhaveri  was the first to import this luxury brand in the country and the shop still has its door handles shaped like Mont Blanc nibbed pens. Pic courtesy/Seyjhal Jhaveri

Equally motivated exits drove starry-eyed boys from small towns to the city they dreamed would never let them down. The success of a pioneer educationist is rooted in kindness—that of institutional legend GD Agrawal of Harganga Mahal at Khodadad Circle, Dadar. He left from Ajmer in his teens, carefully clutching R29 from selling his bicycle. Touched by hungry-to-learn Mazagaon mazdoors’ children he saw all over at the height of the city’s vibrant textile mills era, he tutored them for free in math and science. Going professional on marrying, Agrawal rented a Matunga room his growing family had to step out from during coaching hours. Agrawal Classes shifted to Harganga Mahal from 1955, their students including Nadir Godrej, Mukesh Ambani and Mahendra Choksi of Asian Paints.

A stowaway from Karachi proving Parsi theatre’s extraordinary gain was Jehangir (Jangoo) Irani. The comedian brought the house down as the eccentric domestic help Aspandyar. The third actor essaying this role (predecessor greats were half-French Jean Bhownagary and Pheroze Antia), Jangoo added sparkling touches under Adi Marzban’s direction. With a dirty, gingham-check duster slopped across the shoulder and striped shorts ballooning clumsily, he begged a stingy employer for wages.
Hearing excuses like “I pay on the 30th of each month and last month was February”, Irani muttered a sulky threat, “Chaal Iran jaaych—I’m off to Iran!”

Fascinated by dramatic showmanship, Jangoo had earlier given Pipsy, his pet squirrel, to visiting Russian circus artistes who taught him stunt cycling and air-gun tricks. His craze to perform made his principal gift him an English bicycle. Scraping through middle school years, he preferred to sit on this cycle perched atop two tables to target-shoot, with candle flames casting flickering shadows around.

An early view of the Jhaveri Bros & Co. corner store at Metro House, with the Mont Blanc van parked in the foreground

Deciding that entertainment-friendly Bombay would be best receptive to his talents, with no money whatsoever, he hushed a chattering black mynah smuggled under his shirt and traded the talking bird for the ship trip. Mechanical-minded, he interviewed with a Godrej firm. At a subsequent job in Central Bank, his acting at annual day skits hooked playwright Pheroze Antia’s attention.

The star was the biggest hero to his sons. Shapur Irani recalls he and his brother crept into halls on Sunday evenings to watch their father fire away in the Dari dialect. As he stomped off, mock-huffing, amid loud audience applause, two little lads whispered from the seats, “Chaal Iran jaaych.”

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. Reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.mehermarfatia.com

The post The Runaways appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Live History India present a great visual treat about Navsari. Archeologist Kurush Dalal and historian and author Pheroza Godrej are featured on the video and explain some of the history of the town.

A quaint town on the way to Surat became the launch pad for one of the most enterprising communities in India. In this episode, we head to Navsari and trace the story of the Parsis.

The post Navsari: Home to the Parsis appeared on Parsi Khabar.

The Beginning

In the masterfully tucked away Dinshaw Avari colony in Karachi, Syrus Doctor spends every business day looking after a tiny and all-but-forgotten library towered over by the Tower of Silence, a unique structure used by Zoroastrians during funerals, next door. He is of short stature, a middle-aged man in a striped T-shirt, standing next to a golden dog that, considering the Parsi adoration of dogs, probably belongs to somebody in the colony.

“It used to be active,” I detect a hint of melancholy in his voice, “But the vultures don’t come anymore. If the vultures don’t come, our corpses just sit there to rot. We have to use chemicals now, but that’s not the same.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Shahveer, the brother of my close friend Nelofer, who had introduced me to Mr Doctor, has already explained to me why it’s especially important for Parsis to be ‘buried’ via vulture.

“Look,” he turned to me with a smirk on his face, “you know these oldies are going to keep talking about good thoughts, good words and good deeds and blah and blah. They’ll never admit it, but this is kind of an unorthodox and disturbing way of disposing of a body.”

“I never said that!” I said, suddenly defensive.

“Look, it’s not for everyone. I’ll tell you how I came to terms with it.” I was intrigued.

Article by Elia Rathore | Mangal Media

Illustration: Sabrina Lodhi

Shahveer talked to me in a flippant way — I realize he didn’t take me very seriously as an ethnographer, but that’s okay. I didn’t need him to. I didn’t take myself very seriously, either. Everything I said felt like an imposition of sorts. He went on:

“It’s because even in death, we’re giving back. Instead of taking up land and acting as if our bodies are anything but meaningless vessels for our souls, we feed an animal. We give back, even after death. A last act of charity.”

The ethic of philanthropy, of selflessness, is one that Parsis value deeply. It is something that the Prophet Zarathustra advocates for his followers, and that is part of the reason why Mr. Doctor continues tending to the small library located in the corner of the closed-off Parsi colony, across from a sign written in Gujarati. I had asked Shahveer to translate it, but like many of the Parsis I would meet, he told me he doesn’t read Gujarati.

“I think we Parsis stand above the other minorities in a certain way, because we’ve always valued education, and giving back to the community,” Syrus Doctor is a man who smiles a lot when he speaks, his bespectacled eyes crinkling up into slits. But I suspect that isn’t the only reason for his sweet demeanour; I can always tell when someone genuinely welcomes me into their space.

As we speak, the library is in the process of renovation. Books probably older than I am stacked in boxes scattered all over the ground, the shelves emptied of their precious material — I have a quick thought about how some of these books probably don’t exist anywhere else. Termites have attacked, Mr Doctor tells me. Half of them will be thrown away. He allows me to look around the library freely, apparently in shock that a non-Parsi is interested in the Dastur Dhalla Library. Usually, as I’ve been told by others, non-Parsis don’t come inside. Taxis get dropped off at the gas station nearby, and the guards at the entrance of the gated community are hyper-aware of who comes in. We do live in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, after all. When I asked why it’s closed off, Shahveer simply rolled his eyes at my naïveté. The security situation, obviously.

“Everyone in Karachi knows of this colony, but I guarantee that most of them have never been inside,” Shahveer treats me like what I am: a friend of his younger sister. He decidedly does not cherry-pick his words. For him, I’m just another kid asking dumb questions about random Parsi-related topics. In other words, I’m not a threat.

That is probably also why Mr. Doctor finds it easy to speak to me in this little colony so far away from prying eyes, despite saying he doesn’t like giving interviews. A 22-year-old girl, and a friend of the Patels; there is nothing suspicious about my intentions. He tells me stories of the grand days of the library, back when it was packed with healthy books, and people still used to visit. He shows me books of interest, entire volumes of the Avesta (translated into Gujarati), original copies of important books I’ve never heard of, YMZA (Young Male Zoroastrian Association) pamphlets from forever ago, and pictures of Dastur Dhalla and Zoroaster, alongside a Faravahar sitting on the wall. I can tell he hasn’t spoken to someone about this in a while.

“Now, I am not allowed to do this, but since you’re interested, I will make an exception,” he leads me, with Shahveer following behind, outside, to the back of the Tower of Silence, where, he informs me, “the funeral rites are done.” This is where the Parsi priests get the bodies of the deceased ready for burial. As the sun starts to set, it hits me how truly quiet the colony is. In the middle of a city like Karachi, this is a feat. The light of the golden hour leaves the flowers that surround the area basking in a fiercely yellow glow. It is calm, and I feel like I am on hallowed ground, but Mr. Doctor urges me to look around before somebody catches us here. He’s not sure about the rules, because although it’s not the Fire Temple, and I am not going near the actual Tower of Silence, my presence here is still questionable. I do start to look around, (actively not leaving that small designated zone, mind you) and it is beautiful. Greenery everywhere, lush, and clearly looked-after. There is a grey slab with names on it, also surrounded by various flowers, and my suspicions about it are confirmed when Shahveer tells me that those are the names of the dead. He looks a bit lost in thought, wandering around. I ask him if he’s okay.

“It’s the first time I’ve visited my grandmother since she died,” he tells me, “I really had to justify the whole vulture thing to myself the last time I was here.”

As the residual yellows of the sunset start to ebb away, all three of us stand silent, looking at our own pieces of the garden. The air suddenly becomes heavy with a presence. I’m not sure what it is, but it is reminiscent of the feeling one gets when stepping into a graveyard. For today’s purposes, I chalk it off as a sense of solemnity, though I’m certain there’s more to it.

Eventually, one of the two remaining priests comes followed by a dog and I leave quickly before I’m seen, back to the library. There, Mr Doctor begins to lament.

“I don’t know what is going to become of this place.”

I ask him if he means the library or the burial area.

“Both,” he responds, “the priests are getting older, I am getting older, all of us are getting older, and the young ones don’t care. Nobody cares. Nobody is learning how to be a priest, nobody is taking care of this library. The colony is emptying out. There is no interest.” I notice Shahveer disappearing into a corner of the library as he says this.

As I say goodbye and thank him, Mr Doctor thanks me as well.

“Maybe if you write about this, maybe people will read it and there will be some interest. Good luck.”

He also gives me a small book (A Review of the Date of Zoroaster as given by Prof. Jackson in Zoroaster, The Prophet of Ancient Iran in light of Archaeological Information obtained in the last few years by T.R. Sethna) published by somebody in the Parsi Colony, back when the library used to be more active in the collection of works by Parsis. In 2004, the library reached local news for retrieving seven out of the twenty-one manuscripts of the Dastur Dhalla collection from England, after the manuscripts had been stolen under the ownership of Pakistan’s archaeological department. That the robbery took place without a peep of concern from the relevant authorities is telling of Pakistan’s efforts in preserving Parsi history. Privy to the dismal attitude of Pakistan’s authorities toward anything that does not fit into the imagined Islamic national narrative, the Parsis took it upon themselves to document their history instead. The library was not in the news again, and there are no directions to it on Google Maps. In fact, before I asked Shahveer about it, that one article about the recovered manuscripts was the only reason I knew it existed.

Leaving the colony, I ask Shahveer if I can interview him for my project. He refuses, flatly.

“I’ve done enough of these. I’ll get you a copy of one of them. There’s even a video online. It’s like everyone’s interested in us now that we’re dying out.”

This reaction is not completely unexpected. In doing my preliminary, and thus purposefully limited, research, I also noticed the distinct tone of pessimism with which the Parsis, and particularly the Parsis of Karachi, are written about. A quick google search and you will find that the Parsis are ‘vanishing’, there is a ‘crisis’, a ‘decline’, they’re on the path to ‘self-destruction’. It is the kind of pessimism that sets in when the finish line is in sight when the houses start emptying out when you cannot hear the children playing outside anymore, when your friends and family move away and when the ‘long-lived’ make up the bulk of a population which once thrived in youthful exuberance. For the Pakistani Parsis, there is a remarkably low chance of any kind of community revival. Therefore, I understood not wanting to dwell on the topic. Repeatedly reading about the imminent ‘extinction’ of your people probably isn’t the most pleasing experience. In Karachi, by most estimates, there are around 1200 Parsis left. In Lahore, which is frequently overlooked and used to be a home for many Parsis, there are no more than 25 Parsis left and there are rumours of one or two families left in Quetta. While conducting the 2017 census, Pakistani officials made national news when they failed to comprehend the identity of a Parsi woman. The very thing that kept them safe from prying majoritarian eyes for centuries has now turned around and aided in their disappearance from the national memory, and perhaps the nation itself.

It was this realization that initially compelled me to learn about the Parsis beyond the quick Q&A sessions that I held with Nelo every now and then. Ever since I was little, I have always been fascinated by the concept of extinction. My first ever dream job was to be an archaeologist, á la Indiana Jones, digging up the remnants of a past that had no place in the present. I wondered what it must feel like to touch something ancient, something that once was. But scrutiny is different when it’s not objects you’re looking at, and extinction is less exciting when your dear friend tells you she’s scared of having nothing and no one left in a place she’s always known to be home.

Finding my Place

Nelofer Patel and I met in an uncanny way in the very first week of our freshman year of university, and subsequently never forgot each other. We both mistook the timing of our first pre-calculus class, and when we got to the classroom, breathless and frazzled… we were the only two people in one of the too-big-to-make-sense auditoriums that characterize the Management Sciences building. Having arrived half an hour earlier than necessary, we started talking.

“Are you from here?” I asked, in a way that I would probably find too nosy now.

“Yes, born and raised.” She smiled her friendly smile, the one I know now, the kind of smile that takes up her whole face — I would later learn it was an exact copy of her mother’s. My eyes wandered to her hair, which was a distinctly not-Pakistani colour.

“Is your hair naturally like that?” I had no tact.

“Yep.”

“Are you a Pathan?”

“No, why?”

“You don’t look Lahori.”

“I am Lahori. Oh, I’m also Parsi.”

“…Parsi.” Ah. Then it made sense. My mom had told me Parsis were from Iran. She looked like she was from Iran. A fire-worshipper! I thought it was awesome, but didn’t pry. Only in our sophomore year did she mention how annoying it was when people thought she worshipped fire. I didn’t tell her I used to think that too, and nodded along with the appropriate amount of righteous annoyance required for such a situation.

Over the years, Nelo became an irreplaceable fixture in my life. Amidst her mother sending her to my dorm room with homemade soup and soft foods when I was so sick I could barely lift my head off the pillow, her unimpressed monotone always poking fun at me for being so earnest, making peanut butter cookies in her mother’s stuffed and homely kitchen, attending the BBQ’s she held at the end of every semester, homemade Sunday breakfasts of omelettes, mushrooms, and sausages (Nelo’s speciality), I began to love her deeply. Ours was a friendship completely separate from all my other ties, with no group dynamics to contend with and no compromises to be made for any sort of third party. Here, in the privileged circles of Lahore, I was different, and she, despite never wanting to stand out much, was different too.

In conversations with her and her parents, I slowly began also loving what I knew of the Parsis. That was the first spark — the love of a friend who had sustained me. I wanted to know more.

For me, the distance and facade of objectivity in traditional academia had always been off-putting. How could I, an outsider of the community, talk about Nelo and her family in a conclusive way, just because I’ve read a tome on their religion? How could I attempt to speak their truth by conflating them with the Bombay Parsis, on whom the bulk of scholarly work is centred?

With an issue so close to the heart, the only recourse is a method that has respect for the personality of it all. Intimacy is vital in the search for honesty that boasts depth; a truth that has a human texture, rather than the cold, disenchanted, and shallow truth that accompanies dispassion. Pretending you don’t exist, as a researcher, is a lie by omission.

Like most minorities in Pakistan, the Parsis are wary of outsiders, for obvious reasons. Muslims, the majority (of which I am a part) are, to put it kindly, quite sensitive about matters of faith. As an outsider, I know that the responses I got would be different had I asked someone Parsi do the interviews for me. I asked about this directly in most of the interviews, just to confirm what I already knew. However, this did not deter me. I could not hope for proximity and distance myself at the same time. Instead, I found solace in the common ground that me and my interviewees shared. The mode of communication was always English, my first language. I have done interviews with Partition survivors in Urdu and Punjabi, with great hesitance and occasional embarrassment. Further, because the Pakistani Parsis generally live well, there was no socioeconomic gap to bridge. This made for a fun back-and-forth, and sometimes even cross-questioning. Also, talking to other Pakistanis, especially Pakistanis who are influenced by Western culture (like me), about the grievances of living in an increasingly intolerant Pakistan is a national pastime. These conversations are distinguished by an exasperation that one only reserves for their home.

Finally, I am a woman. After the initial round of interviews, I decided I wanted to privilege the female narrative. That is not to say that the choice was made out of self-important notions of my own feminism (even though on some subconscious level it could very well have been influenced by that). It occurred to me after my first visit to Karachi that at the heart of this threat of extinction, and thus at the focal point of this impossible future, is the figure of the Parsi woman. Many of the problems associated with the decline of the community (birth rate, conversion, and late-marriage) all have a distinctly female tilt. omen, and their bodies, are always central to concerns of extendability. To reflect this unequal role in the construction of the future, and to have more in common with my interviewees, I decided that I was going to interview women exclusively. However, if I had simply decided to focus on women due to the historical lack of attention given to female testimony and experience, I would consider the choice justified, even if only as reparation. One way to combat the manly tradition of erasure is to give extra attention to the traditionally silenced. I spoke to fourteen women. Therefore, this is a herstory.

It is who we are

In doing research on the partition of British India for a class, I came across a film based on a book, Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz recipient and beloved Pakistani Parsi novelist. It is called 1947: Earth, a movie banned in Pakistan for its apparently provocative message of fraternity. In it, there is a scene in which the main character, a little girl named Lenny Sethi, from an upper-class Parsi family in Lahore, is dancing with her mother to some classical music.

“[People say] tea, but I think ballroom dancing is the best invention of the British,” says her mother, Bunty Sethi, nearly cooing.

Lenny looks up at her mom, perturbed. The conversation that follows is telling.

“But Mummy, cousin Ali says we Parsis are the bum lickers of the English.”

“What?!…. Well, I don’t think that we are bum lickers, actually.”

“Then what?”

“You know, have you seen those lizards in the garden? The ones that change colour? The chameleon?”

Lenny nods.

“The Parsis are a little bit like that, actually.”

“Lizards?”

“No, no, chameleons. The Parsis also take on the colour of the people around them. They have to, to survive. There are so few Parsis in the world, Lenoo, it is safer not to stand out.”

Bunty then goes on to tell Lenny the celebrated sugar-in-milk story, in an attempt to ease her concerns.

If you have heard of the Parsis, then you have probably heard about the sugar-in-milk story.

“God, we need some new concepts circling in our collective subconscious. I am so sick of that old story,” Anushka Rustomji rolls her eyes as her (adorable) Rottweiler snores softly in the corner of an artfully decorated waiting room, somewhere on the University of the Punjab campus.

Veera, her little sister, reiterates this the next time I go to Karachi: “I find it so bizarre that people rely on this account so heavily. It’s not even accurate. It’s been largely mythologized. People take it too literally.”

Veera had fact-checked the Qissa-i-Sanjan, the account of the Zoroastrian arrival in the Indian subcontinent off of which the orally-transmitted legend is based, and found large parts of it to be embellished, even down to the dates. In my study of memory, I was interested by the notion that some pasts triumph while others fail, as certain interpretations of one’s own history are more appealing. We all like remembering ourselves and our community in a particular way. In the case of this story, I understood exactly why. The Parsis, a hushed minority cherished by the Pakistanis who remember them, have been giving to Pakistan since it’s inception. I guess there’s just something about the sugar-in-milk story that’s so telling of the Parsi ethic, something so recognizable, that not one person I spoke to failed to bring it up in one way or another. Like Shahveer told me earlier, the Parsis value giving back as a core tenet of their presence, even after death, even today.

