A 2,000-year-old palace in the Republic of Georgia and a 1,500-year-old church in Iraq suggest Zoroastrians coexisted...
History Articles
Ambedkar and Bhathena: An unlikely friendship that stood test of time
Revisiting the special bond between Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and his Parsi businessman friend Naval Bhathena on...
Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia: The esteemed Indian ancestor no one in my white British family knew about
Who do you think you are? The esteemed Indian ancestor no one in my white British family knew aboutImage: Ardaseer Cursetjee, the first South Asian Fellow of the Royal Society, has been awarded a...
Aspi Engineer And Winning the Aga Khan Race
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 &...
A paradox revealed through portraiture
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...
The Parsis of Ceylon: The few that made the difference | Lost & Forgotten
Dr. Zameer Careem, a Sri Lankan historian speaks about the Parsis of Sri Lanka
Naoroji’s ‘Drain of Wealth’ Approach: Guiding Indian Nationalism
Beyond brief by-rote study of history at school about the ‘Grand Old Man of India’, not many Indians are aware of the true depth of the achievements of Dadabhai Naoroji. Mathematics prodigy at...
How Kipling wove a Parsi into his fantasy tale
Wonder how the world-famous author Rudyard Kipling, a Parsi artist and a Rhinoceros are connected? Look at the portrait of a Parsi artist, Pestonjee Bomanjee (1851-1938) with his long white beard,...
Imagining Zoroaster’s Domestic Life
How did medieval Zoroastrians imagine the family of Zoroaster, the founding figure of their religion?Unlike founders of many other religions about whose time and place we can reach a certain degree...
The pioneering lawyer who fought for women’s suffrage in India
Amid the pandemic gloom, it is easy to forget that the year 2020 marks an important anniversary for women's rights.In the US, it has been 100 years since women cast their votes for the first time. A...
Kesavananda Bharati Case And Friendship Between Nani Palkhivala & HM Seervai
Remembering an episode form legendary jurist Nani Palkhivala's life on his 18th death anniversaryWhen Nani Palkhivala entered the Supreme Court to argue Kesavananda Bharti, India's future rested on...
Mithuben Hormusji Petit: Indian Freedom Fighter
MITHUBEN PETIT, WHO FOUGHT FOR INDIA’s FREEDOM WITH GANDHIJI, RENOUNCED HER COMFORTS AND LUXURIES Petit surname has its roots in the French word ‘petit’ (meaning physically small). One of the women...
This is not the end. Apocalyptic comfort from ancient Iran
At its height, around 620 CE, the Sasanian empire ruled over a territory stretching from Jerusalem in the west to Samarkand in the east. The royal court at the ancient city of Ctesiphon, near...
Chinchani & India’s First Arab Governor
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...
Naoroji Rustomji Manek: This Surat Man Sued East India Co. & Won
He was the first Zoroastrian to sail to England from India; not to mention the first Indian who sued the British and won! He sailed back in victory with his cause vindicated and putting his...
Memories of Living in Kashmere Gate: The Old Parsee Hub of Delhi
I was born in 1937 in The Lady Hardinge Hospital, New Delhi and spent the first two years at my maternal uncle’s house in Kasmeri Gate, Old Delhi, as it was known those days. Kashmere Gate or...
Saklatvala Mausoleum in New York
An email from my friend Kersi Shroff tipped me off on what turned out to be a great treasure hunt in search of the Saklatvala Mausoleum in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in New York City. Kersi...
The Grand Old Man of India who became Britain’s first Asian MP
How was an Indian elected to the British Parliament in 1892? What relevance could this historical event have for us today?Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) is an unfamiliar name these days.Yet, aside...
P. D. Patel: My Fifty Years in Burma
Mitra Sharafi, a legal historian writes in… I am very excited to say that P. D. Patel's My Fifty Years in Burma (Rangoon, 1954) is now up on my website. This remarkable out-of-print memoir tells the...
Story of Jamshedpur: Romance and Valour
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...
The Benevolent Businessmen From Aden
Meher Marfatia: The Benevolent Businessmen From Aden The Cowasjee Dinshaw Collection of the Adenwalla Archive reveals rare records of a family of merchant-princes, last of the philanthropic Bombay...
Navsari: Home to the Parsis
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...
Zanzibar’s forgotten religion
A CRUMBLING TEMPLE for an ancient religion lies hidden from the street, just beyond the fields of Mnazi Moja. All but forgotten, its doors are rarely opened; the once prominent Zoroastrians have all...
A reborn Persian Empire captured Rome’s lands—and its emperor
Inspired by their powerful ancestors, the Sassanian dynasty restored Persia to imperial glory, ruling lands that stretched from Turkey to Pakistan.By Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo | National...
Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India at Jamshedpur.
Our dear friend and eminent Parsi historian Marzban Giara writes…Lord Chelmsford the Viceroy of India visited the Tata Steel plant in 1919 after the First World War. Sakchi Village in Bihar was...
Manekji Limji Hataria
Tomorrow 15th February is the baj of Manekji Limji Hataria, the Parsi missionary to Iran. A jashan will be performed at Wadiaji Atash Behram 1st floor hall in the morning at 10 a.m.Below is an...
Eduljee Sorabjee: The Curious Case of the ‘First’ Indian-American Citizen
Los Angeles in the 1880s was a town reinventing itself. The Gold Rush was subsiding but the air was filled with promise and there were new opportunities for those who knew how to seize them. Among...
Gandhi & The Tatas
Revisiting the relationship between the Mahatma and the founders of the Tata group, from satyagraha to swaraj October 2019 | Tata.comThroughout his public service...
