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Free flats for Parsis on the anvil

Posted 24 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Bombay, Bombay Parsi Panchayat, Current Affairs, Housing, Mumbai | 21 Comments

By Nauzer Bharucha, / TNN
In a city where a decent two-BHK apartment within 30 km of the business district is the exclusive domain of crorepatis, the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP) will sell almost 75 flats in Panthaky Baug, Andheri (East), to low-income community members at a rock-bottom rate of Rs 2,400 a square foot. [...]

Tata Chairman Doesn’t Sweat the Timing on Global Expansion

Tata Chairman Doesn’t Sweat the Timing on Global Expansion

Posted 19 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Individuals, Industry, Interview | 7 Comments

By PAUL BECKETT / WSJ
MUMBAI—During his 18-year tenure as chairman of India’s venerable Tata Group, 71-year-old Ratan Tata has led a drive to expand internationally, a strategy India’s other sprawling companies seek to emulate.
With annual revenue above $70 billion, Tata Group now derives 65% of its sales outside of India and employs 357,000 [...]

Neville Wadia: World’s Oldest T20 Centurion

Posted 14 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Sports | 2 Comments

He is a grandfather and yet Neville Wadia’s passion for cricket at the age of 63 is never-ending. He has been playing cricket for over 40
years now. Some six months ago, he achieved something special.
Wadia scored 105 in just 60 balls slamming three sixes and 15 fours in a 20-Twenty match in Vadodara [...]

A Vegetarian Parsi

Posted 14 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: About | 6 Comments

By Rakshande Italia / Inside TORONTO
DESI DIALOGUES: Turning vegetarian leaves a pleasant taste on the palate
The past 15 days have been one of my most testing times. That’s because I decided to turn completely vegetarian. The reason – my Ayurvedic doctor suggested that the herbal medicine he gave me for my knee joints could work [...]

“Parsis exude no sense of victimisation”

Posted 14 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Issues, Opinion | No Comments

By Farrukh Dhondy / DNA India
Sitting next to the grandson of a late great English writer, himself a writer, at a dinner party in Exmoor, I am asked if I am a practising Zoroastrian. I say ‘not quite’ and am asked about its ethics and metaphysics.
"Simple," I reply, "Monotheism. The single God, Ahura Mazda [...]

Murree Brewery Still brewing in a dry land: Pakistan’s Parsi Brewery

Posted 12 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Food and Drink | No Comments

Still brewing in a dry land: Pakistan’s only beer and whisky firm After 150 years, business is booming at Pakistan’s only beer and whisky firm. Andrew Buncombe finds out why
 
On the walls of the historic Murree brewery, Pakistan’s sole producer of beer, hangs a slogan that its owners would wish upon the entire country. [...]

Parsi athletes shine at World Masters Games

Posted 10 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Sports | 1 Comment

The rough football ground of Dadar Parsi Gymkhana is cultivating rare laurels. Two middle-aged neighbours have won India a gold and a
silver medal at the prestigious World Masters Games held in Sydney mid-October. Fareez Vasania, a 45-year-old industrial photographer, and 49-year-old lawyer Rohinton Mehta, who defends tobacco major ITC in court, are untouchable in [...]

Charity Commissioner Clears BPP of any wrongdoing

Posted 10 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Bombay Parsi Panchayat, News | 4 Comments

In a reprieve for Bombay Parsi Punchayat chairman Dinshaw Mehta, the charity commissioner’s office recently dismissed a complaint seeking
his removal for alleged irregularities and nepotism in allotment of flats. Joint charity commissioner N V Deshmukh ruled that there was no evidence to take action against Mehta.
"The application falls short of showing any act [...]

Akuri: Eggsciting recipes

Posted 06 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Food and Drink | 4 Comments

One of my favourite breakfast preparations is scrambled eggs, even higher on the scale of delicacy, is the akuri, a much underrated dish. Akuri means egg curry in its most basic sense.It is like dhansak and patra ni machi,considered to be a pan-Indian favourite.
The Parsis have a love affair with eggs. You have the [...]

Indian filmmaker unveils her own minuscule Parsi Minority

Posted 06 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Film | 1 Comment

Men in PLO T-shirts march through noisy, chaotic streets; their leader, all in white, stands before the wrought iron gate of a Zoroastrian fire temple urging followers to pledge purity and denounce outsiders.
Welcome to the fictitious world of the Parsi Liberation Organisation led by a buffoon character in a zany movie that looks at [...]

Parsi Memories: Ideal Restaurant

Posted 05 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Bombay, Food and Drink, Memories, Mumbai | 5 Comments

By Rusi Sorabjee
IDEAL RESTAURANT ….a gastronomic heaven (Still there in 2009,But shifted about 100 mtrs away and inside from main road.)
(The IRANI Restaurant… quintessentially Zarathushti Restaurant of old.)
It was an old building standing guard –resolute and proud – on Hornby Road, a street that was and still is the main artery of Bombay. It used [...]

Parsi Memories: Chom-e-shvaa

Posted 04 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Memories | 11 Comments

By Rusi Sorabjee
In our scriptures there is a mention that ‘it was obligatory, as thanks-giving’ to save a bit of the meal at the end for the dog – during Sassanian times, it was called the "Chom e shvaa". Those who did not have a pet dog , used to carry the saved food to [...]

Parsi Memories : Daily Loban Ritual

Posted 02 November 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Customs, Memories, Prayers | 5 Comments

By Rusi Sorabjee
One of the daily ritual in a Parsi/Irani homes in India of the early 20th Century, that brings back happy memories of our childhood, of a bygone era, when the days had morehours, families had more members, dinning tables had more chairs, we were more religious and the community felt like being a [...]

Religious Education and the Future of Young Mobeds in North America and Beyond

Posted 29 October 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Issues, Opinion, Prayers, fire temple | 2 Comments

In early summer 2009, Jim Engineer, one of the founders of NextGenNow got in touch with me to see if I would like to write an article for the Fall 2009 FEZANA Journal. NextGenNow as an organisation were guest-editing. The above-titled article is one of the two articles I wrote for this edition.
My earliest memories [...]

Khushru Poacha: Founder of Indianblooddonors.com

Posted 29 October 2009 | By arzan sam wadia | Categories: Individuals | 2 Comments

This man saves lives, one click at a time
Abhishek Mande / Rediff
For over ten years now, Khushroo Poacha has stood by the sole belief that to do good work you don’t need money. Poacha runs indianblooddonors.com (IBD), a site that lets blood donors and patients in need of blood connect with each other almost [...]

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