As the story goes, when the Zoroastrians fled from Iran sometime after Muslim invaders toppled the Sassanians, in the 8th or 9th or 10th century (the timeline, as mentioned, is murky), taking the sacred fire (Iranshah) with them, some of them arrived in Sanjan, Gujarat, where they were greeted by the Hindu Raja, Jadi Rana. Since their language differences posed a barrier, Jadi Rana sent the Zoroastrians a full glass of milk, to indicate that his kingdom was filled to the brim. In response, the Zoroastrians poured sugar into the milk and gave it back, without spilling a single drop. The gesture was meant to represent the intentions of the Zoroastrians; they would be like sugar in milk, undetectable but adding a sweetness, and richness, to any land they inhabited. Indeed, most people who have heard of the Parsis would agree that they lived up to this pact. Perhaps that is why the myth has persisted.

The Zoroastrians got their ‘Parsi’ tag when they arrived in the Indian subcontinent, when Iran was still called Paras. According to the aforementioned tale, Jadi Rana let the Zoroastrians in after placing certain stipulations to the Dastur, or High Priest. The Qissa-i-Sanjan relays them:

“…if we give you shelter, you must abandon the language of your country, cast aside the tongue of Iran and adopt the speech of the realm of Hind. …as to the dress of your women, they should wear garments like those of our females. … you must put off all your arms and scimitars and cease to wear them anymore…”

The Parsis were, as the legend goes, true to their word. They adapted themselves to the culture around them.

To this day, the Parsis speak Gujarati, even if they can’t read it.

“I just picked it up at home,” Nelofer says.

“Oh, my parents spoke it with us, it just comes instinctually,” Veera confirms. There were some things that were common to all my interviewees. Learning Gujarati mainly through family interactions is one of them. Family life is, after all, where the most potent material of remembrance is.

“Yes, every Parsi speaks it. We even had inside jokes in Gujarati at Mama Parsi,” Fiona Noshirwani tells me, referring to the all-girl Parsi school renowned throughout Karachi. I remember Anushka saying something about having jokes in Gujarati too, and she went to Karachi Grammar School, another elite educational institution.

“I can understand it,” Sabrina Lodhi’s dad is a Muslim, but her mom is a Parsi, and her cousins are Parsi, so it makes sense.

“Yeah, that much even I know,” Nina Aklesaria smirks, after telling me she knows nothing about her heritage. She is related to the Cowasjees and the Dinshaws, two of the most important Parsi families in Pakistan’s history.

I didn’t know that Nelofer spoke Gujarati until sophomore year of university when I went over to her house and realized that I couldn’t understand what she was saying to her mother. Before then, I had only heard her speak English, with that characteristic British lilt that all Parsis have, and Urdu. I had known her for over a year. But according to Susan Samata, author of The Cultural Memory of Language, “language is not an all-or-nothing proposition”, and I know now how skillfully Nelo inhabits the zones she’s been given. It is a skill with which a lot of Parsis negotiate their various levels of identity.

To this day, Parsi women wear saris. There is a distinctive way of putting on saris called ‘Parsi style’, where the pallu, the luxurious, loose end of the sari, is at the forefront. Nelofer showed me pictures of her sari perawanu, the sari-wearing ceremony considered a rite of passage for girls in the Parsi community. Anushka was there too. After putting on the sari, with the help of the elder women, you are initiated into womanhood.

To this day, the Parsis stay out of armed conflict. The Parsi position of neutrality during Partition is what kept them from being “mangled to chutney” (as a British officer in 1947: Earth put it) after the British left. Shireen Patel, Nelofer’s older sister and a part of the World Zoroastrian Youth Leaders Forum, says this lean toward pacifism is because “we’re cowards, we run away whenever there’s a problem. That, or we hide.” Dr. Spenta says something along the same lines: “We’re a little cowardly, I find even I get scared sometimes.” However, Kermin Parakh, the principal of BVS, another elite educational institute in Karachi, say’s it’s because “we’re here to say good things, and think good thoughts, and do good deeds. Does war fit in anywhere there?” I suppose it could be either, or both. It could also be what Bunty Sethi told Lenny about not standing out, one way or another. The result is the same: a non-controversial minority group with a reputation for “modernity” — certain socially liberal attitudes that many claim are left behind, at least in part, from their proximity to the British.

It is a well-known fact that the Parsis prospered under the British Raj. There is still a certain nostalgia about the glory days, when the British were still here.

“The old ones definitely want the British back,” Veera tells me with a grin on her face.

“We were a big deal once upon a time, and a lot of people prefer to live off the glory of that time, rather than working on the now,” Nina pauses, “but you can’t really blame them, can you?”

Under colonial rule, the Parsis went from a “small, insular minority to a prosperous, highly-educated community with a pluralistic outlook.” Many Parsis will gladly tell you that they were the first ones to play cricket in India. They worked as traders, financiers, and cultural, as well as economic, mediators, their casteless status enabling them “to move more freely than other groups and to interact more freely with the British.” This is not to say that they were completely subservient to the British, and especially not when it came to blatant disrespect of Parsi sensibilities. The British found this out the hard way in the so-called ‘Dog-Riots’ of 1832.

“The one thing I noticed growing up that made me realize how different we are from you guys [referring to Muslims] is that our homes are different,” I had asked Nina when she first started realizing she was Parsi, “I realized that my Muslim friends would have all this Arabic calligraphy all over the house, and my Christian friends would have crosses and Bibles, while we had pictures of Zoroaster. And Muslims don’t really keep dogs. We love dogs.”

The Parsi love of dogs was clear to me from the beginning of my project. Simba, Nelofer’s dog, is treated like a king. And rightly so, considering he’s absolutely beautiful and elicits nothing but love from whoever meets him. Kermin Auntie (as Nelo calls her) had two dogs in the room while I was interviewing her. Anushka’s Rottweiler is treated like a baby. After doing a little research, I found that this is not a coincidence. Parsis attach a religious significance to the dog and use it during funeral rites. In Zoroastrian tradition, the dog is “the guardian of the Bridge of Judgment or Chinvat, before which every Zoroastrian is judged following death, and the faithful companion of the righteous Bridge to paradise”. So, in 1832, when the British started culling stray dogs en masse in Bombay, the Parsis, including Rustomjee Cowasjee Patel, a “trusted servant of the East India Company”, protested strongly. Despite being the wealthiest group in Bombay, and amassing that wealth through colonial rule, they led a strike, which Hindus, Jains, and Muslims joined in solidarity. This involved closing down shops and amassing large, angry crowds of hooting people to intimidate the British. Of course, despite the chaos, the Parsi-led strike was not a violent one. (Only two soldiers died, and that too from heat exhaustion.) However, it did prove to the British that their “claim to the loyalty of Indians,” and even their favourite ‘natives’, was fragile, and could always be disrupted. Even so, the Parsi-British relationship recovered quite quickly. Rustomjee Cowasjee’s contract with the Company was also eventually renewed.

While Iran’s Zoroastrian community deteriorated under totalizing Muslim rule in the 19th century, the Parsis were doing so well under the Company that they sent financial aid to their Iranian counterparts, on top of building schools and clinics for them. In 1882 they lobbied Iran’s government and convinced Naser al-din Shah to repeal his tax on non-Muslim subjects. Zoroastrians tend to look out for one another, especially when they have the money to. The Pakistani Parsis, unlike their Indian counterparts, can all afford to live well and educate their children. There are too many Indian Parsis for the entire community to live well — this is not a problem in Pakistan.

“It’s what’s given people the impression that we’re all rich,” Anushka tells me, “the rich Parsis are really rich, and there are several funds and organizations set up to take care of those that are less well-off. Education and housing are not a problem within the community.”

“There are houses and apartments that are rented out to Parsis for 100 rupees (64 American cents) a month, even today,” Nelofer’s mom, Yasmin Patel, tells me.

Nelofer adds to the sentiment: “There are so many oldies with so much money and nothing to do, and you know how much we love charity. Plus we’re so few that agar day bhi dein gay sab ko, toh phir bhi bach jaye ga (even if they give their money to every single one of us, there would still be money left over.)” It’s true, the rich Parsis are very, very rich. Maybe this is why, the first time I asked my mother about the Zoroastrians living in Pakistan, she told me they’re a “high-class minority, very refined, you know the type, very British.” In Pakistan, ‘very British’ is still quite a compliment. For the Parsis, beyond that, it is revealing reference to their not-too-distant history.

The first Indian to ever receive baronetcy was a Parsi, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. In 1830, the Governor of Bombay, John Malcolm, conveyed the British stance on the Parsis: “there is nobody of natives in India so remarkable for their intelligence and enterprise as the Parsis.”  As one can imagine, the Parsis became significantly Westernized, which is probably why all of them spoke to me in that particular kind of well-rounded English. When they moved to Sindh, and then particularly Karachi, they moved under British authority. By the mid-twentieth century, it became a principal trading centre, being the sole port of the region. Karachi remained the industrial hub of Pakistan after Partition, boasting cultural diversity and a cosmopolitan outlook. It also remained the place in Pakistan with the highest number of Parsis, the 1951 census putting the number at 5,018.

Sitting in Veera’s corner office, at the Vasl Arts Association in Defence, Karachi, I ask her about some common perceptions surrounding Parsis, like their stellar work ethic:

“Well, you could say that… yes, we are hard-working, and yes, we do have a great work ethic, generally,” Veera doesn’t seem to want to press on about this point, and I know I shouldn’t urge people to self-congratulate. Veera did her bachelor’s thesis on Parsis too, and it was also an oral history. I think she really gets what I’m going for. So when I turn to the topic of what the Parsis have done for Karachi, she is more forthcoming.

“I don’t think Karachi would have been what it is today without Parsis. Definitely not. Not with what we’ve contributed to the infrastructure and the cultural landscape,” she lists universities and schools among the top contributions, like the NED University of Engineering and Technology, named after Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw. You can still see his statue standing in the Karachi Parsi Institute, formerly called the Parsi Gymkhana, established in 1893.

“I’m sure you know,” Veera continues, “the first mayor of Karachi was also a Parsi,” I do know this; Jamshed Nusserwanjee Rustamjee is often called the ‘real Father of Karachi.’

“And, of course you know, Avari hotels. Roads, hospitals, schools, you name it, we’ve done it. I think Karachi owes a lot to it’s Parsis.”

Vineta Dastoor asks me if I want something to drink, and I order myself a green tea. I wonder if her last name is a result of both her grandfathers’ work as priests. I remember reading that children are provided access to the distant past through their grandparents, who are “a living history.” She tells me they’ve both died. I don’t press on.

Vineta is quite direct with me. That might be because her close friend, who goes to my university and is my sole connection to her, is sitting across from her and laughing at everything she says. The coffeeshop is noisy, being one of the more upper-class and popular ones in Karachi, so her comments are coming at me with a little force.

“Being a Parsi is cool. You get away with a lot of shit, especially in Karachi. Cowasjee got away with so much shit! I doubt they’d let any other minority get away with as much shit as Cowasjee got away with,” she’s talking about Ardeshir Cowasjee, a markedly outspoken businessman, columnist, and philanthropist who passed away in 2012. I know about him, and I also know he was jailed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto once for being loudly critical of his ways. But it was only for 72 days, so I assume Vineta is referring to his relative insulation from the wrath of our many authoritarians. We both know too well how easy it is for people to be tortured, even put to death, for lesser, crimes here. Bhutto himself is an example of how quickly tides change. But the Cowasjee name is famous in Karachi, and deserves a book in and of itself.

“Hah, look, another Parsi,” Vineta says as she waves to a man sitting behind me, “told you, this is our city.”

I am used to the grey artificiality of Jammin’ Java, a cafe in my university mainly popular for it’s air conditioning. I go to the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Dr. Spenta, who also lives on campus with her husband (a professor of mine) and their two twin girls, is sitting across from me. People have been telling me to do so for a while, I’ve been meaning to talk to do so. But I have been intimidated by her reputation for being “really smart.” The reputation is accurate, but she’s also very warm, and I realize I’ve been putting it off for no reason. Dr. Spenta grew up in Karachi, and tells me about it fondly.

“I think some of us are still really resting on the laurels of our forefathers, you know, who built Karachi.”

Growing up in a city so heavily influenced by her community, she never really got hassled or rudely questioned about their religion. Being at Mama Parsi early on also helped. The famous Parsi girls’ school is why she’s one of the few people I spoke to who could read Gujarati. She moved to a different school in the 80’s, due to fears about being targeted under Zia’s Islamization program. At a certain point in the conversation, I ask her about any stereotypes she’s had to dispel as a Parsi.

“Other than being called a fire-worshipper, I’d say the main stereotype is that we’re all honest and hardworking,” she laughs, adding that this isn’t exactly something that has profoundly affected her life, “I don’t know if there’s any truth to that.” Generalizations of any kind can be annoying, I note.

“I think it’s something that stuck onto us from the time of the British. Of course, I’m talking about in Karachi. I don’t find many Lahoris who know what a Parsi is. I stick with ‘non-Muslim’ here, mostly. Lahore, as you know, is a different kettle of fish altogether.”

Nelofer’s mom and her Great-Aunt are chatting with me in Nelofer’s garden, and it’s a lovely day to be doing it. They both grew up in Lahore, so I ask them how that was.

“Those were the days,” Nelo’s mom says, “there used to be more Parsis in Lahore. Not as many as Karachi, but still enough to have a community. I think there were at least 2000 here. Now, there are just, what, 24?”

I look at Nelo instinctively. I know she’s never known anyone her own age here, she’s always talking about the ‘oldies’ that make up the bulk of the Lahori Parsis now.

“It was a good time, we all knew each other, and we would all do things together,” her Great-Aunt chimes in, “my father set up a cafe, as Iranis do. His biscuits were famous, they even used to be sent as far as Amritsar.”

“The 70’s and 80’s were the best,” Nelo’s mom seems to be thinking about something, a smile on her face, “no phones, no tablets, everyone just played together. We had fun.”

It sounds a lot like when Nina described growing up with the other Parsi kids. “Except, now, people don’t really gather like they used to. It’s not cohesive like it once was,” she looked like she hadn’t really thought about it before then.

I tell them it definitely sounds like fun.

“But they’re all gone now. You can’t have that fun without a community,” Nelo’s Great-Aunt is still smiling, but she looks a little sad.

Nelo nods furiously. No community is all she’s known. I would resent it, too. Especially knowing that it wasn’t always like this. The loss is still felt by people who remember the days of Parsi prosperity, especially Partition survivors. A Pakistani novelist writes:

“The Plaza Cinema, where we would go to watch Hollywood movies, had a Parsi gatekeeper who supervised the entry to the second class. He was a quiet man of sixty or sixty-five in strict Parsi attire who wore thick glasses and who always kept smiling. I would sometimes see him walking on the footpath that runs along the Lahore Zoo. In Nila Gumbad there used to be a Parsi Bank in an old two-storey building. The sign outside showed an evenly balanced pair of scales held by a woman who resembled a figure from mythology. I have not been in that area for some time but I am sure the bank no longer exists. The Parsis of Lahore, like its Anglo-Indians, were like an ornament that the city wore. Their disappearance has left it poorer in more ways than one.”

Everything the two ladies tell me sounds charming, and I almost can’t believe it. I never liked Lahore, preferring the woodsy calm of the valley of Islamabad instead. Lahore is hot, dusty, sticky, and noisy. But the way people remember it makes me rethink the way I’ve written it off. After all, as long as the old city is alive in someone’s memories, it cannot be considered completely lost. This city is haunted in ways I never cared to look before, even it’s darkened nooks boasting more character than my limited imagination can comprehend.

The reminiscing ends before long, and we keep talking. When the conversation turns to Gujarati, I’m surprised when they tell me they don’t know how to read it. For some reason, I thought that was something that just the younger generation didn’t know how to do.

“We never had schools like Mama Parsi or BVS, to teach us,” Nelo’s mom tells me, “that’s just in Karachi.”

One thing that everyone who knows anything about the Parsis knows is that when it comes to schooling, the renowned Parsi sense of humour can be paused. There is nothing more unfunny than education. Every single Parsi I spoke to stressed the importance of education in the community at least once, often coupled with a tingle of pride in their voices. Their reasons ranged from an intense need to secure children’s futures, to general respectability, to the seeking of knowledge as a Parsi value.

“Were they strict?” I asked my friend Yusra, who had been at Mama Parsi most of her life. While I was in Karachi, she invited me over to her house on the day she was throwing a lunch for her former teachers and classmates. Like the Parsis, the Mama Parsi community is tightly knit — everyone knows one another.

“No, not at all,” her voice dripped with sarcasm, “it was actually torture.”

One of the teachers, who everyone referred to as ‘Auntie’, apparently overheard us.

“I made you productive!” she laughed.

“You threw my notebook out the window because you said the work was subpar!”

On my first trip to Karachi I met Kermin Auntie, an educationalist (the principal of BVS High School), and a generally prominent woman in the community, I knew her interview would be incredibly informative. Shahveer led me inside her house, past an aesthetically tiled kitchen with pictures of Zoroaster, and a couple of tiny candles lit aflame. (“I hope you don’t mind dogs.”)

I would later think about these markers of identity as essential to her space, as our “habitual images of the external world are inseparable from our self,” and provide us with “mental equilibrium.” The way one structures the space around them holds great meaning, as Nina noted growing up in her multicultural environment. Familiarity with certain objects associated with a group means familiarity with the group, and I suppose that is why Anushka keeps a copy of the Avesta in her house despite having officially converted to Islam after marrying her Muslim husband.

“That’s just on paper,” she tells me, “I still consider myself a Parsi.” She says it’s “easier” to keep the book around, and I think I know what she means.

Auntie Kermin tells me a lot of things really fast, and I let her lead the conversation.

“A Pakistani Parsi thinks like a Pakistani, an Indian Parsi thinks like an Indian,” she says at some point, “but either way, we are a people charitable by nature. We do good things for the people around us. We sweeten, we do not take. It is who we are.”

Conclusion

As I roam around the library, I ask Mr Doctor if I can look through the books.

“Of course,” he smiles at me and goes back to sorting the books. He does it with love, picking up every single book individually, and placing it gingerly in one of the boxes on the floor. I wonder who he does it for.

Shahveer is looking around, too.

“I bet we could make so much money selling these books online,” he says, “there’s no way books this old aren’t precious.”

I laugh, but he’s serious. He goes to Mr Doctor to see if he can sell the books for the library. Shahveer has an entrepreneurial spirit. I realize that’s also what the British used to say about the Parsis, which irritates me just a tad. Maybe there’s a connection, or perhaps there isn’t. But if there is, then I would attribute it to the muscle memory of the past, a concept I first came upon in a class on decolonization. It occurred to me just as I was discovering the timeless wisdom of James Baldwin. In Notes of A Native Son, he explains:

“It is a sentimental error, therefore, to believe that the past is dead; it means nothing to say that it is all forgotten… It is not a question of memory. Oedipus did not remember the thongs that bound his feet; nevertheless, the marks they left testified to that doom toward which his feet were leading him. The man does not remember the hand that struck him, the darkness that frightened him, as a child; nevertheless, the hand and the darkness remain with him, indivisible from himself forever, part of the passion that drives him wherever he thinks to take flight.”

