The Parsi community’s connection with the steel city dates back to its earliest days. Following the establishment of...
History Articles
The women who made Parsis India’s one of the most progressive community
They were few, but far ahead of their time. In a country still grappling with child marriage and female illiteracy,...
Forjett Street: Singer, sailor, soothsayer, Spy
What would Charles Forjett make of the colourful characters inhabiting the street off Gowalia Tank Road named for him? He was a top cop in the days when the term really meant something. Slipping...
Google Doodle on Cornelia Sorabji’s 151st Birthday
November 15, 2017:Cornelia Sorabji’s 151st BirthdayVia Google…….Today we celebrate Cornelia Sorabji, who overcame numerous obstacles to become India’s first female lawyer. Sorabji was the first...
Fire and State: Living With The Gods
Neil MacGregor continues his series on the expression of shared beliefs in communities around the world and across time. In this podcast he also speaks with our Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoor, the...
Brothers-in-Arms : The Flying Engineer Brothers
In the undivided India of 1930, Karachi was the ‘aerial gateway of India’, boasting the first flying club in the country. One early morning in March two young men started up a small plane and,...
Of Salvador Dali, Air India and Ashtrays
`In return, Señor Dali would like a baby elephant' Air India might be struggling to stay afloat at this moment and piece its art collection together, but once upon a time it had legends such as...
Tata Steel & Gwalior’s Chambers of Secrets
This could well have inspired an Indiana Jones sequel - with a twist. Connecting hidden and lost treasures buried deep underground, to a modern day conglomerate with factories across the world. As...
Cdr Kavina: India loses 1971 war hero; declassified CIA files reveal impact of his Operation Trident
Cdr Kavina passed away in Australia last week, Indian Navy attended funeral Article by Manu Pubby | The Print The Karachi harbour attack by a group of three small missile boats of the Indian Navy —...
Remembering Dadabhai Naoroji on 100th Anniversary of his Death
Today June 30, 2017 marks the 100th death anniversary of Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, and one of the most influential leaders India knew. Dinyar Patel, Co-Chair of FEZANA's Research...
A cause(way) that linked Mumbai’s islands
While the government struggled to collect funds to construct a causeway for better connectivity in the island city, one Parsi family took it upon itself to construct the Mahim Causeway. Before 1845,...
The little-known history of how Zoroastrian merchants helped create the old Silk Route
China’s designs to build a massive network of land and sea links connecting four continents have revived popular interest in the old Silk Route, whose success was in small part owed to Zoroastrian...
Keeping alive memory of ‘Mother of the Indian Revolution’ for decades
According to several accounts written by Parsis, the All India Women’s Conference wanted to pay homage to Cama during her birth centenary, and keep her memory alive in post-Independent India Named...
Untold story of Bank of Bombay
The hitherto untold story of Bank of Bombay, one of the forebears of the State Bank of India, has been finally chronicled through rare documents and photographs at a newly opened heritage gallery at...
Kozikhode: Parsi culture still has its fire glowing
On April 18 which is observed as World Heritage Day, among the several monuments with a story to tell in Kozhikode is its only Parsi temple in Kerala. The local people are not well aware of this...
Jamsheed Marker: Indians were furious we managed to secure the Americans first
Sitting with, and listening to, Jamsheed Marker is a fulfilling experience. History, diplomacy, anecdotes about politicians, music, culture, and a lot of cricket — he enlightens his audience in many...
The obscure religion that shaped the West
Talk of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has long dominated Iran-related politics in the West. At the same time, Christianity has frequently been used to define the identity and values of the US and Europe, as well...
Navrozji Fardunji, 19th-century reformer and the great son whom India forgot too soon
Today is the 200th birth anniversary of the academic, activist and freedom fighter who contributed immensely to the rise of the nationalist movement. March 10 marks the 200th birth anniversary of...