KM Nanavati vs State of Maharashtra: All we learnt about the landmark case from Bollywood
Before we watch web series The Verdict: State Vs Nanavati, we look back at the actual Nanavati case and how it has been presented in Gulzar's Achanak (1973), R.K. Nayyar's Yeh Rastey Hain Pyar Ke...
Sanjan: Digging Deep into History
On a dark and stormy night, a ship full of Zoroastrian refugees from Persia was lashed by the wind, rain and waves off the west coast of India. The refugees in the ship, fearful for their lives,...
Jubilee Diamond & How it Saved A Tata Company
In a country obsessed with the legend of the Kohinoor, little public attention is paid to the fact that there were far larger diamonds in India until very recently. In fact many made the Kohinoor,...
The Parsi burial ground is a sign of Rawalpindi’s rich heritage
On Murree Road, in the heart of the city, a lane leads towards a heavy iron gate that opens out on an era of Parsi historyArticle by Ammad Ali | Daily Times PakistanResting place of a WWII soldier...
JRB Jeejeebhoy: Mumbai has forgotten the ‘leading historian’ who once highlighted its forgotten past
JRB Jeejeebhoy, who wrote numerous pieces on the city and its heritage from the 1920s to the 1950s, has met the fate of his subjects. History unfortunately has been superseded in favour of flighty...
The opium trader who became one of India’s richest men
On his fourth trip to China, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy was captured by the French. It was the middle of the Napoleonic Wars and hostilities between the British and the French had carried over to the...
Godrej and the Ballot Boxes for for India’s First Elections
When independent India was laying the groundwork for its first elections in 1952, clueless to the rest of the world, workers at a factory in Mumbai’s Vikhroli were making history.They were...
The Story of Sir Hormusjee N Mody and Hong Kong University
Our dear friend and the resident dasturji of the Hong Kong Anjuman Ervad Homyar Nasirabadwala speaks about the amazing contribution of Sir Hormusjee N Mody, a distinguished Parsi businessman and a...
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, a Swadeshi who tried to make India a manufacturing hub
On Jamsetji’s 180th birth anniversary, ThePrint’s Remya Nair remembers the industrialist who set up India’s most well-reputed business empire.Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was the founder of the entity...
Behramji Merwanji Malabari: A Parsi in London
Historians have written not just pages, but books on his life; he is a wellknown figure in the Parsi historical hall of fame; it should be a polite yawn by now to read the writings of social...
Dr. Bomsi Wadia: The only Indian to have participated in London to Sydney Marathon rallies
50 years after the first London to Sydney Marathon took place, Dr. Bomsi Wadia says, "It was one of the most memorable adventures of my life. I loved it so much, that I even took part in the 1977...
What Connects Vivekananda and Jamsetji Tata? A Sea Voyage That Changed India!
“Rooted in the past, full of pride in India’s prestige, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to life’s problems, and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present.” –...
Jeejeebhoy’s Bombay
The scion of a leading business family was among the first historians to document the city’s hidden stories, and was deeply affected by the loss of its heritage.If one were to think of a household...
Can you crack this 150-year-old cloth merchants’ code?
Fabric trading in 1800s Bombay was a complex affair, with towels, hand-signals and secret bids. See how one british newspaper described itWould you have recognised the Bombay of 150 years ago? No...
Zoroastrians and Jains added to UK’s war memorial service
Representatives of the Jain and Zoroastrian will now join 15 other faiths, including Hinduism, Sikhism, at Britain's annual war memorial service to make it more reflective of modern Britain, Faith...
Lord Karan Bilimoria: Great grandpa had unpleasant task of arresting Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi or Bapu as he was endearingly called by millions of Indians, was arrested several times in his lifetime. In the history of British India and free India, one family had its tryst with...
Rawalpindi’s Parsi benefactor
During colonial times the Parsi community expanded to every corner of India. These fortune seekers settled in developing towns across the Subcontinent. And they took with them their unique origins,...
How Indian opium traders from Bombay helped the British Raj wreck China’s economy
Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, who helped build modern Bombay and was the first Indian to be knighted by Queen Victoria, was a prominent figure in the business. Article by Girish Shahane | Scroll India...
Nehru’s son-in-law Feroze, a crusader, who exposed corruption in his party’s government
It is because of a private member’s bill introduced by Feroze Gandhi in 1956 that it is possible for media to report Parliament proceedings.New Delhi: He was just 48 when he passed away on 8...
Iranshah Atashbehram – A Documentary
A local Indian TV channel shot this short documentary on Udvada and the Iranshah Atashbehram. The documentary has some very unique aerial drone videography that shows aerial views of Udvada and the...
The Story of Parsi Enterprise
Catch the story of Parsi entrepreneurship and how they made their way from shipbuilders and traders to India's leading industrialists. Also, catch the one link with the bygone days and old trade...
For 31 years after his death, Homi Bhabha’s office room was unoccupied
The secular condolence ceremony for Homi Bhabha of which no photographs were found has remained firmly etched in the scientists’ memory, and the religious one was forgotten. On 24 January 1966, Homi...
What Connects Jamsetji Tata and Vivekananda ? A Sea Voyage That Changed India!
The year was 1893. On May 31, aboard a steamer that sailed from Yokohama to Vancouver, two great Indians met for the first time. One was an industrialist who would go on to become one of India’s...
Frene Ginwala, the Lenin supplement, and the storm drains of history
THE LENIN SUPPLEMENT In his book The Press of Africa – Persecution and Perseverance (Macmillan, London 1979) the Commonwealth media specialist Frank Barton said that if an identi-kit picture had to...