Our history is ingrained in us, in ways we will never concretely know. There are many pieces of knowledge we harbour that cannot be empirically traced back to their source. We are culminations; the legacies of people that time has defeated, as it will one day defeat us.

I go ahead. This is a dusty library, and you can tell it’s faced some damage. I wonder what it looked like in the beginning.

After a little while, I find this old book, with binding coming loose at the seams. You know that smell that old books have? That one smell that smells kind of like Earth, and clay, and dry air. It coaxes me into a flicker of the passage of time, a montage of memory floats all the way up from where it was so skillfully hiding. It’s familiar.

The book is a collection of poetry by Jiddu Krishnamurti. I’ve never heard of him before. Names do tend to elude me, but this one is strong, it stamps an impression somewhere lasting. The first poem leaves me glad I’m in an unseen corner of the library because there’s just a manner about it that elicits a dull ache, what feels like a stone in my throat. Sometimes, things feel urgent, and you can’t explain why. Almost like it’s something I should commit to memory, and keep with me. The poem reads:

I have been a wanderer long

In this world of transient things.

I have known the passing pleasures thereof,

As the rainbow is beautiful,

But soon vanishes into nothingness,

So have I known,

From the very foundation of the world,

The passing away of all things

Beautiful, joyous and pleasurable.

I take a picture and save it for remembrance.

The post Fading Sweetness: A Parsi Story in Pakistan appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Envisioned by a Parsi, planned by an American, named by a British Viceroy, landscaped by a German Botanist, the story of Jamshedpur is full of romance and valour.

Once Sakchi, a village in the princely state of Mayurbhanj,  it was rechristened Jamshedpur by Lord Chelmford on January 2, 1919 in honour of the Founder of the Tata Group, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, and Tata Steel’s contribution to the British war effort in World War I. The year 2019 marked 100 years of naming of the city as Jamshedpur.

Published in the Avenue Mail

Lord Chelmsford , who served as Governor General and Viceroy of India (1916 – 1921) had said: “ I can hardly imagine what we should have done during these four years (of the First World war) if the Tata Company had not been able to gift us steel rails which have been provided for us , not only for Mesopotamia but for Egypt, Palestine and East Africa, and I have come to express my thanks…It is hard to imagine that 10 years ago, this place was scrub and jungle ; and here, we have now, this place set up with all its foundries and its workshops and its population of 40,000 to 50,000 people. This great enterprise has been due to the prescience, imagination of the late Mr. Jamsetji Tata. This place will see a change in its name and will no longer be known as Sakchi, but will be identified with the name of its founder, bearing down through the ages the name of the late Mr. Jamsetji Tata. Hereafter, this place will be known by the name of Jamshedpur.”

Today, a hundred years after Lord Chelmsford made his speech, Jamshedpur is synonymous with progress and growth.

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. A city without memory is like a city of madmen, a city devoid of any pride or glory. Proper respect and due regard should be given to all those who have worked for the greater good of city.

First-time visitors to Jamshedpur on business, or relatives and friends of residents, are pleasantly surprised when they arrive here, and discover a clean and green city with tree-lined roads, stadiums and parks, and orderly neighborhoods — a legacy of the visionary founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata.

Residents know that their steel city has always had a deep cultural heart, and a great love for sports. Jamshedpur has always attracted luminaries from every field — acclaimed singers, dance legends, theatre groups, artists and artists, who have come to perform here. The city is well-known among sports lovers; its golf tournaments draw enthusiasts from all over, it has hosted national and international cricket matches, and is an established national center for  football and archery.

Today, as we look back over the last hundred years, we laud the thought process of Lord Chelmsford, in christening the hamlet of Sakchi as “Jamshedpur”, a name which has stood tall over the ages and continues to be an example of a truly cosmopolitan and vibrant India.

From a small town to a commercial hub, the Steel City has come a long way.  Increased civic services and infrastructure over the last couple of years have helped the city to grab the attention of the investors. The changing face of the city can be witnessed from the fact that AC Nielsen ORG MARG survey recently on the quality of life in cosmopolitan cities like Chandigarh , Bhubaneswar , Pune and Bangalore rated Jamshedpur as the second best in India after Chandigarh in quality of life index.  The index took into account parameters like water and power supply, public services, health and environment, education, economy etc.

The post Story of Jamshedpur: Romance and Valour appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Kekee Manzil – The House of Art chronicles a micro-history of the city anchored in a century-old family home

Filmmakers Behroze Gandhy and Dilesh Korya’s documentary, Kekee Manzil – The House of Art offers a glimpse into the interiors of a heritage home, shedding light on its iconic residents Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhy. Kekoo established the only picture-framing company in Asia in the 1940s and later opened the city’s first contemporary art gallery, Gallery Chemould, now known as Chemould Prescott Road, run by his daughter Shireen Gandhy. The documentary captures how Kekoo and Khorshed displayed compassion during challenging times, stayed true to their secular ideals, and remained engaged civically, while building frameworks within which art could grow in postcolonial India.

Article by Pooja Savansukha | The Hindu

In an interview with The Hindu, Behroze shares how despite the fact that her grandfather, who built the house (naming it after Kekoo) was a traditional Parsi patriarch, Kekoo invited all kinds of people home. “It was a source of much amusement to us as kids watching our grandfather’s face, as various folk used to troop through,” she shares. Later, Kekoo opened up his home as a space for community meetings, for artists to live and practise in, and as a place of refuge. The bungalow, located in a secluded sea-facing neighbourhood, became a site where the socio-political and artistic climates of the city were nurtured.

At the beginning

UK-based Behroze, grew up in Kekee Manzil and moved to London when she was 19. In her mid-thirties, while producing the show, On The Other Hand in the UK that dealt with South Asian issues, she realised, “How connected [her] father was as [she] had access to guests from every walk of life.” She elaborates, “When the riots in Bombay exploded after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, I was commissioned to do a show in Delhi. This was when my father was busy with the Peace committees in Bombay and our work interconnected.”

She began recording her parents in 2002, realising how they were a repository of the early years of the Indian art movement. She also interviewed their contemporaries – members of the Progressive Artists’ Group including SH Raza, Akbar Padamsee, and Krishen Khanna. She took a short hiatus after her parents passed away between 2012-13, but soon began examining the material she had access to. Despite losing footage and being unable to clean-up profound interviews like the one with artist Ram Kumar, she had enough to construct a narrative in close collaboration with Korya that featured family members, friends, and old archives from 8 mm film.

She says, “The story was a curious one — of how my father, a casualty of the Second World War, as far as his incomplete studies at Cambridge were concerned, landed up being one of the catalysts of an art movement, which was totally at odds with his family’s Parsi business background. It all revolved around a shop selling picture frames and a series of curious co-incidences which led him to the point of opening Gallery Chemould.”

Korya persuaded Behroze to embody the narrative voice in the film. It’s a powerful choice that adds sensitivity to the story. She narrates Kekoo’s life, acknowledging how her distance from Mumbai gave her a necessary “insider-outsider perspective.” “Kekoo was excited I was filming him; he felt like someone was taking him seriously in his old age,” says Behroze adding how Salman Rushdie, Nalini Malani, and Anish Kapoor instantly agreed to be interviewed for the film, a testament to his influence.

Family and friends

Intimate family scenes around the dining table and living room highlight the joint-family life in Kekee Manzil. Behroze’s siblings Adil (who runs Chemould Frames), Rashna, and Shireen, Kekoo’s brother Rusi, as well as the eldest surviving family-member, his cousin, Dara feature prominently. Behroze says, “I wanted to bring out how crucial my mother was in running a gallery like Chemould. We try to address this in the way my siblings and artists like Nalini Malani speak about her contribution, but somehow my father dominates the film.” Kekoo, she describes was chaotic, “Khorshed had the persistence to see his visions through.” The musical score of the film, produced by Talvin Singh, evokes the Indian classical music that Khorshed sang in the house every Thursday, or listened to frequently. While Khorshed is absent physically in much of the film, she is entirely present through the music.

The film narrates Kekoo’s chance encounters in the city, with Italian prisoners of war who educated him in art, Jewish emigres who escaped Nazi Germany, and Belgian businessmen who wanted to invest in pictureframe moulding. Kekoo’s meeting with Austrian artist Walter Langhammer was transformative; through him, Chemould Frames on Princess Street became a hub for artists. It led to Kekoo meeting the Bombay Progressives. The Gandhys’ close friendship with MF Husain is highlighted — although their conflicting stances following Indira Gandhi’s Emergency strained their relations, they later reconciled.

“Something I learnt about my father is that he interacted with people at a human level. He would talk to the local sweeper, policeman, neighbours, strangers on the streets; he never made distinctions. He was wildly impractical and helped those in need at his expense,” says Behroze. She acknowledges how his phases of depression during his later years were times when she spent reflective moments with him. She did not see his bi-polar disorder as a disease, “If he gave so much, he had to be able to recharge himself.”

Art and politics

The film transports viewers to an old-world city — scenes in a quieter Bandra, Juhu Beach where the Gandhys would go swimming, and other parts of the city evoke simpler times. Kekoo and Khorshed watched the city develop, witnessed historic moments of optimism and disillusionment, and simultaneously built relationships with artists grappling with the times. It showcases Tyeb Mehta who was offered a solo exhibition at Gallery Chemould in 1964, “became known as the conscience of the nation.” Over the years, as the Gandhys witnessed the city transform topographically, they also found their ideals come under threat during crises like the Emergency and the Mumbai riots. For the Gandhys, secularism and freedom of speech were paramount. Kekoo showcased exhibitions at his gallery that embraced abstractionist, narrative, and conceptualist perspectives, featuring works by Vivan Sundaram, Nalini Malani, Gieve Patel, Mehlli Gobhai, and Rummana Hussain, among others. These artists reflected upon the events around them, challenged injustices, and even, as in the case of Bhupen Khakhar, “Scandalised the artworld with sexual depictions featuring his long-term partner, Vallabhai.” The documentary, for us is then a reminder that the fabric of art is intrinsically tethered to socio-political happenings.

The post Glimpses of Kekoo Gandhy’s Mumbai appeared on Parsi Khabar.

Business turns unviable for Delhi-based Parsi owner as one of the oldest stores of the British era in Himachal Pradesh closes down in September

Dharamshala: Located in the heart of McLeodganj town and barely a kilometre from Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s abode, the iconic Nowrojee & Sons General Merchants will shut shop next month after a 160-year run.

Article by Naresh K. Thakur | Hindustan Times

The Parsi family that owns one of the oldest shops in Himachal Pradesh from the British era has sold the property and is in the process of winding up the business. Though the store-cum-residence has seen six generations of the Nowrojee family at the helm, Nauzer Nowrojee was the most popular and was a friend of the Dalai Lama, for more than 60 years before his death in 2002.

“It’s been a tough decision but sometimes you have to let go of things,” says Nauzer’s younger son and Delhi-based owner Parvez Nowrojee, who is retired from a private company and was running the shop with the help of caretaker since 2010.

Nauzer’s elder son Kurush Nowrojee owns a tea business in West Bengal.

At present, Parvez and Kurush are in McLeodganj to collect their belongings and wrap up business.

Nowrojees manufactured aerated drinks and mineral water and sold wine, grocery brands, bakery products, tobacco, toiletries, and even arms and ammunition.

Its closure is a heartbreaking moment for local residents. “This store is witness to many a historic event and how the towns of Dharamshala and McLeodganj evolved,” says Prem Sagar, 58, who runs a book shop and tour and travel business opposite the store. “It’s is sad moment for people like me who were emotionally attached to the store. But change is the law of nature and this is how history is created,” he said.

Another resident Kul Prakash Sharma, 50, said: “We will miss this store that is synonymous with McLeodganj. I have a collection of labels and stickers from this shop. They will now become souvenirs. I’ve heard the wooden structure will be gone soon.”

OLD WORLD CHARM INTACT

Nowadays, the shop sells newspapers, magazines and confectionary besides exhibiting relics from a bygone era. Housed in the wooden structure are antiques, including a Petromax 835 Special, which is a Germany-made hanging wick lamp.

There are cases of imported cigarette brands such as Passing Show, Craven A, and Number Ten Virginia.

Advertising posters from the British era, Blue Bird toffees and old wine and beer bottles are also available.

With fewer than 55,000 individuals in India, Parsi Zoroastrians have carved a niche for themselves in the country. From leading industrialists like Ratan Tata and Godrej to an army of talented Bollywood actors, prodigal Parsis are an asset to India’s culture and economy.

Article by Dr. Shernaz Cama | Edited by Jyoti Boken | Socio Martini

While their lip-smacking food, unusual last names, stellar Bollywood movies, acting skills and the sweet mention of ‘dikra’ (well-behaved boy) are a part of India’s popular culture, their expertise and contribution to the fashion world is lesser-known.

More specifically, the art of Parsi Embroidery.

Dr Shernaz Cama, a Parsi Zoroastrian and the Director of the UNESCO Parzor Project for the Preservation and Promotion of Parsi Zoroastrian Culture and Heritage shares the vibrant history of Parsi embroidery.

Textiles are a powerful medium of identity both inside and outside the culture which produces it. What Parsi Zoroastrians have saved in their cupboard and trunks is the proof of global, multicultural history.

The Parsis or ‘people from Pars or Fars’, in Persia, mingled unobtrusively. One of the conditions of their refuge was that they would adopt Indian costume and language. Yet, they managed to create a distinct identity for themselves. Textiles is one of the key markers of cultural identity that contributed greatly in this aspect.

Complex roots and routes lie behind what we call ‘Parsi Embroidery’ today. The tradition grew from Achaemenian Iran, through the Silk Route into China and then came with Indian and European influences back to its originators, the Parsi Zoroastrians in India.

This engagement photograph from 1920 shows the gara sari worn in a distinct style, with a lace blouse over the sudreh or sacred garment worn by all Zoroastrians. The leather heel shoes, stockings and cummerbund show the Western influence which reinforces Parsi identity. Parsi women sure know how to stay trendy! © Parzor Archives

Fifty years ago, most Parsi homes had an embroidery cupboard with amazing varieties of shaded and coloured embroidery thread. Here, pressed into brown paper folders were butter paper patterns, home drawn with hand-written instructions about colour preferences, or initials and dates to indicate for whom and on what occasion the pattern or khakha had been created.

Embroidery has always been a vital part of the Zoroastrian love of life and appreciation of beauty and skill. The reverence for nature is interwoven and embroidered into the costumes of daily life.

A red engagement gara with the Gul-e-bulbul design celebrates life. © Parzor Archives.

The traditional embroidery celebrates the animal kingdom and bounty of nature. It is full of motifs of flowers and gardens, birds and beauty. This ‘Spenta’ or ‘bountiful’ world is to be treated with care, each tiny butterfly a manifestation of God’s Goodness.

In the Zoroastrian homeland of Iran, the Ijar or trousers were accompanied by a long jhabla which reached the knees. The head was covered with a shawl and the entire costume embroidered with rustic, simple embroidery. Fish and bird motifs prevailed as did flowers, roundels like emblems of Khurshid or the sun, tiny birds and animals.

However, after Zoroastrians were conquered people, they were forbidden from wearing bright colours as yardage. Their head dress became dark, navy or black, yet their love of life continued to be expressed in their embroidery.

A 19^th Century Wedding Shawl collected from Iran and carefully preserved. Here, in this wedding costume we see peacocks, exotic colourful creatures, embroidered onto a traditional wedding shawl with the sacred Ariz, orfish, emblems of fertility. The dog, also sacred to Zoroastrians can be seen.
© Parzor Archives.

The traditional Parsi embroidery with flowers, birds and animals is emblematic of power, protection and purity. The simurgh and rooster,-sacred birds give health and protection. In its long history, Chinese symbols entered these textiles and gave to them the ‘Divine Fungus’ which like the Turkish emblem removes the ‘evil eye’.

Jhablas or tunics were worn particularly by children. The bright red jhabla combines two protective symbols: the rooster and the Chinese Divine Fungus, while this archival photo shows roosters and butterflies, symbols of protection and love for a child. © Parzor Archives.

This child’s Jhabla or tunic has roosters embroidered on the border. © Parzor Archives

This Jhabla or tunic has an inter-crossing simurgh, the Persian bird of blessing as its pattern. It is richly embroidered and includes peacocks from the Indian tradition, along with floral designs from Persia. © Parzor Archives.

In Zoroastrianism, each day is dedicated to an angel, symbolized by a flower. So the red 100 petalled rose stands for Din – Angel of Religion, the Marigold for Atar – Angel of Fire, the white Jasmine for Vohu Manah, The Good Mind.

Ava Yazata, Angel of Water, is depicted in this Parsi kor or saree border with the Water Lily, her representative flower. © Parzor Archives.

It was in the Tang and Song dynasties that this Persian love of nature, mingled with the skill of the embroidery schools of China across the Silk Route.

In this early stage of intercultural amalgam, the Khakho or seed pearl stitch developed, which has minute work like the Pekin knot. This khakho or ‘forbidden stitch, is a lost stitch, no longer practised. It did result in women losing their eyesight and hence its name.

This Khakho stitch kor (border) was embroidered by Gulan Billimoria in the 1960s. She did beautiful embroidery but lost her eye-sight towards the end of her life. © Parzor Archives.

The China connection with Persia was an overland trade link; this would change into a sea trade link with the later Indian Parsis. The first Parsi set sail for China in 1756. For almost 200 years, Parsi traders prospered, trading at Canton, Macao, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The Chinese had begun exporting their superb embroidery to Europe as early as the 13th century AD.  Legend has it that a Parsi trader in Canton, watching craftsmen embroider a rich textile, requested them to embroider 6 yards of silk as a sari for his wife in India.

These pieces often carried Taoist and Buddhist symbolism of protection such as the Divine Fungus, because embroidery in China was sacred art.

The late Mrs. Bhicoo Manekshaw of Delhi was the owner of this gara, made for an engagement in her family in the late 19^th Century. It includes motifs of the Divine Fungus and plants which symbolize fertility, as well as scenes of lovers. The red colour was used for engagement garas following Indian tradition. © Parzor Archives.

In this early stage of development, embroidered yardage was covered on all four sides as if bordered within a frame. This yardage is called gala in Gujarati and its enclosed patterned space gave its name to the Gara. Parsis women following Indian tradition began designing kors or borders to match the inner embroidery, then frontage or the pallav designed to highlight the design and soon Chinese yardage had developed into the Parsi Gara sari.

Ashdeen the Designer House has re-created this complete China Chini or Chinese style gara.© ASHDEEN

The colours favoured in the Persian tradition were imperial purple and other dark shades. As Indian influence developed, the auspicious Indian Kunku red or vermillion became a favourite, particularly for engagement saris. In India, there began a tradition of using red for the engagement saree.