The Real Mrs Jinnah: New Book Offers Insights Into the Fascinating Life of Ruttie Petit
“What put it into her silly little head to suddenly fall in love with a man old enough to be her father?” mused Sarojini Naidu’s son Jaisoorya, in a letter to his sister Padmaja. He was referring to...
Ardeshir Godrej: Founder of a Billion Dollar Indian Business Empire
This Man Laid the Foundation of a Billion-Dollar Made-In-India Business Empire in Colonial Times Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the popular saying goes. Some of the world’s biggest businesses are,...
Family matters: Raghu Karnad and the Calicut Parsis
On the Calicut seafront, Raghu Karnad traces the lingering stories of the Parsis who lived there, including a thrice-great-grandmother It’s soon after sunrise, and women in burqas are power-walking...
Vanishing point:The last remaining parsis of Delhi
Delhi’s Parsi community is by far the smallest minority group residing in the city. According to the 2011 Census report, the number of Parsis in the national capital is now down to three figures,...
Uncovering Shanghai’s Parsi Past: Mishi Saran
Q&A With Author Mishi Saran on Uncovering Shanghai’s Parsi Past sixthtone.com | Sep 2nd 2016 “Who says nationality is the sole barometer of belonging?” asks Indian novelist Mishi Saran. The...
Emperor Akbar’s Parsi counsel
Established in 1874, the first Dastoor Meherjirana Library in Navsari is named after the first Parsi high priest of India. The most priceless manuscript at the library is a framed original document...
Such a long journey: Malika Abbas
On her first visit to Mumbai, a Pakistani photojournalist embraces her Parsi roots and learns about a community her ancestors once belonged to. On arriving in Mumbai last week, Malika Abbas barely...
Mr. Alpaiwalla’s Legacy: India’s Parsi Museum
Housed in a quiet corner of the Kharegat Parsi Colony, the Alpaiwalla Museum of Mumbai opens its doors willingly to all curious visitors. And there can be no better guide than Ms. Nivedita Mehta,...
Once upon a Hill Road
An arterial road in Bandra is as deep-steeped in general lore as it is in personal memory for someone who grew up on this street I am the Resurrection and the Life’ affirms the inscription on the...
Parsi surnames & the places they are derived from
Ever wondered where all the Parsi surnames come from ?? Well our friend Kaevan Umrigar did and here’s his attempt at plotting it on a map ! Via Facebook, Kaevan writes The etymology of Parsi...
When Nani Palkhivala Refused to Defend Indira Gandhi in Court
On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of Allahabad High Court found the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices in the “State of Uttar Pradesh vs Raj Narain” case....
Bumsuckerwallah Family of Karachi
Have you heard of the Bumsuckerwallah’s of Karachi ? Parsi family on a motorcar (Karachi, 1925): A Parsi family of Karachi poses for a photograph on their motorcar. Patrick O’ Meara wrote the...
My father, the Param Vir Chakra Hero: Lt. Colonel A. B. Tarapore
In spite of being wounded in battle, Lieutenant Colonel A B Tarapore fought for six days before meeting a hero's death on the battlefield in the 1965 war. A legend in the Indian Army, he is the...
New Delhi To Host First Ever Large Scale Festival on Parsi Culture in 2016
A mega festival, with exhibits being brought from world over, is being proposed by Minority Affairs Ministry for March next year Article by Sobhana K Nair | Bangalore Mirror New Delhi: In March next...
Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now: Summer School at University of Zurich
Call for Applications The Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Zurich (UZH) invites to the summer school: Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now August 30th – September 2nd...
In Udvada: The Maha Kumbh of the Parsis
The anniversary of the Atash Behram, the most sacred fire, at the sleepy town of Udvada, is when the community opens up to all comers, and with free delicious food for everyone. Article by Madhulika...
Ruttie Petit and Bella Captain: The Tale of Two Parsi Women
Mitra Sharafi, the amazing author at South Asian Legal History Resources writes: I was recently struck by the strangely inverted but parallel lives of two young women, both tragic figures in early...