Indian Peacocks combine with Persian trellis and flowers, joined with the Endless Knot, to create a combination of auspicious symbols for this engagement Gara. © Parzor Archives.

This vermillion engagement gara is an amalgamation of traditional Persian trellis patters, the flowers and birds with the endless knot from the Chinese cultural vocabulary.

Intercultural amalgam continued. The Indian Ambi and Persian Cypress combined to create powerful motifs for pallavs, which included Chinese baskets symbolizing plenty, within their space.

The Imperial presence of Europe brought the introduction of scallops, bows and ribbons and thus four cultures (Indian, Persian, Chinese and European) came together in the Parsi saree.

Until the early 1960s, Chinese ‘Pherawallas’ or textile vendors, came regularly in the winter season to family homes across Gujarat, the Deccan, Bombay as well as Calcutta, wherever Parsi settlements were found. Parsis favoured silk rather than cotton because it could take the heavy weight of embroidery. So the Chinese traders came primarily to Parsi homes.

Several elders across Gujarat, recall Chinese men on bicycles who sold garas by the weight. The heavier garas, with more embroidery, were more expensive. Over the years, a close relationship developed with their clients. The Chinese would leave their heavy bundles on a particular veranda during their visits. In the heat of the afternoon, they rested on the otla, veranda, and dozed. While waiting for the cool of the evening they would take out little embroidery rings to begin work. Parsis women, after completing the day’s chores, would come out on the otla to watch the embroidery with interest. So, Chinese peddlers taught Parsis women certain stitches and motifs. The women added their own myths, sacred symbols and the aari and mochi stitch which they learnt from their Gujarati women friends. In the Deccan, Deccani Zari work began appearing on Parsi Jhablas and children’s prayer caps or topis.

Little Tushna of Hyderabad models only a topi. © Parzor Archives.

It was in this way that Chinese embroidery became part of Parsi craft. With education and the freedom Parsi women enjoyed, they created businesses or professions for themselves. As times changed and with the movement of the Parsis away from Gujarat into small apartments in urban centres, a way of life was lost. The large embroidery cupboards neither fitted into the flats of Bombay nor could they be carried when Parsis migrated abroad. All that remained were the products – the garas, jhablas, ijars which carried the memory of people and their culture.

Parzor Crafts began a revival movement by teaching Parsi embroidery with the help of the Textile Ministry at Workshops across India, giving a new vocabulary to skilled Indian craftspersons.

© Parzor Archives

Now, there are modern interpretations as well. Here is an Ashdeen saree – using the traditional motifs onto a modern silhouette.

House of Ashdeen, inspired by an original Japanese kimono, this contemporary saree uses dramatic colours and combination of styles of the original garas to make a work of art. Cranes in Eastern tradition symbolize longevity. © ASHDEEN

The Parzor Seminar & exhibition at NCPA, Mumbai, 2006 brought treasures out of storage and into public notice. © Parzor Archives.

This was the beginning of a movement beyond just one community. Today, Ashdeen– the Design House has introduced this genre to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, among others. Catering to a new market, Parzor Crafts and Ashdeen create stoles, scarves, bags and potlis as well as wedding lehangas and Western dresses.

Thus an ancient multicultural craft has become a global treasure of hand-embroidered skill; rich in its symbols and an heirloom to cherish.

© ASHDEEN

Acknowledgments:

The author wishes to thank the publishers of Peonies & Pagodas: Embroidered Parsi Textiles from the TAPI Collection, 2010. This article is based on my article “The Embroidery Cupboard: Oral Accounts of Parsi Embroidery”, in the above-named book. All interviews have been conducted during Oral Tradition Recordings across India, China, and Iran by researchers from the UNESCO Parzor Project. This article on embroidery draws upon Parzor oral heritage recordings over the past 10 years. These and the photographs are the copyright of UNESCO Parzor.

To get in touch with the Parzor Foundation, please contact parzorfoundation@gmail.com / nilouferparzor@gmail.com

On the 28th of June 1955, The Times of India (Mumbai) carried a very interesting story of the discovery, by a farmer, of 9 inscribed copper plates from his field in the village of Chinchani near Dahanu, in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. Little did he know that what he had ‘dug’ up was a peep into the history of the region, stretching back over 900 years – a time when the area was under the Rashtrakutas and their Arab governor, who oversaw the region.

Article by Kurush Dalal | Live History India

The flummoxed farmer had been quick to hand over the copper plates from his field to the local Mamlatdar (an official in the Collector’s office ) who in turn transferred them to the offices of the Collector in the district headquarters in Thane (Chinchani was in the Thane District). The lot was further sent on to the Director of Archives in Mumbai. Eminent Historian and epigraphist DC Sircar on his visit to Mumbai in 1957 made copies of these plates and then went about analysing and deciphering the same. What he found opened up many fascinating facets of the region’s history.

The copper plates which represented 5 different grants dated back to 926 CE.

Two belonged to the time of the Imperial Rashtrakutas mainly Indra III (915-28 CE) and Krishna III (939-67 CE). One, to Chamundaraya a vassal of Chhinturaja of the Shilahara dynasty (1034 CE) and the last two by an until then unknown dynasty, of the Modhas (dated 1048 and 1053 CE respectively).

Extent of the Rashtrakuta Empire|Wikimedia Commons

The discovery of the plates was significant for a number of reasons. First, they were historically important as they told a near-continuous story of 130 years in a region (Sanjan) from which there is a dearth of historical fact. Secondly, given that they are all land grants, they tell us about those who made them, through successive dynasties. Thirdly, they tell us a lot about the local communities, the relationships between them and the local political organisation, the social fabric of the times and the trade relations. Most significant here is the fact that the Rashtrakuta Emperor Krishna II (father of Indra III) had appointed Madhumati Sugatipa (an Arab Muslim) as governor of the province of Sanjan – perhaps the earliest instance of an Arab being appointed at such a high post in the subcontinent. And finally, all 5 grants mention the Parsis and their Anjuman and are the most solid evidence of the historicity of the Parsis in India during the period between the 10th and 11th centuries CE.

The Chinchani copper plates most importantly iterated the deeply syncretic culture of the region and showed how people of different faiths coexisted in peace, often supporting each other.

What do the Plates tell us?

The oldest grant was that from the time of Emperor Indra III (915-28 CE) of the Rashtrakutas and was dated to Shaka Samvat 848 (926 CE). It tells us about the Tajik (Arabic) Governor who seemed to have controlled the area of Sanjan for long.

This grant was made up of three copper plates strung on a copper ring with a worn seal that looked like a recumbent bull.

The first and third plates were only inscribed on the inside whilst the second plate was inscribed on both sides in a slightly debased Sanskrit. The grant gives us the religious affiliation of Indra III and his genealogy. It then goes on to tell us that the Governor of the Mandala of Samyana (the region/territory of Sanjan) was a Tajik (Arab) ruler called Madhumati Sugatipa (Interestingly Mahmud is translated into Sanskrit as Madhumati) who had received the governorship from Indra III’s predecessor Krishna II. This was a confirmation of the Muslim governor of Sanjan who is mentioned elsewhere in the writings of Islamic Historians, Geographers and Travellers like Sulaiman (851 CE), Abu Zaid (roughly 910 CE), Ibn Khurdaba (prior to 916 CE), al Masudi (932-33 CE), al Ishtakari (approx 951 CE) and Ibn Haukal (between 943-968 CE).

This 10th CE copper plate also tells of a land grant given by Madhumati in the name of Indra III to a local citizen Annaiya so that the profit accrued from it would help run a mathika (monastery/temple) built by Annaiya and dedicated to Bhagvati Devi. The grant then goes on to mention the Hanjamana or Anjuman at Sanjan, a uniquely Persian/Zoroastrian term for a body representing the community. This is one of the earliest pieces of evidence of the presence of the Parsis at Sanjan. Most interesting though is the fact that the Hindu monarch has a Muslim Arab Governor who was making a grant toward the building of a Hindu religious sanctuary.

The second copper plate grant consists of a single very large plate issued in the name of the Rashtrakuta Emperor Krishna III (939-67 CE) and has no specific date inscribed on it. After the usual verses in praise of the gods and the genealogy of the Emperor the copper plate then goes on to talk about the installation of an image of Bhillamadeva, by a group of descendants of traders who hailed from Bhillama ( ie modern Bhinmal in the Jodhpur region of Rajasthan) right next to the mathika mentioned in the copper plate of Indra III. This is a fabulous piece of cross-referencing. There was a dispute of possession of the Bhillamadeva temple’s land by the mathika of the Devi and the copper plate adjudicates this case by making the Devi temple pay the Billamadeva temple an annual rent. Interestingly the Parsis are once again mentioned as subjects of Krishna III in this copper plate.

The third copper plate, once again a single plate, was issued by Chamundaraja the vassal of the Northern Shilahara ruler Chhinturaja in 1034 CE. Though written in typically Shilahara period letters this is a carelessly inscribed document with a number of mistakes. After propitiating Ganesh in the first line, lines 2 to 4 talk about Chhinturaja. DC Sircar is quite confident the Chhinturaja is just a variant of Chhittaraja (1022 to 1035 CE), a well known ruler of the Shilaharas. Chamundaraja refers to himself as the mahamandaleshwara (governor) of Samyana. The copper plate addresses the people and officials of Sanjan and informs them of a grant of an oil-mill/oil press to the mathika (mentioned in the two previous copper plates) to burn a lamp in front of Bhagwati Devi and to smear oil on the feet of students, scholars (and visiting Brahmins) belonging to the monastery attached to the temple. Interestingly this plate too refers to the hamyamana (Anjuman of the Parsis) as part of the residents of Sanjan.

The fourth grant and fifth grants are politically/dynastically unique. They are issued by a hitherto unknown dynasty – the Modhas. The Modhas are originally from Modhera in Gujarat and are Brahmin Traders who are known to have settled in Thane during this period. The first grant is made up of two plates. These two plates are bound together by a seal ring with a standing ‘deity’ upon it. Dated 1048 CE it is written by the mahamandaleshwara Vijjaladeva of the Modha family, ruling from Vijayapura. Whilst he carries a whole host of other epithets and regnal names he does not mention himself as vassal to anyone. Sircar feels he is probably an independent ruler. He also claims to have subdued many enemies when he was the yuvaraja (prince). The grant then goes on to specify a tax on the village (Kannada-grama) where the mathika (mentioned in all three previous grants) was situated and for the proceeds to be given to two householders and two scholars, apparently attached to the mathika.

The fifth grant is also made up of 2 plates, it was issued in Shaka 975 (1053 CE) by Vija-ranaka of the Modha family. Historians are divided on whether he was the same as the Vijjala of the previous copper plate who was now more comfortable in his position and openly calling himself a king (ranaka) or whether he is a second ruler from the Modha dynasty. The palaeography and orthography resemble those of the prior two inscriptions and is very careless in many places.

Interestingly Vija-ranaka claims the origin title of the Shilaharas i.e. Tagaraputra.

He is apparently ruling half the northern Konkan at this time. Vija-ranaka might be no other than the Vijjala of the previous plate now more confident and in possession of a larger territory. He claims to be ruling over the mahamandala of ‘Samyana-pattana 700’ extending as far as Akasika (perhaps modern-day Agashi north of Vasai).

The grant is addressed to the constituent members of his principality. Amongst others he mentions with due respect the hamyamana (the Parsi Anjuman) and the Modha Brahmanas of Sristhanaka (modern Thane city) who had settled in Sanjan. It is from the name of this group of Brahmanas that the dynasty has been named. It reiterates that the taxes accruing from the Kenasa-grama belonging to the mathika (mentioned in all the previous four grants) was granted to the householders and scholars attached to the mathika in perpetuity. This grant in perpetuity was given for the distribution of free food at the mathika.

A Brief Analysis of the Plates

The Chinchani copper plates offer a fascinating glimpse into the ancient city of Sanjan, the territory/province of the same name, its rulers, governors, officials and citizens. It is interesting that the Parsis (parasikas) and their collective assembly (anjuman/hamjamana/hamyana) find mention in all the plates. Wha’s more, this marks perhaps the very first instance of an Arab governor- ‘Madhumati’ Sugatipa, holding such a powerful position. We know that he was appointed by Krishna II prior to 915 AD and continued to rule the province for at least the next 11 years.

It is also fascinating to note that the Arab (Muslim) governor made a grant to a Hindu Devi Temple.

This tradition was continued by successive dynasties The successors of the Rashtrakutas, the Shilaharas, continued to patronise the mathika of Bhagvati Devi as do their successor(s) the Modha ruler(s). The temple complex enjoys royal patronage for at least 127 years. Also of interest is the possibility that the Modhas were most probably from Modhera and the Modha Brahmanas the plates mention, moved to Sanjan from Thane.

Siddharth Kale, Monish Shah, Acharya Bhagyayash Maharaj and Muni Tirthyash Maharaj have recently (August 2019) revealed the existence of the Modha-nyati (Modha clan) of the Jainas of Sopara as seen from the inscriptions on votive images donated by them in the 13th, 15th and 16th centuries CE. Sopara is very close to Thane and not far from Chinchani and Sanjan. If the Modhas were from Thane it is very plausible they went back there after the fall of Sanjan.

Excavation Trench at Chinchani|Dr Abhijit Dandekar

This series of temple/mathika records from Chinchani has been of the greatest use in ascertaining the importance of the port of Sanjan during the Early Medieval Period and has been incredibly vital in cross-checking the veracity of the Kisseh-i-Sanjan which talks about the Parsis and Sanjan. Besides this, the corpus from Chinchani has given us a continuous political history of the Northern Konkan in the period between the 10th and 11th centuries CE.

Even Older Origins

The deeper you dig the further back you go and a series of excavations at and around the village of Chinchani by a team from Deccan College, Pune has opened up even earlier chapters going back all the way to the pre-Satavahana and Satavahana Periods, in the region. In excavations conducted by Dr VD Gogate, Dr Abhijit Dandekar and Dr Sachin Joshi in 2006-2007, we have been ascertained a far older date of settlements in the area.

This area was one of great trade and commerce. The earliest history, art and architecture in Western India belongs to the period between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Roman trade spurred growth and development and ships sailed using the monsoon winds to carry forth wares.

Silk, cotton, spices, hemp, wood, gemstones and live animals made their way across the Arabian Sea.

The cave temple complexes of Nasik, Junnar and Naneghat are markers of that era.

In their quest to find more about Chinchani, the archaeologists’ team looked closely at the Nasik inscription of Rishabhadatta in Cave 10 at Pandavlena Caves. Here there is a very clear mention of places named Dahanukanagara and Chechima, which are likely to have been the ancient names of Dahanu and Chinchani, taking back the towns to the Early Historic period in India.

In follow on excavations, after the study of the Nashik inscriptions a lot more was found. At the Bhandar-Ali in Chinchani, the excavators came across the remains of ringwells and other Early historic materials dug up by the villagers during house building and farming. The trench revealed sherds of the Black and Red Ware similar to that dated to 500-200 BCE at Nasik.

They also found the bases of typical Satavahana terracotta drinking cups.

At Chandigaon the excavators put in their trenches, close to a discovery of bricks by the locals. The excavation revealed a 70 cm deposit of the Shilahara period (8th to 12th c CE) dated securely by a discovery of sherds of the sGrafitto Ware from West Asia and Early Medieval Red Ware. Investigations at the mouth of the Chinchani-Varor creek revealed Monochrome Glazed Ware of the 13th- 15th c CE and Chinese Blue-on-White Porcelain (from the same period). Coins collected by a local farmer were also deciphered by the team and they belong to Allauddin Khilji (1296-1316 CE) and Nasir ud Din Mahmud Shah of Gujarat (1458-1511 CE.) The excavations thus revealed a 2000 plus year history of the site and also found specific evidence of occupation during the Shilahara period. The link in the copper plates to Sanjan was also strengthened by the discovery of sGrafitto Ware which had earlier been first identified in India at the Sanjan Excavations.

A chance discovery of copper plates by a farmer in Chinchani has given researchers of Indian history a wealth of data. They have told us about the life, beliefs and the material culture of the people who lived here for hundreds of years. But perhaps the most significant insight these plates gave us was on the very cosmopolitan nature of Sanjan – a port from which people from all over could come, settle and even hope to rise in. Perhaps the next set of excavations could reveal more about the Arab Governor of Sanjan. Who was Mahmud ‘Madhumati’ Sugatipa and how did he land up in Sanjan? We will have to wait for that answer.

Mumbai: Members of the Parsi community are aggrieved with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as the fate of the iconic ‘Parsi Gate’ continues to remain uncertain. In order to facilitate the ongoing construction work for the Coastal Road Project (CRP), the civic body had approached the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), seeking its approval to relocate the 100-year-old structure.

Article in Free Press Journal

On Wednesday, a group of concerned citizens from the Parsi community went to the BMC to meet the civic chief, Iqbal Singh Chahal, to urge him not to relocate the structure.

The civic body plans to begin work on the proposed tunnel between Priyadarshini Park and Girgaum from January 7, and the citizens were concerned the tunnelling would affect the heritage infrastructure. Because of last-minute commitments, Chahal could not meet the delegation. However, Colaba legislator Rahul Narwekar and Corporator Harshita Narwekar met the group.

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Havovi Sukhadwala, a member of the delegation, has been writing to a number of civic officials ever since the BMC announced it wanted to relocate the structure. In her letters, Sukhadwala urged the civic officials to let the structure remain at its original location.

Meanwhile the civic body has already acquired an NOC from the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) for construction work at Marine Drive.

Replying to one of Sukhadwala’s letters, VS Nighot, chief engineer, CRP, had stated, Parsi Gate was not a heritage structure but was a part of the Marine Drive precinct, for which an NOC had already been obtained from the MHCC for carrying out construction work.

“In the EIA 2016 report, Girgaum Chowpatty area has been marked as a religious area. However, the Parsi Gate has neither been identified as a religious place nor a heritage structure in the EIA report,” Nighot had stated in the letter.

Earlier, in 2018, the Parsi Gate was renovated by the BMC. At that time, the civic body had required a separate NOC from the MHCC in order to carry out repairs.

“The BMC, in one letter states the structure is not a heritage structure while it took an NOC from the heritage cell to carry out repairing works, all of their points are contradictory,” Sukhadwala told The Free Pres Journal.

The delegation had also prepared an alternate design for the coastal road, which they had planned to pitch to the civic chief.

“In the BMC design, the ramp of the tunnel is being constructed adjoining the pavement, while they could have easily built it in the middle of the proposed road,” said Alan Abraham, architect of the design prepared by the members of the community and one of the concerned citizens.

Meanwhile, the BMC has written to the BPP, seeking post facto approval to relocate the structure. However, the BPP has not given its consent.

“The best solution for the community is to keep the structure where it is, but we are trying our best to keep the structure close to its original place” Viraf Mehta, a trustee-member, BPP, told the FPJ.

Meanwhile, MLA Rahul Narwekar had assured citizens he would take up the issue in the legislative assembly, to make sure the structure is not affected.

“I will arrange a meeting between the citizens and concerned officials in the next few days, this is a sensitive matter and it needs to be dealt with properly,” Narwekar told the FPJ.

Located at the Marine Drive Promenade just opposite the Taraporewala Aquarium, the design of the Parsi Gate is built on the basis of ancient Parsi architecture, which comprises two five-metre pillars made of stone. Parsis have been paying respect to Avan Yazad (water deity) for over a century and Hindus use the gate to immerse offerings in the sea during Poornima (full moon).

A Dadar Parsi Colony resident’s four-year-old attempt at using photos, anecdotes, municipal records, memories and sketches to the iconic neighbourhood in a book speaks of public participation in conserving the cityscape.

The houses in the enclave, says Engineer, comprise an interesting mix of cottage-style villas and apartments to accommodate more families. Some structures also have visible Art Deco elements

Article by Jane Borges | Sunday Mid-Day

At 9 am, Kayomi Engineer is already out and about. She has just finished taking photographs on her phone, when we meet her at the police chowkie near Five Gardens, Dadar Parsi Colony. Six of these images, which include early morning scenes from the neighbourhood, immediately make it to the Instagram handle @mancherjijoshiparsicolonydadar. Since 2017, the social media account has been the mainstay for news and picturesque views of the enclave, fondly known as DPC among locals. Home to nearly 5,000-odd residents—99 per cent of whom, she says, belong to the Zoroastrian community—the “residential estate” will soon be the subject of a book penned by Engineer. It’s a 21-year-long dream, she says, as she walks us through the precinct, situated in F North Ward.

The idea for the book took concrete shape sometime after Engineer, who formerly worked as administrative director of the Kala Ghoda Association (KGA), started her Instagram account. “It’s something I created on an impulse, kicking around a football with our daughter. A user-friendly online platform to educate publicly, the larger essence of what this locality stands for, to us as residents and to Mumbai. I realised that many residents didn’t have old photographs of the colony, because nobody had really gone around photographing the locality. So, it was an attempt to document and archive the place, too. I did not anticipate having 1,200-plus followers organically.” That was a huge motivation, she adds. Having worked on restoration projects while at the KGA, and being given the rare opportunity to play “understudy” to leading conservation architects such as Vikas Dilawari, has also bolstered her to apply for a UNESCO accreditation for the enclave. Initially slated for release in November last year, research for the book hit a roadblock due to the lockdown. But Engineer feels that putting timelines to a work like this —one that has not been attempted before—would be unfair. “I invest time and effort on working with details, because the book is a one-time project  that I have embarked upon, and I might as well ace it.”

An elderly resident seen outside her home at Mancherji Joshi Parsi Colony, a century-old residential enclave, which was built in the aftermath of the bubonic plague to decongest the over-crowded islands of Bombay. Pic/Atul Kamble

Dadar Parsi Colony’s history is closely tied to the pandemic—not the one we are living through, but the bubonic plague, which caught Bombay unawares in the late 1890s. At the time, the British-run municipal corporation took up initiatives on war-footing to expand the city’s limits to Dadar and Sion, in order to decongest the over-crowded islands of Bombay in the south. Well-planned urban community neighbourhoods like Shivaji Park and DPC, which has been named after its founder member and visionary Mancherji Edulji Joshi, marked a turning point in the city’s visual scape.

Edulji, a civil engineer with the Bombay municipality, had persuaded authorities to set aside around hundred plots for the middle-class Parsis. He then prepared a blueprint for a self-sustained neighbourhood, which apart from residential structures—an interesting mix of cottage-style villas and apartments that could accommodate more families—had a school, fire temple, gymkhana, gardens and even a ‘madressa’, where children underwent training to become priests. His planning was so detailed that he even decided on the different types of trees that were to be planted here.

The colony was built ground up by 1925, after clearing its existing geographic makeup, as vacant land, back in the early 1900s. Joshi was supported by stalwarts like Eruchasha Tarapore, Ardeshir Homavazir, Bapaimai Dalal and others, who’d later make the colony their home. “It was a community effort, and it came from a sensibility that if the Bombay Improvements Trust was developing a new locality post a pandemic, it was being built for its people, hence it had to be a stellar urban development of its time. Relocating people meant having to provide for them, and that took effort. The byproduct today is Mancherji Joshi Parsi Colony, Dadar,  a place that is rich in a healthy environment of flora, fauna, heritage and now great architectural value,” says Engineer, adding, “A lot of the housing was built with a larger sense of charity and philanthropy. Someone back then thought and understood the value of what they were building and engineering, and how
it would help sustain generations to come.”

Joshi is a jewel in the crown of the Engineer family. He is grandfather to Engineer’s mother-in-law, Zareen. While that was the impetus for her to dig deeper into the family history, Engineer shares that having had her own grandparents live here, and later marrying into a family from the enclave, meant that her connection with the colony ran deep. “Mancherji Joshi’s name is said in the neighbourhood’s Rustom Faramna fire temple in certain Zoroastrian prayers, even today, and that is something—to be remembered decades later for the work you did. But then that is the kind of homage we pay to a visionary, as a community.”

A bust of late Mancherji Edulji Joshi, a civil engineer with the municipal corporation, and founder member of the Dadar Parsi Colony in 1925. Joshi is the grandfather of Engineer’s mother-in-law Zareen

Last Sunday, Engineer along with Zainab Tambawalla of Urban Sketchers Mumbai—part of Urban Sketchers, an international non-profit dedicated to fostering a global community of artists who practice on-location drawing—organised a sketch walk at the colony. The three hour-long event saw 90 sketchers recreate different buildings across the sprawling enclave on paper. Since the area they were covering was vast, a visual map of some of the iconic structures was created. “This was a pilot run. We hope to have more such collaborations in the future, because I want to have every single building in Parsi Colony hand-drawn, and sketched for archival value,” says Engineer. As part of the collaboration, a few sketches will be included in Engineer’s book. “What we’ve done is taken the works of the artists and scanned them. The originals are with them. As we go through the curatorial process of what goes into the book, we will shortlist the final works. The artists have been kind enough to do this for us pro-bono. But, to me, this effort would have reached a full circle, if a particular resident from a particular building bought the artwork of their home,” says Engineer, who is also purveyor (Mumbai and Maharashtra), for India Lost and Found, @indialostandfound, a not for profit, national volunteer campaign, dedicated to heritage conservation across India.

Collaboration is at the heart of Engineer’s work. Without divulging too many details about the book, she says that it will have contributions by various experts. Police historian Deepak Rao will throw light on the Matunga police station. “Since its inception, the police station—formerly known as Kingsway police station—has had the responsibility of protecting and safeguarding the residents of the colony. It’s a parallel story to DPC and it has to be told.”

Kayomi Engineer, who started the Instagram handle @mancherjijoshiparsicolonydadar in 2017 to archive and document her locality, says writing this book has been a 21-year-long dream. Pics/Atul Kamble

Work on the book, however, she says would have been incomplete without the efforts of many city officials, especially local corporator Amey Ghole, who supported this project idea, when Engineer shared it with him four years ago.  “Because DPC is also home to him, he’s the ideal intermediary city official as official liaison, for this locality. We have created a successful working auspice with 211 residents volunteering daily as stakeholders, to look after their resident precinct,” she says. “A lot of city officials are working quietly here in our ward offices, many of whom we don’t even meet or know. The city’s heritage department has been very helpful with data on archives and records.  I literally went to them, as an over-enthused Parsi, saying, ‘Sir, mala hey information payje, mala pustak lihaichi aahe.’ And they said, ‘Yes ma’am, how can we help?” she adds. At the end of the day, her ikigai is conservation. “We have to understand that we are now a significant residential space within a larger megapolis, and for it to be retained in its utopian Alice-in-Wonderland-like environs, the people who live here will have to do something to restore, maintain, preserve and conserve DPC. At a certain stage in my life, when I look back, I want to be able to reminisce gladly that I spent time doing this.”

Artists from Urban Sketchers Mumbai seen attending the sketch walk last Sunday. As part of the collaboration, a few sketches will be included in Engineer’s book. Pics courtesy Zahan Lamba and Urban Sketchers Mumbai

5,000
Approx. number of residents in DPC, 99 per cent of them Zoroastrians

Dr. Zameer Careem, a Sri Lankan historian speaks about the Parsis of Sri Lanka

A photograph taken seven years before her passing says much about the life, times and character of the trailblazing Meherbai Tata

The much-loved wife of Dorabji Tata and daughter in-law of Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata group, Meherbai Tata was a woman of personality. A participant in the ornamental theatrics of being imperial within Empire, one finds her name regularly among the maharajas, nawabs and begums in royal chronicles. And deservedly so.

Meherbai was honoured with the ‘Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ (CBE) in 1916 for her philanthropic efforts in service of the Crown during World War I. She hosted Queen Anne, along with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, at her home. She was India’s first woman Olympic athlete — at the 1924 Paris games, although her name is missing from India’s records — and the first Indian woman to fly in an airplane (in 1912). As founder of the National Council for Women in India, she fought for the ‘modern’ educated Indian woman.

Article by Sneha Vijay Shah | Horizons Tata Trust

is an art historian, curator and arts entrepreneur. She divides her time between London and Mumbai

The Lafayette Studio photograph of Meherbai Tata from 1924 and, commissioned after her death, the painting based on it (Images courtesy: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London (above left), and, Trustees, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai)

In the midst of a global pandemic, with grief and loss surrounding us, the time is perhaps apt to ask the hereafter questions. What becomes of us once we leave this realm? How would we like to be remembered? What happens to our legacy, our life’s work, the impact we make through our time in this world?

Photographs and portraits have long been used as a way to remember our ancestors and loved ones. Such remembering was not as straightforward in Meherbai’s day as it is now. The process of being photographed took far too long for the possibility of candid captures. One would carefully choose a photo studio, attire, props and then strike a calculated pose as the camera registered the image. Photographs images from this period, thus, represent the stories the people posing wanted to tell about themselves, how they hoped to be seen and remembered.

As an art historian, I research how such archived portrait photographs, when interpreted through the lens of art history, can recover ‘lost identities’. In the case of Meherbai, the photographs illuminate the private, the public and the political, as also the life, times, achievements and insecurities of a once dominant woman who belonged to one of the most powerful industrial families of India. The attempt here is to uncover the secrets hidden within Meherbai’s official portrait.

On 27 June, 1924, Lady Meherbai Dorab Tata walked into The Lafayette Studio at 160 New Bond Street, London, for her official photograph, possibly on the occasion of being summoned to court at Buckingham Palace. The studio had built a reputation as portrayers of a rich and powerful empire and had been decreed the title of ‘Photographer Royal’. The warrant was a magnet for the studio’s clientele, among them India’s royals and other eminences. These dignitaries flocked to Lafayette for the explicit purpose of having an ‘official portrait’ made.

‘Court’ attire

Within the black-and-white frame of her glass negative, located in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s archives in London, Meherbai looks ethereal. In the Lafayette archives, translated from plate into printed form, within the transferred image the light changes immediately (see image on page 68). One’s gaze is drawn towards her white gloves — the whitest element of the portrait — the very piece of her outfit that makes it definitive English ‘court’ attire. A gold bangle, with intricate leaf motives, traditional to Indian dressing, sits subtly over her gloves on each hand.

Meherbai appears dressed in a crisply ironed satin-silk sari, the folds still visible around the skirt. The image reveals photography’s ability to capture the unintended. The ironing around her hip gives way to crumpling. She probably arrived at the studio wearing the outfit — no easy task — and she would have had to climb up the three flights of stairs to the top floor studio, where the cumbersome equipment of the photographic trade would have been waiting for her.

A little rosette sits upon Meherbai’s waist, and it pieces together two eclectic elements of her outfit: the Edwardian blouse with a V-neck and her sari. The pallu (loose end of the sari) gracefully drapes her combed bun before flowing in the Parsi-Gujrati style to the front. Meherbai’s attire immediately identifies her as an Indian, somebody with knowledge of western fashions. Her hands come to a close, right hand tucked within her left, as she holds an ostrich feather plume and Indian batwa (purse) within her palms. Her dual allegiance to India and the Crown is evident.

For Meherbai, the ‘national sari’ was almost obsessively a patriotic symbol. She wore it while driving a motorcar or riding a horse, even at tennis tournaments. Furthermore, she was noted to have — in the words of Stanley Reed, then editor of The Times of India “regarded with some impatience the younger members of her community who discarded the traditional costume for Western modes”. In an address delivered at Battle Creek College on November 29, 1927, she stated proudly while drawing attention to her attire: ‘This is the sari, the dress that I wear. The sari was never worn in Persia, but we have modified it a good deal and we wear it a little differently from the Hindu ladies from whom we took the dress”.

By the early 1920s, the sari had emerged in India as a political garment, helped along by Gandhi’s push for women — as “mothers of Indian industry” — to give up foreign consumption and switch to Khadi fabrics. Meherbai’s choice of modified court dress, an amalgamation of the Indian-Gujrati sari draped over an Edwardian-fashioned bodice with a plunging neckline, is intriguing within this political context. It occupies a threshold position, much like her in society, between the English and the Indian.

Meherbai accessorises her outfit with her ‘Jubilee diamond’ pendant necklace, named after Queen Victoria’s centenary anniversary. This is set in a platinum claw and hung on a thin platinum chain, surrounded by a double-chain pearl necklace that extends to her torso. At 245 carats, after being cut and polished, the diamond is twice as large as the Koh-I-Noor, that vexed icon of colonial plunder.

Found in a South African mine in 1895, the Jubilee diamond was acquired by a consortium of London diamond merchants. During the cutting and cleaning process, the consortium realised the brilliance of the diamond and planned for it to be presented to Queen Victoria as a gift on the occasion of her ‘jubilee anniversary’ in 1896. This did not happen for some reason.

The consortium decided to display the diamond at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. It is here, in the centre of much hype and attention, that Meherbai and Dorab Tata ‘shopped’ for it. ‘Shopping’ at the Paris expositions was almost a tradition within the Tata family. In 1878, Jamsetji Tata brought from his trip much that fascinated him, including animals that he kept at his zoo in Navsari and the spun-iron pillars that till today hold up the ballroom of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai.

The Jubilee, which holds the rank of the sixth-largest diamond in the world, was purchased by Meherbai and Dorab for £100,000. Every time the Tatas removed it from their safe deposit vault in London for Meherbai to wear it, they were reportedly ‘fined’ £200 by the insurance company. Posing confidently with the Jubilee, a gift for the queen within this portrait, one cannot help but wonder how the diamond might have been received as part of her garb in court at Buckingham Palace.

Diamond for a cause

The Jubilee was part of the jewellery pledged by Dorab Tata to the Imperial Bank when the Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) was undergoing a crisis in 1924. The diamond was eventually sold following Meherbai’s demise from leukaemia, along with the rest of her jewellery, to set up the Lady Meherbai Tata Trust for cancer research and women’s education.

Coming back to the portrait, upon Meherbai’s lapel, almost camouflaged by the gradient of her sari, is her CBE badge. The award was instituted by George V to reward military and civilian wartime service to the Empire. It was almost a bribe to draw elite members of the colonies to help the imperial war effort. As Parsis with no title of their own, the CBE and other similar honours may have been the only way for them to gain the social clout to match their growing business power.

Unlike many of her female counterparts, Meherbai is careful not to lean on or take the support of any props in her portrait, an authoritative pose that marks her unconventional individuality. Meherbai stages herself as youthful, stands tall and poised, showcasing the grace, dignity and athletic spirit she was bred to embody. She is proud of her figure — Lafayette’s ‘retouchers’ were experts at bringing in waists and correcting arm widths, but Meherbai seems to have excused herself from such services — she is self-aware and confident.

The portrait’s backdrop is painted in a style typical of the period’s fashions, blurred out like the background of a Rembrandt painting. Lafayette’s expert team ensured that Meherbai, even embellished with all her adornments, is the only distinguishable subject. One sees a hint of a frame with a western balcony sneaking through. The only studio prop seen is a stool in the middle ground that partially hides behind Meherbai, its purpose seemingly to ground her within the composition.

The lighting is dramatic and Meherbai’s expression austere. She is well aware of her beauty, a notion that during this period alluded in part to a fair complexion. As Persians, Parsis were not as ‘white’ as Europeans, and not as dark as Indians. They held an in-between position even in this aspect. Meherbai doesn’t have to hide behind her colour. Her complexion is in fashion.

The Tatas were certainly proud of Meherbai’s portrait. It is the one the family chose to convert into an oil painting, upon her death, to immortalise her memory (see image on page 68). Queen Victoria’s court painter, John Lavery, was employed for the commission. Curiously, Meherbai’s batwa is missing from the painting’s composition.

Within the portrait, colour is brought to Meherbai’s skin and garb. She materialises as a manifestation of Reed’s description of her: “Above medium height, clear cut, and clear-eyed, with that flush through the faintly tinted olive skin…”

Sneha Vijay Shah is an art historian, curator and arts entrepreneur. She divides her time between London and Mumbai

Our dear friend Rusi Sorabji writes….

I attach something I wrote about friend, ASPI Engineer*, the 17 years old should go down in the annals of World Aviation better than the likes of Alcock & Brown, Charles Lindbergh, Emelia Earhart, Amy Johnson and to correct the continuous mis-information that is floating around that it was Man Mohan Singh that came first in the Aga Khan Race.

Even as late as last year I saw an article in the Indian press stating Singh came first, but do not find anybody from India refuting that false claim.

I wonder if you’d be interested to carry Aspy’s story  below on the anniversary of his prize winning and history making flight, landing in Karachi on May 11^th 1930. Let me know.

Some pictures and proof that Aspy won copy of cheque in the name of the winner and covering letter follow in a separately.

Best wishes

Rusi Sorabji.

NB: * the First Parsi Air Marshall of the Indian Air Force, and the Second Indian to hold that post and take the Airforce into the Jet Age.

Ninety-one years ago, on May 11^th 1930 a Zoroastrian youngster just 17 years of age achieved a historical landmark

in the annals of AVIATION when he won the “Aga Khan Race” flying solo across three continents from London, U.K. to Karachi, India in an open cockpit World War I era fabric covered biplane.  Few of the Parsi community in Sub-continent remember this very young man exploits and the great later in life achievements.

The young lad was named…Aspy Meherwan Irani, but later changed to Engineer – this is his story, a tribute his magnificent obsession with the flying machine.

The Aga Khan Race 1930, was first historical landmark in the annals of Aviation achieved both civil and military in the Sub-Continent -.

Growing up in Delhi in the 1930s, (before the advent, at least in our house, of telephones, radio, TV or cable) the main source of “news” about international events available was, what the parents at the dining table passed on during ‘after dinner talk’. While there was a lot happening elsewhere, it was an era of the airplane and all about flying.