Parsi Mumbai: The Legacy of Zoroastrianism in India’s Urban Fabric
An Iranian visitor can’t help but notice the Zoroastrian symbols that dominate old Mumbai. In the historic Fort District toward the southern end of this metropolis of twenty million souls,...
Mercenaries and merchants: A short history of the strong ties between India and Yemen
As Houthi rebels overran the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in March, the embattled government shifted its capital to Aden. For many Indians, and especially for residents of Mumbai, the name of the city...
Death and Legal History on Sunday Afternoons
Cemeteries as Historical Evidence In Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia, Mitra Sharafi argues that rather than trying to maintain collective autonomy and integrity by avoiding interaction with...
Emperor Akbar’s Parsi counsel: The First Dastur Meherji Rana
Established in 1874, the first Dastoor Meherjirana Library in Navsari is named after the first Parsi high priest of India. The most priceless manuscript at the library is a framed original document...
Navroz in New Delhi: Shernaz Italia
While a dwindling community struggles to survive, filmmaker Shernaz Italia documents the little-known lives of the Delhi Parsis who moved to the capital at the turn of the 19th century “Aavoji,...
Jamsetji Tata’s residence wins UNESCO honour
“A good conservation job is like a root canal,“ says architect Vikas Dilawari.“It does not happen quickly and requires many sittings.“Recently , one such root canal took Dilawari 10 years. His hair...
Tehnaz Bahadurji: What’s it Like to be a Parsi ?
Just as the matriarch of the Tamil household in Chennai dots her porch with a kolam at the crack of dawn every day, women of the Parsi community pretty up theirs with what they call a 'chalk'. "It's...
The changing face of the legal profession
In an article Mitra Sharafi who is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School; discusses how even as falling law school enrollment leads to a merger, among Middle Eastern and...
Of Steel, Metal Birds And More: The Tatas
The Tata sky is a limitless firmament, and its gods a generation of Parsi gentlemen like no other Article by Zareer Masani | Outlook India Telling the story of the Tatas, both the Indian business...
Bombay Heritage Walks for Tata Employees
The business group takes staff back in history by organising Bombay Heritage Walks every week in an effort to reacquaint them with the company's storied links to the city. By Anirban Chowdhury |...
Nobody learns Parsi history in schools, says historian
On just a short stretch of Veer Nariman Road in Fort, beginning at the stained glass enclosure of the Bhikha Behram Well and ending at the v-shaped Eros Cinema with its Art Deco dome, six Parsi...
Godrej Legacy and Winning in India
The talk titled “ Godrej Legacy and Winning in India” was delivered by Nadir Godrej at Enterprise Dubai 2014 on December 20th, 2014. It started with our illustrious founder 'We couldn't have asked...
How an accidentally distorted drawing of the Prophet led to a riot in 19th-century Mumbai
The image, published with a biography of the Prophet in a Gujarati magazine, led to Muslim and Parsi clashes for a month in 1851. Article by Mridula Chari | Scroll.in On a Friday towards the end of...
East India Company, Bombay Talkies, Tatas… a family tree forms
As assistant professor of history at the Ramnarain Ruia College is set to give Mumbaikars with a yen for the city’s history a delectable account of the lineage of one of Mumbai’s oldest notable...
Chennai and its old Parsi flame
Its legacies far outnumber this fast-dwindling community with two centuries of ties to the city In North Chennai’s populous and noisy Royapuram area, the tranquil 104-year-old Jal Phiroj Clubwala...
Picnics at Juhu Beach: Indian Memory Project
The Indian Memory Project is a fantastic website that curates memories. They have a wonderful post by father daughter duo Rumi and Sooni Taraporevala about picnics at Juhu Beach. This photograph of...
Pakistani Zoroastrians Must Keep The Fire Ablaze
Funerals are the only constant for Zoroastrians in Pakistan. For a community of less than 1,800 — last recorded in 2006 in a research conducted by KE Eduljee — the announcement comes faithfully...