The first flight by man in a flying machine had taken place just 25 years ago and early aviators like, Alcock & Brown, Charles Lindbergh, Emelia Earhart, Amy Johnson were hitting the newspaper headlines on a regular basis with their daring feats. In May 1930, our 17year old hero, Aspy Engineer, also hit the headlines by flying solo from England to Karachi and winning the Aga Khan’s prize. My dad Ruttonshaw and Aspy’s father Meherwan Irani, both worked for the North Western Railway in Karachi.

Dad was so thrilled at the teenager’s achievement and later daring exploits, that we got larger and larger serving of it in the after-dinner stories. Aspy when seven years old, one fine day was fascinated by seeing an aircraft land in the Race Course grounds right opposite his father’s railway bungalow in Hyderabad, Sind. It happened to be the famous English aviators, Alcock & Brown, who made an emergency landing. It was love at first sight for the seven year old and the beginning of a life-long love affair with flying machines, and flying as a profession.

In his unfinished memoir he states “I dreamt nothing else thereafter but aircraft landing on the roof-top of our spacious bungalow.” This dream later carried on through the Billimoria Parsi School years, from where he matriculated. But then having seen the table land plateau above the school in Panchgani, the dream was “of landing on the Panchgani table-mountain’s flat top …”.

Aspy Engineer with his Farhovar   De Haviland Gypsy Moth.

In 1929 Meherwan’ s present for his eldest son’s 17th birthday was a second-hand DE Havilland, Gypsy Moth, bi-plane, which at the time was the most popular aircraft with the Aero Clubs, the Royalty and the High Society in Britain. It was a two seater, open cock-pit, 30ft wing span, wood and fabric structured aircraft with a four cylinder100 hp engine. After quickly obtaining his license from the Karachi Aero Club and flight training of less than three months, Aspy with his friend R N Chawla took off for England on 3rd March 1930 to participate in the Aga Khan Cup, with a Farhovar painted on his aircraft and registered as VT.AAZ.

To popularize and promote aviation in India, His Excellency the Aga Khan had offered a handsome cash prize of Pound Sterling five hundred, for the first Indian to fly solo between the two countries England and India. The flight could be in any direction, from India to England, or in the opposite direction, but it was to be completed within 30 days. It is difficult to comprehend that in less than three months of owning a plane, obtaining a license to fly, the boys were undertaking a flight of 5,000 miles. It was like shooting for the impossible, considering a major portion of the flight was over deserts with little known air strips, scant refueling facilities and involving sea crossings. Besides, it was being undertaken at a time when Radio Communications or Air Traffic Control were unheard off. Under the circumstances, one can have nothing but admiration for the pluck of this teenager and a determined pilot. But, Aspy also firmly believed in his mothers’ dream that he’d come back a winner of the race.

In his excitement to get off to London he did not carry maps or directions beyond Egypt, hoping to collect them in Cairo, which then was an established airport. To make matters more difficult, the Gypsy Moth was a light airplane with rudimentary instrumentation and no communication equipment. The pilot in the open cock-pit was to be on his own, keeping visual topographical contact through unknown skies and under bad weather conditions. Something impossible to do so during sand storms that were common during the time of the year, along the Middle-Eastern countries and the North African coast.

As Aspy writes “we had to sort of smell our way about”.

A better portion of the flight was over nomadic road-less deserts infested with raiding Bedouins. When they crash landed in the desert, one night near Homs in Tunisia and Chawla had walked to town in search of fuel, Aspy actually had a close encounter with a horde of Tunisian bandits.

Runways were no more than flat strips of ground swept clean of rocks, with no proper fuel sources “we were our own navigators, mechanics, refueling staff and what have you, rolled into one. Availability of water, fuel, food or a cup of tea presented quite a problem in many places” until they reached the British air bases at Basra, Bagdad and Amman, wrote Aspy.

With three forced landings and much luck, they made their way across North Africa, Malta, Italy to north of France in 17 days. They missed Paris and landed near the Belgium border. Then misunderstanding the French instruction, they were lost over the North Sea in cold heavy rains. As their fuel was running low and head wind reducing their speed considerably, Aspy spotted a tramp steamer and was able to get directions in ‘sign language’ as they flew low around it. Correcting their course in the direction their unknown benefactor had indicated, they finally struck land in the evening and force landing on a farm. Later they discovered they were in the village of Thetford in Norfolk, quite some distance north from their destination, London. They were met by a very angry farmer, who turned very co-operative once he heard their unbelievable story and taking pity ontheir bedraggled, frozen conditions and their youth, invited them to his house. And just as they were enjoying the “roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a large tankard of brown ale”, the pressmen arrived to join in the dinner and collect their story. It seems the farmer had phoned Croydon of the arrival of the boys from India and invited the press assembled there for a quick dinner.

Next morning 21st of March 1930 they flew into Croydon at 11am where the Mayor of London and the English press awaited them with garlands.

These were the first Asians or Indians ever to fly from India or the East to England. Two high spirited boys, one 17 and the other not much older. Unlike their American or British contemporaries they had no sponsors, they were on their own helped and financed by Aspy’s father, Meherwan Irani.

Picture of Ram Nath Chawla and Aspy Engineer ( garlanded ) on arrival at Croydon, London, England on 21 March 1930 for the Aga Khan Race.

After the plane was serviced by the manufacturers DeHavilland, Aspy participated in the Aga Khan Race, setting off for Karachi one fine morning on the 25^th of April 1930. With meticulous planning and preparation, his flight was uneventful throughout, except that he experienced engine trouble at Benghazi, so did Manmohan Singh. However Aspy with his engineering skills was able to get going to Alexandria, where he met the other Zoroastrian participant in the Race JRD Tata heading for England from  Bombay. When Aspy informed JRD of his engine and spark plug problem, JRD offered him a spare set of spark plugs. In return Aspy gave JRD his life belt for the sea-crossing. This saved Aspy several days of waiting at Alexandria for plugs. He later faced severe sandstorms on his flight between Basra and Bagdad, but was able to hop into Karachi at 4:10 pm on the afternoon of 11th May 1930.

Next day the Royal Aero Club, London, cabled, confirming Aspy as the winner. JRD Tata’s flight to England clocked 20 hours over Aspy’s time.

Though Manmohan Singh landed in Karachi earlier than Aspy, he was disqualified as his flight that started in January took much more than the specified 30 days.

Of the three Indians who took part in the Aga Khan Race two were Parsis, Aspy Engineer, 17 yrs from Karachi, and Jehangir R D Tata, 26 yrs. from Bombay, heir to an industrial empire. The third man Mohan Singh, 24yrs was from Rawalpindi, a qualified flyer and an aeronautical engineer, but had bad luck, crashes and injury on his flights from England. The first of his three attempts to fly to India was on 11th January,1930. All the three flew Gypsy Moths.

Aspy’s heroic and record setting flight thrilled people throughout India, but the public celebrations, awards or ticker parades, that greeted his more senior and well financed US contemporaries like, Charles Lindberg, Amelia Earhart on achieving similar feats, were missing. Whereas the US President Calvin Coolidge awarded Lindbergh the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his flight to Europe from America, there was nothing like that in store for Aspy from the Government. The BVS school band, known as the Cowasjee Variawa’s Own, played as he landed. The large crowd that had gathered cheered him. He was garlanded by the Mayor of the Karachi, Jamshed Nusserwanji, congratulated by the Chairman of the Karachi Aero Club and by the President and Secretary of the Karachi Parsi Anjuman.

Next day The Royal Aero Club, London, cabled confirming Aspy as the winner. The Karachi Parsi Institute’s President, Khan Bahadur Kavasji H Katrak held a dinner celebration on the Institutes spacious grounds to congratulate the young boy for this outstanding achievement. At the reception in Karachi, a reporter asked about what he saw in his future. The young man replied, “I would love the chance to serve my country in the Air Force”.

A wish that soon came true.

The Legislative Council of India awarded Aspy Engineer a special prize of Rs10,000.

Sir Frederick Sykes the Governor of Bombay State which then included Karachi, upon learning that Aspy was the winner wanted to honour him with a suitable public reception in Bombay.

Taking off for Bombay, much against the wishes of his mother, Aspy was injured when he crash landed at Bhuj and could not make it to Bombay. Instead, upon recovering he flew in to Panchgani and landed on the rough Table Land plateau, his old School’s playing field, fulfilling a dream and keeping the promise he made to the boys at school and his Principal before he matriculated.

Late Mr. K.T. Satarawalla of Delhi, then a student at the school, remembers how the whole school and the people of Panchgani had gathered to welcome Aspy and how the Governor of Bombay visited the school to present a ‘Big Cup’. This was in addition of being honoured and facilitated by the Principal of the School. Aspy’s son Cyrus Engineer, tells me he has the movie that was taken of the presentation. The very next year Aspy joined the Royal Indian Air Force and was selected for training at the RAF College at Cranwell, England (3^rdSeptember 1931 to 14^th July 1933).

As the lone Indian in his batch,“Graduating from Cranwell, I won the Groves Memorial Prize for being the best all at Cranwell.” wrote Aspy in his unfinished memoir. He stood first in the Army Cooperative course at Old Sarium. He also won a Caterpillar Badge (with ruby eyes) when he had to bail out from a burning aircraft during aerobatics.

Life in the RIAF

On commissioning from Cranwell, he joined the “A” Flight of No 1 Squadron, of the two squadron Royal Indian Air Force. He was first posted at Drigh Road,Karachi and later to the North Western Frontier Provinces as a flight commander.

“The main equipment of the RIAF, eg. the aircraft we flew were really antiquated. The Westland Wapiti was an ungainly biplane and carried a pilot and rear gunner in open cockpits. We had none of the airbrakes, flaps or even wheel brakes. No R/T communication”, wrote Aspy.

In 1939 Aspy Engineer’s “A” Flight executed 403 hours of relentless operations bombing and strafing Waziristan’s restive tribes.

Once according to my father Ruttonsha, Aspy returned from a sortie with more than a dozen tribal bullet holes in his fabric and wood Westland Wapitis fighter. Waziristan was as dangerous then, as it is now. Kohat and Miranshah were at that time under the domain of the Faqir of Ipi, with sharp shooters carrying long barreled home-made guns, who could shoot at night from the surrounding hills with only the burning end of a cigarette as their target.

Aspy was continuously mentioned in dispatches for bravery in action and in 1942 became the first ‘native officer of the RIAF’ to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for action in the NWFP. Soon he became the Officer Commanding Kohat. He also briefly saw action in Burma against the Japanese before being posted back to the NWFP. Later towards the end of WWII he gained the rank of Wing Commander.

The start of World War II necessitated the expansion of the RIAF. This found FLt Lt Aspy Engineer on various selection committees. And this is what young Hoshang Patel of Nargol had to say about his meeting Aspy at the job interview. Good conversational English was a prerequisite for joining the RIAF as an Officer. Since Patel was poor in English he was told he may not get in as an Officer.

Without much deliberation Patel asked, if he could join in as an Airman. Flt Lt Engineer who was on the interview board, dissuaded him from joining as an airman saying, “Hoshang, don’t join the ranks, Parsi boys from Bombay can’t take the tough life there”.

Meanwhile a skinny Malayali Corporal came to Aspy for some signatures or something. After the Corporal left, Patel asked, “who is that man?” he was told he is a Corporal in the RIAF. So Patel asked the selectors, “will you ask him to wrestle with me, run 100 yards or a mile race with me? I will beat him in all, and I mean it!” 

“So you still insist on joining?” asked Aspy. Patel agreed. “You promise never to blame me?

Because all the Parsi boys who have signed up are blaming me, saying that I promised them heaven”, said Aspy.

Patel who joined the RIAF in the ranks,retired as Wing Commander Hoshang Patel. During my conversation with Wing Cdr Hosang Patel (then 88) in Bombay, in November 2010, slip-of-the-tongue I addressed him as ‘Squadron Leader’. Pat came the loud rejoinder, as if from a senior Englishman, “Wing Commander, to you Sir!”

At the time of Partition and the bifurcation of the old RIAF into IAF and the Pakistani half, found Group Captain Aspy Engineer and his Partition Committee for seconding RAF Officers and Senior NCO’s to staff the Indian Air Force during its early days, the Chairman after a deep breath said, “Engineer, I suggest you go take a cold shower and come back. This is a serious matter and I give you three months before the IAF collapses and then you’ll ask for a larger number of RAF NCO’s”.

Engineer’s response was, “Sir as a matter of fact I had to have a cold shower this morning as the heaters had packed up.”

Both Mukerjee and Engineer were convinced it was the right decision, as IAF had to be Indianised so as to be able to stand on its own feet.

Rapid expansion of the IAF began in 1947 and rapidly became an all-jet Air Force that gave a good account of itself in the war that soon followed over Kashmir. Before long, he was promoted as Air Commodore and given command of No1 Operational Group. Later he took charge of Personnel & Administration at Air Headquarters. During the 1950’s the IAF deputed Aspy on a one year course at the Imperial Defence College, London. On his return he was assigned to various posts and led several missions abroad meeting with heads of States and arranging for the training of pilots and technicians of countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time overseeing the expansion of the IAF to a 64 Squadron force.

When the Hindustan Aircraft Ltd factory was experiencing serious labour trouble, Aspy was appointed its Managing Director (1958-1960). Before long the labour problems were resolved and the factory gainfully embarked on several new projects including the construction of a new engine factory. It was during his short tenure that HAL did pioneering ground work in the development and production of the first jet trainer and the designing of the first indigenous jet fighter. On 1st December 1960, upon the sudden demise of Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee,Aspy assumed the office of the Chief of Air Staff, Indian Air Force.

Twenty-seven years after commissioning from Cranwell, Aspy Engineer was heading the Air Force of the most populous nation of the Free World. During his tenure as Chief of Air Staff, the Indian Air Force saw action in Goa, and a detachment of Canberra bombers were sent to the Congo where they took part in action against the Katangese.

Aspy the engineer, though he was the Chief of Air Staff took keen personal interest with engineering and modifying the two engine propeller driven C-119 Packet aircraft, by adding a jet engine innovatively mounted on the top of the fuselage. This was to make the C-119 operate from short runways at higher altitude. Air strips carved out of mountains at heights never before heard off anywhere in the world. It was indeed a feather in the IAF cap, when for the first time in the annals of aviation, on 23rd July 1962, a C-119 landed and took-off from an airstrip at 17,000 feet. This created lines of supply for the brave soldiers guarding the country’s frontiers along the very high Himalayan border.

In the 1962 sneak Chinese invasion of India, IAF was unable to provide air support to the brave Indian soldiers at the borders, as the Government did not allow the IAF to deploy combat formations against the Chinese invaders. After the war, Aspy Engineer was responsible in overseeing the expansion of the IAF. Besides setting up new training facilities and infrastructure, this period also saw the induction of the first supersonic fighter, the MIG 21, and the augmentation of the transport and helicopter fleet.

He retired on 31st July 1964. But, that was not the end of the love affair with flying that started when he was seven. He continued to see his younger siblings who were influenced by his remarkable attainments, make history in trying to almost out-perform him.This was one unique family of four gallant aviators and two outstanding musketeers.

More of that at some later date.

Three DFCs in a family? I doubt one can find another example. The DFCs were awarded to Aspy for action in the NWFP, Minoo and Rohinton Engineer for action against the Japanese in Burma in WWII. Nor of two brothers as Air Marshalls, Aspy and younger brother Minoo; one a pioneer and the other the most highly decorated officer for gallantry in the Indian Air Force or in the Indian Armed Forces. After retirement from the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal Engineer served as India’s ambassador to Iran.

In 1990 or so he settled down in Southern California and was a founder member in establishing the California Zoroastrian Center, in Westminster. Later he returned to Bombay where he died on 1st May 2002. The 1930 Aga Khan Cup Race became the first historical landmark in the annals of Indian Aviation, both Civil & Military. The two Zoroastrian Aviators who were the only ones who successfully completed the Race,were later to become the main builders of the Indian Aviation, Aspy the Architect of the Indian Air Force and JRD Tata the Architect & Builder of Civil Aviation in India, starting with the Tata Airlines and then Air India International, what used to be a world class airline, the pride of India.

“Should we forget such an achievement and example set by Aspy for our young?” asked K.T.Satarawala.

The pride of being a Zoroastrian is something that is passed on by parent to child, a parent whose intention is to convey what was the best and most noble in their heritage. As each generation of Zoroastrians dissolve further into the global melting pot, it becomes more urgent and necessary to record and recognize the talents and contributions of our forebears. I feel it is essential for individuals with Zoroastrian background to recognize the contributions of their ancestors and to pass on a sense of Zoroastrian pride to their children and grand-children. My parents did it. I did it, now I leave it to you.

RUSI RUTTONSHA SORABJI.

Acknowledgement: My thanks go to each one, without whose assistance this story would not have been complete:-

Mrs Farida Singh, daughter of Jehangir Engineer

Cyrus Aspy Engineer, for providing pictures,

newspaper cuttings and his father’s story

Bharat-rakshak Samir Chopra

Air Commodore Minoo P. Vania. S.Chakar.& VSM.

Late Air Commodore Minoo Mehta

Late Wing Commander H Patel

Late Sam Pedder, RIAF & Air India

Mehli R Bandrawalla, Indian Air Lines & UN

Statute of Aspy Engineer at Croydon Museum.  In honour of his winning the Aga Khan Race. Last seen there by his family about 1990 as also noted on the picture by his family.

You might note he is wearing the leather coat he bought in Cairo.

A picture showing the primitive instrumentation and a joy stick for flight control that was available in 1942, on an almost similar,  but 20 year later, more advanced model of a two-seater open cockpit, fabric covered bi-plane. Which had brakes on its wheels. Aspy’s plane did not.  The all-important FUEL GUAGE of the old planes were not in the cock-pit that the pilot could keep an eye on. It was outside some 5 feet away, sometimes hanging from the wing downwards, as may be seen in the next picture almost touching my left elbow.

Golden Gate Bridge on the right, rain clouds straight ahead as we approach San Francisco and no umbrellas. There was bright sunshine when we took-off.

That is me getting into the plane flying over the California coast and American Wine country trying to find out what it was like flying like our “hero” in an open cockpit in an almost 70 years old plane, with a 16 inches glass wind screen as the only  frontal protection from the 125m.p.h. wind blast hitting your face. It jolted the tele-lens of my tightly gripped camera to its fullest extent, when I tried taking pictures

Who do you think you are? The esteemed Indian ancestor no one in my white British family knew about

Image: Ardaseer Cursetjee, the first South Asian Fellow of the Royal Society, has been awarded a blue plaque from English Heritage

Today, a blue plaque will be unveiled on a west London house to a man they describe as “the first modern engineer of India”.

The plaque is part of a series in which English Heritage has set about trying to promote the under-recognised historical contribution to Britain of people from diverse communities – by marking the houses where they have lived, as hundreds of white historical figures have already been.

Article by Philip Whiteside | Sky News

Others in the series who also now have blue plaques include Reggae legend Bob Marley, Noor Inayat Khan, a wartime special operations agent, Ottabah Cugoano, an author and anti-slavery campaigner, and the physicist Abdus Salam.

It is a special moment for me because Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia – the latest person from a diverse community to get a plaque – was my great-great-great grandfather.

It is also particularly poignant because he is an ancestor who, until 12 years ago, no one in my family – one we thought was entirely British – knew about.

Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia now has a plaque in his honour because he was the first South Asian to be elected to the Royal Society, Britain’s oldest national scientific institution, and was subsequently the first Indian to be placed in charge of British workers in the East India Company, where he was chief engineer.

Born in 1808 into an already successful family called the Wadias, who built ships for the East India Company (EIC) in Bombay, he quickly fostered an interest in the latest scientific developments.

He was the first to use gas lighting in Bombay when he illuminated his house and garden and showed it off to the then provincial governor, the Earl of Clare.

But he was also fascinated by steam power and installed engines of his own design in his family’s ships, at a time when there were very few in use outside of Europe, and pioneered the use of steam to pump water for agriculture in India.

Image: The HSC Semiramis, a steam ship of the type that Ardaseer Cursetjee would have maintained in India. Pic: Philip Whiteside, from The Bombay Dockyard and the Wadia Master Builders, RA Wadia

Steam was the cutting edge of technology at the time and perhaps equivalent to the highest-performance electric vehicle engines, or clean-burning jet engines, of today.

The EIC spotted his talents and in 1839 he was sent to the UK for the first time to improve his knowledge.

Although relatively unknown until recently, his travels to and around early-Victorian Great Britain are actually well-documented as he wrote a diary that was published.

He travelled from Bombay, as everyone did at the time, by ship to Egypt, then, overland via Cairo to Alexandria, then through the Mediterranean to London where he rented a house in Poplar, east London.

While in England, he was presented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at a private reception ceremony in St James’s Palace and gave evidence to a parliamentary select committee, which included William Gladstone and Sir Robert Peel.

Image: Queen Victoria

And it was around this time, because of his prior achievements, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) – the hallowed bastion of scientific progress which had been viewed as the nation’s principal arena for invention and understanding since the 17th century.

Ardaseer attended Royal Society meetings many times, along with the meetings of numerous other scientific organisations, mixing freely with the great and the good of the day.

When he returned to Bombay, he was appointed the chief inspector of machinery (i.e. the head) of the Bombay Steam Factory, responsible for maintaining all the steamship operations at the time for the EIC and later the Indian Navy.

It meant he was in charge of up to 700 men, including “many English” and “a great many” other Europeans. His only superior, by his own account, was the commander-in-chief of the Indian Navy – something unheard of at that time.

I had no idea about any of this until my mother – who had been carrying out family research of the type made popular by the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? – emailed me in 2009 and told me she had found an ancestor with an unusual name.

Image: The marriage certificate that identified Ardaseer Cursetjee as part of Philip Whiteside’s family

The man was listed on a marriage record my mother had found as the father of my great-great-grandmother and a quick Google search found details about him on the Royal Society website.

It was something of a surprise – an entirely pleasant one. But, until that point – as I still do – I had answered every question on racial identity on job applications or census returns as “White British”, assuming I had no other ancestry in the family.

It posed a huge list of questions – how could we be descended from not just an Indian, but someone who was relatively esteemed in their day, and not know about it?

In 2012, I decided during a career break to go to India to find out about it, travelling overland as Ardaseer had done, to try to answer those questions.

As it turned out, a distant relative had already been working on getting some answers for some time and was able to fill me in.

Image: The Royal Society headquarters in Carlton House Terrace, St James’s, central London. Pic: Philip Whiteside

The relative, Blair Southerden, found out that Ardaseer was married in India before he left for England in 1839, with Indian children, and lived in Bombay, apparently quite contentedly, for some ten years after returning in 1841.

But in 1851 he returned to England, by his own account on sick leave, bringing with him his son. The exact chronology of where he went during this trip is not fully clear but it is known he crossed the Atlantic to visit Boston, Massachusetts, possibly being among the earliest Indians to do so.

But what was most unclear was how he might have met my great-great-great grandmother, a woman listed in most records as Marian Barber, whose parents lived in Mile End, east London.

Image: Philip Whiteside, on the Italy-Greece leg of his own journey following in the footsteps of his ancestor Ardaseer Cursetjee in 2012

Her family were far from wealthy and most definitely did not move in the same circles as Ardaseer – her father was a messenger in the customs service and they appeared thoroughly working class.

What Blair had managed to find out, and later had published in the journal Genealogist, was that Marian and Ardaseer had three children, the first in late 1853, called Lowjee Annie – partially after the founder of the Wadia dynasty Lowjee Nusserwanjee – the second in 1856, and the third, my great-great-grandmother Florence, in 1859.

What was also intriguing was that the first two children were born in Bombay and Florence was born near to the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.

Blair had been told that Ardaseer returned to Bombay in February 1853, apparently taking with him, according to one historian, equipment for wood cutting. After the trip, he is also said to have introduced photography and electroplating to Bombay.

Image: Bombay’s wharf, where people arriving from the UK would disembark. Pic: Philip Whiteside, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, India

The best theory as to how Marian could have crossed paths with Ardaseer and formed such a close relationship was that she may have been his nurse, as he had some ailments at the time, or had met him on one of the voyages to or from London.

Despite two weeks in Mumbai (previously Bombay), I was unable to shed any light on how they met, but I carried on researching when I got home.

At the time, large amounts of printed documents and newspapers were being digitised, which was making historical research available to amateurs like myself.

Eventually I found a series of entries in journals of the time that showed he had stayed in England longer than we had previously thought and would have been in London around the time when Ardaseer and Marian’s first child was conceived.

Among them was another pair of Hansard records that showed him giving evidence to both House of Lords and Commons select committees in March 1853, to panels of Lords and MPs including Benjamin Disraeli.

Image: Ships being constructed in the Bombay Dockyards in the 19th century. Pic: Philip Whiteside, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, India

The records I found showed it was his servants that returned home in February 1853. Perhaps he had stayed on to give evidence to parliament, leaving him without anyone to help at home.

The most logical conclusion to me was that Marian, as a local working class woman – who we had been completely unable to locate on any censuses up until that point – must have had sought employment, perhaps as a housemaid, and ended up being taken on by Ardaseer until he left the UK.

It’s speculation but the rest, as they say, is history – or at least family history.

Marian somehow moved to Bombay and they clearly continued their relationship – how secretly we shall never know. How difficult she found it we will also never know, but if she was kept secret it must have been extremely isolating for her – bringing up two children in the back-streets of Bombay, unable to integrate with the rest of society.

Image: Bombay’s harbour during the period of control by the East India Company. Pic: Philip Whiteside, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, India

She returned to London in 1859 and, it appears, Ardaseer did too, around the same time.

It could have been an unhappy story; so many stories from that time feature men who abandon women who they have relationships with.

Thankfully, this one was not.

Despite having an Indian family – including several children who went on to found successful businesses in Bombay and grow very rich – he set up home in London, appearing on the census several times after that with Marian and their children. Periodically, it appears he returned to Bombay, possibly for work, but probably to see his Indian family.

His last location was in Richmond, at the house he also named after his dynasty’s founder.

Thanks to Blair, who put forward Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia’s name to English Heritage, that house – at 55 Sheen Road, Richmond upon Thames – had the plaque installed on Tuesday that showed he made it the home that concluded his British legacy.

Image: The blue plaque to Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia, on the house at 55 Sheen Road, Richmond, London

Ardaseer died in 1877, leaving a will acknowledging Marian’s children as his own and was buried in Brookwood cemetery, Surrey.

Whether his other, British, family and departure for England had an impact on his legacy in India is hard to determine.

He was commemorated in 1969 in India with a stamp but at the time I started my research was not widely known as the first Indian FRS, with some in India writing on blogs they believed a mathematician called Srinivasa Ramanujan held that honour.

Image: Ardaseer Cursetjee, featuring on an Indian stamp from 1969. Pic courtesy Blair Southerden

His Indian direct descendants are the Wadia dynasty, some of whom head up a firm worth billions of dollars. Today, they are on India’s rich list.

It’s perhaps less hard to fathom why Ardaseer’s name remained unknown to my family. As well as my immediate relatives, Ardaseer has dozens of other descendants living in the UK.

While it is difficult to accept there may have been racism in anyone’s family in the past, it undoubtedly existed widely at that time. But, even if it was not buried because of racism, Ardaseer’s daughter Florence later suffered a mental illness that led to her being institutionalised in an asylum – something that could have been influenced by attitudes to people of dual heritage at the time. Consequently, hidden from society until her death many years later, she became forgotten, or at least unspoken about.

Image: Lowjee Nusserwanjee Wadia, the founder of the Wadia dynasty, Pic: Philip Whiteside, courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, India

But, besides the story of Ardaseer’s family being a fascinating insight into the past, his getting a plaque is doubly satisfying because it underlines the achievements of a man who has been long overlooked.

English Heritage’s Dr Rebecca Preston, who carried out the research confirming the location of his house, says he was remarkably pioneering for his day.

She told Sky News: “He was very clever, very passionate, and although he trained to be a marine architect, it was steam that really drove him. Obviously, he’s most associated now with applying steam to ships.

“He also used steam engines for agricultural purposes in India but the advancement of steam-powered navigation is his key legacy. But his interests spread, and he introduced gaslight, electroplating, photography and various other new technologies to India.”

Image: The grave of Ardaseer Cursetjee at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Pic: Philip Whiteside

“He’s at the forefront of advancing science and engineering in modern India, I think.”

What his and my story may also hint at is how many other people may have ancestors in their lineage that may surprise them.

Dr Preston adds: “The very fact of (Britain) having an empire and it being a seafaring nation meant that it was possible for people to mix with people from other places (and there may, as a result, be many of mixed heritage).”

“As to how many, I couldn’t say, but I’m sure this must be the case, going back hundreds of years.”

Part of the reason for English Heritage’s call for more figures from diverse communities to be nominated for plaques is to recognise how many in the past played significant roles and were present in British life, even if this has been hidden from history or they are overlooked today.

Dr Preston added: “We rely on the public to nominate notable individuals for a blue plaques, we don’t do the nominating.

“So hopefully, as more are suggested, we’ll be seeing more people of colour, of mixed heritage being recognised with a plaque on buildings in London where they lived or worked.”

Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia (1808-1877), a pioneering naval engineer and former member of the Society has recently been awarded an English Heritage London blue plaque marking the 180^th anniversary of being the first South Asian to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. The plaque will be placed at 55 Sheen Road in Richmond where he spent the last 10 years of his life with his British family. Ardaseer died there on the 16^th November 1877, aged 69.

Article by Emma Jones | Royal Asiatic Society

Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia (1808-1877). Image courtesy of Blair Southerdern. Copyright: 2021 East India Company at Home 1757-1857 https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/ships-steam-and-innovation-case-study/ships-steam-and-innovation-an-indian-shipbuilding-dynasty/

Ardaseer Cursetjee was the son of Cursetjee Rustomjee of the wealthy Wadia family of shipbuilders and naval architects. He was particularly interested in the application of steam power for maritime use. However, his fascination with technology was not just confined to shipbuilding as he is also credited with the introduction of photography and sewing machines to Bombay.

In 1837, Ardaseer was elected a non-resident member of the Royal Asiatic Society and in 1839, at the age of 31, he travelled to England to further his studies of marine steam power on behalf of the East India Company. His journey is described in The Diary of an Overland Journey from Bombay to England, which was published in London in 1840. On arrival in London, he worked with John and Samuel Seaward who were early advocates of auxiliary steam power on ships. He was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, gave evidence on the ‘opium question’ in the House of Commons, and was presented to Queen Victoria. On 27th May 1841, Ardaseer was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The nomination, made by Spencer Compton, Marquess of Northampton, the then President of the Royal Society, describes him as a “gentleman well-versed in the theory and practice of naval architecture and devoted to scientific pursuits.” He remained Chief Engineer at the Bombay Docks until 1 August 1857, when he retired and returned to England where he lived until his death.

The Society holds portraits of Ardaseer’s great-uncle, Jamsetjee Bomanjee (1756-1821) and uncle, Nourojee Jamsetjee Wadia (1774-1860) who were also master shipbuilders. The portraits are currently on long loan to the Museum of London but can be viewed in the Society’s Digital Library.

RAS 01.007-01.008 Jamsetjee Bomanjee (1756-1821) and his son, Nourojee Jamsetjee (1774-1860), Parsi master shipbuilders. Both figures wear shawls that were customarily presented by representatives of the East India Company on the launch of a new ship.

More information about Ardaseer and his family can be read in the following blog post: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/ships-steam-and-innovation-case-study/ships-steam-and-innovation-an-indian-shipbuilding-dynasty/ To find out more about the blue plaque scheme please visit  www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques

Blue plaque at 55 Sheen Road in Richmond. Copyright: English Heritage

Opium, Silk and the Missionaries in China Exhibition:

On Monday (17^th May), staff from the Society were invited to a preview of an exhibition at the SOAS Brunei Gallery entitled ‘Opium, Silk and the Missionaries in China’.

Exhibition Poster

The exhibition draws on several collections using objects and artefacts to examine the history of the Opium Wars, silk production and missionary work in China.

On display is a letter dated the 24^th May 1836, from the British merchant, Thomas Weeding to Captain Harkness, Secretary of the RAS.  He offers to donate ‘The Grand Chop’ ( the Chinese customs’ clearance document ) of The Sarah, the first independent commercial ship to dock in London from Canton after the East India Company had lost its trade monopoly.

Thomas Weeding letter: GB 891 RAS COLL3/2/2/8 The catalogue entry for this letter can be found here:

The Society’s Librarian Edward Weech with the Curator of the exhibition, Iris Yau.

The exhibition is now open to the public and visitors will need to pre-book their ticket by visiting this page. The exhibition will run until the 26^th June 2021 and will be open Tuesday-Saturday (11am-5pm).

Inflatable pools, barbecues, open backyards…this is how architect Rooshad Shroff recalls the better part of his childhood spent with his parents in the Dadar Parsi colony. With the endless lockdowns, he realises how deeply he misses this oasis of bliss in the heart of Mumbai. “I certainly took the greenery for granted. You simply can’t beat it. There are almost fifteen beautiful gardens organically woven into the layout of the colony,” says Shroff.

Article by Arman Khan | architecturaldigest.in

The colony was established in the wake of the bubonic plague in the early 1920s which had also ravaged countless lives in Mumbai. The British were then compelled to expand the city limits to demarcate open, hygienic living spaces in the Dadar-Matunga area. And Mancherji Edulji Joshi’s tireless efforts to have more than a hundred plots dedicated to middle-class Parsis paid off. “This is the only master plan colony in Mumbai designed around sustainable community ideals and we owe a huge debt to Mancherji,” says Jimmy Mistry, CMD Della group. Mistry moved to the colony in the early 90s and he recalls how the civic tenets that the cities of India aspire towards now, were always respected in the colony. “Even in the 90s this was a hawker-free zone, the roads had to be compulsorily clean, and segregation of wet and dry waste was the norm,” he recalls. For Shroff, playing volleyball with his brother in one of the gardens of the colony is a memory he still holds close to his heart. He notes how the design of the colony is humbling because most of the houses, particularly the original ones, are hardly more than two or three storeys. “It is a nurturing space,” says the AD100 architect. “Whenever you are there, you will always feel like you are stuck in a time capsule and for all the right reasons. We never had traffic jams, incessant honking, or any of the other nuisances you would associate with a sprawling metropolis like Mumbai.”

The moment you enter the colony, its wide roads greet you. The canopy of the trees leave no more than a square foot of land exposed to sunlight and, life just seems to have slowed down for the better. I meet Kayomi Engineer in the Rustom Tirandaz park, barely a stone’s throw away from the colony’s famous Five Gardens area. She’d recently worked to identify restoration projects for the non-profit Kala Ghoda Association and is now working on her two-decade-long dream project of documenting the life and magic of the colony for her upcoming book. “The need for conservation of these places has gone through a different mindset post-Covid-19. It is no longer about conserving some old and pretty buildings. The colony is the largest living Zoroastrian enclave of Persians anywhere on the planet—this is one of the main things I am going to use to appeal to UNESCO—because this is what makes us unique,” explains Engineer. She also manages the only Instagram page dedicated to highlighting the beauty of the colony through vivid pictures @mancherjijoshiparsicolonydadar. Although the space has always been preserved because of the consistent efforts of people like Engineer, she believes that particularly since the past three years the colony hasn’t looked prettier—all thanks to the conscious efforts of the community with cooperation from the city administration.

“History has certainly moulded us and brought us to where we are, but history can only do so much,” she says. “There is now a greater need for preservation of such living spaces.” Engineer credits the architectural robustness of the buildings as they were originally planned and constructed for this longevity too. “The inherent sturdiness definitely helps; although, for a while, people had forgotten our architectural beauty. It’s like walking into a place that had slowly begun to resemble a ruin and then there is this beautiful makeover.”

Even from a civic point of view, Dadar Parsi Colony is special. Mistry tells us that almost all the plots of lands are covenanted—ownership could be with anyone but only Parsis can stay in the properties. “Alberta Park in Bandra is also a covenanted land for Catholics. My own building is built on a covenanted plot. This is the only way you can retain micro-communities together, otherwise, there is mindless fragmentation.” Mistry had worked for the welfare and restoration of the local fire temple or Agyari and its priest with his NGO. This was a defining moment for him on a personal and professional level. “I realised then that there is no point in messing up with the originality of things. You cannot tweak original designs. Particularly in our colony where there are so many sacred symbols which mean deeply to us–one simply cannot be overly enthusiastic about it all,” he says.

The majestic Della Tower, built almost a decade ago and owned by Mistry, exemplifies the marriage of modern Parsi sensibilities while still adhering to the larger design language of the colony. When you enter the lobby, you are greeted with the replica of an ancient Zoroastrian inscription that admonished slavery—it depicts the King standing on a slave owner and letting the slaves walk towards freedom. “You can build as modern a tower as you want, but you’ve got to be sensitive of the cultural milieu you are building it in,” Mistry insists.

It is heartening for Engineer that someone as respected as architect Phiroze Panthaki still resides here, while the Rustomjee-TREC project to build the locality’s first residential green tower, Garden 6, is again emblematic of the larger cultural value of the colony. So titled because it will also feature the sixth garden of the locality—vertically. “You realise this will always be home,” says Engineer. “You can’t trade this for anything. It’s like what Rooshad told you—the colony will always have a place in the hearts and minds of anyone who has been here for even more than an hour. Why would I not want to live and grow up in a place like this?”

Engineer, with photographer Kuber Shah, is also attempting to document the seasonal changes of the Colony. The place comes alive beautifully in different seasons. It is a carpet of the vividly yellow flowers of the bahwa trees during winters, and the monsoons simply underline all the textures that would have been otherwise lost. “For lack of a better phrase—it is our own little utopian Alice in Wonderland,” she says, smiling. Just then, the Agyari bell rings and Engineer pauses for a moment. It is almost 6 PM. This bell marks the change of the day. So, when the bell rings, the idea is to just pause for a moment and be mindful.

There are numerous lessons that our colonies and even gated communities can draw from this place. Because it was built in response to the plague, the roads are wider and the houses are equally spaced. “If Mancherji could build Mumbai’s first and only master plan colony back in the 1920s, what’s stopping us? The colony exemplifies every single principle of sustainable living— you won’t find a single overflowing tank anywhere and you dare cut a tree,” says Mistry. For Shroff, the distribution density ratio of land to people is simply astounding. “You can’t find it anywhere. This allows better light to percolate in our houses. Even the average ceiling height of our houses, including my own parent’s house, is anywhere between 16-18 ft,” he says. Even the postmen who are allocated the area are grateful. “They are jubilant when they get posted here. That says something about the kind of people we are and the magic that is the Dadar Parsi Colony,” she says. Every two blocks, we are greeted by old Parsi couples waving at Engineer and us with all the warmth in the world. She wishes one of them a belated happy birthday and the gentleman is all smiles. Perhaps this is what one takes away from this oasis—the smiles and the promise of a fulfilled life.

The hospital had played a crucial role during the 2009 Swine flu outbreak and even now, before PMC could upgrade its hospitals with ventilators and tertiary care, Sassoon was the only government hospital providing tertiary care to Covid-19 patients

A panoramic view of Sassoon hospital on the 75th anniversary of BJ Medical College, which is attached to the hospital. (Shankar Narayan/HT PHOTO)

The Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College (BJMC), which is attached to Sassoon General Hospital, is celebrating its 75th foundation day on Wednesday, June 23. The hospital has played a pivotal role in providing tertiary care to not just residents of Pune, but also to districts in the state. Students from BJMC are recognised internationally for their published work in international journals and medical services provided by them at the hospital.

The hospital had played a crucial role during the 2009 Swine flu outbreak and even now, before PMC could upgrade its hospitals with ventilators and tertiary care, Sassoon was the only government hospital providing tertiary care to Covid-19 patients.

Dr Shashikala Sangle, aged 64, retired on May 31. She has been associated with the hospital for the past 45 years since she was a student and headed the department of Medicine.

Dr Sangle said, “BJMC has definitely carved its niche as being reputed for generating the most honest and hardworking alumni and staff. I had a student who wanted to study further in the US and her examiners who saw her report and saw the BJMC name, without any further questions admitted her. The decades of hard work has earned this name. BJ has produced many important medical research works.”

Dr Sangle also describes the Swine flu outbreak period. She said, “When we look at it in retrospect, Swine flu was not as big as Covid-19. We were able to manage it in just one building. However, with Covid-19, the sheer numbers and the complications and also the post Covid-19 complications are a bigger challenge. However, even during the pandemic our cardiac catheterisation lab was functioning smoothly and also chemotherapy of cancer patients continued. We took all due precautions and tests and ensured that other vital routine treatments are not hampered.”

While the hospital was founded in 1867, the BJ Medical school was founded in 1871, after completing 75 years, the school was expanded to BJ Medical College in 1946.

BJ Medical school and the Sassoon hospital campus first opened in the year 1871. (Courtesy: BJ medical college)

Right from its foundation till now the hospital has been supported through charities and CSR funds form the community and philanthropists.

On June 23, 1946, BJ Medical College was founded and Dr B. G Kher, head of the Bombay government, laid the foundation stone. The college has been named after Parsi philanthropist Byramjee Jeejeebhoy who donated the land in 1871. The medical course of MBBS was affiliated to the University of Poona (Pune) in 1949.

Some of the historic moments in the hospital include the birth of Avtar Meher Baba who was born in the old maternity ward in the hospital, and the father of the nation, Mahatma, Gandhi who was operated upon for emergency appendectomy in 1924 by a British surgeon Col Murdoch with an Indian anaesthetist Dr Datey in attendance. The main building of BJMC was inaugurated by Dr Radha Krishnan in 1952. The first Principal of the BJ Medical College, which started with 50 students, was Dr BB Dikshit, a renowned academician

Annually 200 students are admitted for MBBS and 143 for post-graduation. At any given time, now, 1,700 students are on the campus with more than 2,000 staff including 268 faculty members. Presently, courses of MBBS, MD, MS, PhD, Diplomas, MCh (CVTS), MSc, GNM, BSc Nursing, DMLT, PGDMCH, and PGDGM are offered here.

Some of the path-breaking research works by the college are Dr Dikshit’s work on the role of acetylcholine in sleep and Dr Bhende’s discovery of the Bombay blood group. The hospital also has its name in the Jablonski’s Dictionary of syndromes, for the syndrome discovered, by Dr Ganla and Dr MJ Narsimhan.

In the last two decades, the colleges has been sought out by many research institutes including Department of Science & technology (DST), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Outreach services in mental health, preventive medicine, human reproduction research, tribal research, through national agencies like ICMR, and international agencies like WHO and UNICEF got underway. With the initiation of large-scale research projects the Institutional Ethics Committee was born. The Infosys super speciality building on the campus is catering to super speciality services for patients.

A six-week extended nevirapine (SWEN) study was conducted with this grant over the period of 2002-2007 for prevention of mother to infant transmission of HIV. This landmark study was published in Lancet (2008), which led to modification of guidelines by WHO for prevention of mother to infant transmission of HIV in breastfeeding population in resource poor areas. This gave BJMC the capability of international grade research.

After this successful demonstration of research capability, NIH USA granted Clinical Trial Unit to BJMC in collaboration with JHU for 2008-2014. BJMC-JHU application in response to RFA of NIH was among the first five amongst applications from all over the world.

In 2005, through the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) the HIV treatment center (ART) was started giving treatment free of charge. Presently more than 24,000 HIV infected patients are registered in the ART centre and 12,000 are on free ART. BJMC is recognised Government TB treatment centre with 4,000 tuberculosis patients/suspects per year.

BJMC and Sassoon helped fight the 2009 H1N1 (Swine Flu) outbreak in Pune and Maharashtra. In February 2010, BJ also promptly handled the casualties of German Bakery bomb blast.

Prominent community donations include food for all patients prepared by donation from the Shrimant Dagadusheth Halwai Ganapati Trust and the hospital has also contributed when it provided complete medical coverage to the athletes who participated in 30th Asian Athletics Games at Balewadi, Pune.

Dr Murlidhar Tambe, dean BJMC said, “Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, we cannot celebrate it as a grand event. However, the hospital has proven its worth in time. For our 2025 vision board we had proposed a Cancer hospital, a dental college, physiotherapy college and multiple super-specialities, for which we have submitted our proposal to the government. Hopefully, we get approval for some. The research work of students from BJMC has been recognised globally and also the care provided by our staff and students is noteworthy. Now is the time to expand and introduce new courses of UG and PG in various faculties.”

In its Epic Iran exhibition, the British Library will be displaying its unrivalled collection of manuscripts.

Article by Ursula Sims-Williams | Scroll.in

The opening to chapter nine of the ‘Videvdad Sadah’. | British Library (Public domain)

In the United Kingdom, the British Library has an unrivalled collection of Zoroastrian manuscripts and therefore welcomed the opportunity to display three of its Zoroastrian treasures in the current exhibition “Epic Iran” organised by the V&A with the Iran Heritage Foundation in association with The Sarikhani Collection.

The exhibition covers approximately five millennia of Iranian history and is the first of its kind since the Royal Academy’s International Exhibition of Persian Art of 1931. Arranged in nine sections it explores and brings together the whole range of Iranian material cultures from the earliest known writing to the 1979 Revolution and beyond. Out of around 300 exhibits, the British Library contributed fifteen manuscripts which will be the subject of two blogs. In this first post, I will focus on the three Zoroastrian items.

Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient Iranians, owes its name to Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) whose hymns (Gathas) are thought to have been composed 1500 BC-1000 BC. It teaches the importance of good thoughts, words, and actions, in a dualistic cosmos where the forces of the All-knowing Lord, Ahura Mazda, are constantly opposed by those of the Evil Spirit, Angra Mainyu.

Originating in Central Asia, Zoroastrianism spread east to China and south to Iran where it became the main religion from the 6th century BC until the mid-7th century AD. After the arrival of Islam, Zoroastrian refugees from Iran established settlements in Gujarat, where they were called Parsis (“Persians”). Zoroastrian diaspora communities have since become established worldwide.

‘Ashem vohu’ prayer

Zoroastrianism is essentially an oral religion. The oldest scriptures, referred to as the Avesta or Zend, are in an Old Iranian language, Avestan. They were not written down, however, until around the 6th century AD during the Sasanian period, many centuries after their composition. Even after that, the main liturgical texts were transmitted orally. This is partly the reason that, apart from the Ashem vohu fragment mentioned below, there are no manuscripts surviving from before the end of the 13th century.

The ‘Ashem vohu’ prayer transcribed in Sogdian script, dating from around the 9th century. Photo credit: British Library (Public domain)

This fragment dates from around the 9th century and comes, not from India or Iran, the lands associated today with Zoroastrianism, but from Dunhuang in Central China, where it was discovered in the Mogao caves by Aurel Stein in 1907. It contains a short text in Sogdian (a middle-Iranian language) about the prophet Zarathushtra followed by a phonetic transcription into the Sogdian script of one of the holiest Zoroastrian prayers, the Ashem vohu, composed originally in Avestan.

Remarkably, the language of the prayer is neither recognisable as Sogdian nor Avestan but is likely to represent a much older Iranian dialect, perhaps an archaic form of Avestan. The prayer must have been preserved orally in this ancient form, which remained unaffected by the codification of the Avesta in the Sasanian period when the sacred texts were first written down (N Sims-Williams, The everlasting flame, p.94).

Zoroastrianism was carried eastwards to China from the early centuries of the first millennium by Sogdian traders, whose homeland was the area of Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan. This document provides written evidence for its continuation there up to the 9th century and, more importantly, it is the only example of its kind, dating from about four centuries earlier than any other surviving Zoroastrian text.

‘Videvdad Sadah’

The Videvdad Sadah is a liturgical presentation in Avestan of the most important of Zoroastrian legal works, the Videvdad (“Law repudiating the demons”). The text, described as sadah (“clean”), ie unaccompanied by any commentary, is recited in a ritual context. This opening shows the beginning of chapter nine that concerns the nine-night purification ritual (barashnum nuh shab) for someone who has been defiled by contact with a dead body.

Most of our Zoroastrian manuscripts originate from India, copied by and for the Parsi community which traditionally emigrated from Iran from about the 8th century onwards. This beautifully written and decorated copy, however, was made in Yazd, Iran in 1647 by a Zoroastrian Mihrban Anushirvan Bahram Shah who copied it for a Zoroastrian of Kirman called Marzban Sandal Khusraw. Whereas Zoroastrian manuscripts are generally unillustrated except for small devices such as verse dividers and occasional diagrams, this one, exceptionally, contains seven coloured illustrations six of trees and one diagram. The heading here has been decorated very much in the style of contemporary illuminated Islamic manuscripts.

This copy was most likely brought to India from Iran by the Iranian poet and writer, Siyavakhsh Urmazdyar, himself a descendant of the original patron, in the mid-19th century before being acquired by Burjorji Sorabji Ashburner, a successful Bombay businessman who presented it the Royal Society, London in May 1864. Transferred to the India Office Library in 1876, it was incorporated into the British Library collection in 1982.

The ‘Bundahishn’

Chapter 27 of the ‘Bundahishn’. Photo credit: British Library, Mss Avestan 2 (Public domain)

The Bundahishn, or “Primal Creation”, is perhaps the most important Zoroastrian work on cosmogony and cosmography. Composed in Pahlavi (Middle Persian) during the early Islamic period, it is conventionally dated to the 9th century. It presents the Zoroastrian world view beginning with a detailed account of the perfect creation of the All-knowing Lord, Ahura Mazda (Ohrmazd in Middle Persian), which was attacked by the Evil Spirit, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) and contaminated with disease and death.

The cosmic drama culminates in the resurrection of the dead and the defeat and removal of Evil from Ohrmazd’s world and its perfection at the end of time. The cosmographic parts of the text include descriptions of the world’s lands, rivers, lakes, mountains, plants animals and human races.

The text of the Bundahishn is preserved in two distinct versions, an Indian and a more complete Iranian one. This manuscript gives the text of the Indian Bundahishn and is written in Pazand, a phonetic Avestan script. Copied in India in the 17th or 18th century, it was acquired by East India Company surgeon Samuel Guise (1751-1811) while working at the East India factory at Surat and was purchased by the East India Company Library after his death.

A published catalogue of Epic Iran is available by the three curators: John Curtis, Ina Sarikhani Sandmann and Tim Stanley Epic Iran: 5,000 years of culture.

The author is Lead Curator, Persian, at the British Library,

This article first appeared on the British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog.

Our dear friend and contributor Havovi Gowadia writes in…

A notice was put up on our community WA group. The Municipal Corporation of Balaghat and the Mullan Trust had invited the Parsis of Nagpur to come to Balaghat to celebrate the 153rd. birth anniversary of Diwan Bahadur M. M. Mullan on 25-10-2021. The Nagpur Parsis were very familiar with the name of Mullan since the Nagpur Dar-e-Meher known as Mullan Dar-e-Meher was built and consecrated with the donations received from Seth Naswanji Mullan. My interest was aroused to know more about this other charitable Mullan, who incidentally was the nephew of Naswanji Mullan.

My friend Shiraz Doongaji who had also gone to Balaghat for the function to commemorate M M Mullan on his 149th birth anniversary, willingly accepted to take me. To me, what started as a piqued interest turned to a revelation which left me amazed and proud by the end of the day.

Balaghat is a small township 205 kms. away from Nagpur in the State of Madhya Pradesh. We set off early in the morning for the 5 hour drive. The third person to join us at Balaghat was Jehan Bhujwala who runs a beautiful resort called Shergarh at Kanha, the well-known Tiger National Park of MP.

We were respectfully received by the Organisers and offered a light breakfast. After freshening up and donning our traditional Parsi attire, we were accompanied to the Parsi Cemetery, the land for which was donated by late Diwan Bahadur MM Mullan and where he rests today. It was a small but well-kept cemetery. We were told that recently, they have started planting flowering shrubs as well as trees and greening the whole place. Along with the other invited VIPs like the Collector and the DSP we were made to plant neem trees. The grave of Mr. Mullan was the most elaborate and decorated with flowers for the day. On the grave, besides other details was inscribed ‘Daddy of Balaghat’. On inquiring about the strange epitaph, we were told that at the first sign of cold, all children were taken to him for the good old Parsi cure for colds – a lick of brandy! Accompanied by the other invited guests we were again given the honours of putting flowers and wreaths on his grave.

The whole morning till lunch was packed with a lot of other activities, but before I elaborate on that, let me introduce you to this enigmatic man, popularly known as the ‘Daddy of Balaghat’ and whose memory is honoured with so much reverence and enthusiasm after more than a century and a half.

Manekji Meherwanji Mullan OBE (1868-1957) was born in Bombay and completed his education in Nagpur’s Morris College where he studied law. His practice took him to Balaghat. He made his mark and earned a name for himself, after he had successfully fought and won a case for a prominent Zamindar of Balaghat named Chandanlal Bhau in the privy council of London. He was gifted land by the grateful Zamindar and was urged to settle in Balaghat and continue his practice there. He held many important posts and was associated with all Educational, Medical, Co-operative and Village uplift work.

For his selfless public service, he was honoured with the title of OBE. Consequently, during the II World War for his help to the British Government, he was conferred with the titles of ‘Khan Bahadur’ and ‘Diwan Bahadur’.

A man with a vision and a philanthropist at heart, he donated liberally to Educational Institutes, which included the Nagpur University and the LAD Women’s college at Nagpur. During his lifetime, he used to send generous donations to the Nagpur Parsi Punchayat. Upon his death in 1957, he bequeathed Rs.3.70 lakhs to NPP for educational and medical help to the needy Parsis. There is a two-storeyed building In Tata Baug in Nagpur which bears his name.

His vision and philanthropy were all permeating and visible in Balaghat where he had spent most of his life. He had a lot of empathy for the tribals and the common people and he contributed large heartedly for their upliftment and well- being. In his Will he left his bungalow, the surrounding land, all his wealth and shares he owned to the people of Balaghat. Incidentally, one of the trustees of his Will was Sir Sohrabji Pochkhanwala, the promoter of Central Bank of India.

From this munificent donation, Balaghat Water Works supplying pure running water to the town came into effect. Pumped water in their taps was in fact his first gift to the citizens of Balaghat. He also gifted a Polytechnic College imparting engineering and vocational courses which even today is benefitting all the young students there. A Stadium and Sports complex have been erected for development of all sports and encourage sporting activity amongst the youth. Sports and Educational Scholarships are awarded both to the needy and the talented. In short, he has touched the lives of the entire population of Balaghat.

From the cemetery, we were taken to the Town Square, where all of us garlanded his bust. We were again pushed ahead to do the honours, giving us the status of family members. Then the whole motorcade headed to his old bungalow besides the Polytechnic College. The old rundown bungalow had been spruced up with fresh plastering, a new coat of paint and a new roof. Being the only lady amongst the invitees, I was asked to cut the ribbon along with the local minister who had also graced the occasion. There are plans to convert the bungalow to MM Mullan Museum, showcasing his life. One room has been converted to library cum computer room. The furniture as well as 2 computers have been donated by a Rotarian Sikh businessman.

All of us were then led to the stage erected especially for the day and welcomed with flowers. All the guests on the dais right from the Collector, SP and others gave short speeches eulogizing the life and times of MM Mullan. Mr. Vijay Verma, Secretary of Mullan Trust gave a short report on what they have been doing with his donation as well as their future plans. He requested the Minister to change the name of the Government Polytechnic, which was established from DB Mullan’s donations to MM Mullan Polytechnic. He reported that a bag full of old shares have yet to be de-matted and a substantial amount will again be added to his kitty of donations.

The SP gave an introduction to the Parsi community, right from our advent in India to our contribution to our adopted land. Shiraz thanked the Organizers for inviting us and lauded the splendid work the Trustees of Mullan Trust have been doing over the years, giving shape To MM Mullan’s dreams for the upliftment of Balaghat. This splendid work is being done without any political or community intervention and showed their love and esteem for their donor.

We were then gifted a plaque commemorating the momentous day along with a shawl and coconut. Then everyone trooped in for lunch.

It was a memorable day. The day filled us with pride as well as humility. Pride to see the achievements and largesse of our forefathers and humility that we were singled out for this singular honour, due to the good deeds done by one of our community member in the distant past. We hope the baton is passed down to the coming generations so that they would experience what we had experienced today.