Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the...
Bombay Articles
F D Alpaiwalla Museum Opens after Restoration
The Parsi community has reason to be pleased as FD Alpaiwalla Museum near Hughes Road opened after a spell of...
Row over Parsi hospital’s pact with private firm goes to Bombay High Court
A quaint heritage Parsi hospital property built in 1895 and lying defunct for several decades in the prime Fort area of south Mumbai will be redeveloped into an orthopaedic and neurosurgery centre....
Setback to Wadia in land battle as Supreme Court upholds old Act
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a law made in Maharashtra in 1977, which requires that before courts get into the facts of a case, they should decide on jurisdiction when...
Mumbai City Development Plan forgets to mark as many as 24 fire temples as heritage structures
Parsis were among the first settlers in Mumbai in the 17th century and they started consecrating their fire temples (Agiaries and Atash Behrams) over the next 200 years. In the past decade, the...
Adi Jehangir on the Closing of Café Samovar
As Mumbai bids goodbye to Cafe Samovar this week, Adi Jehangir says he is simply making room for artists. It’s a busy Thursday afternoon at Kala Ghoda’s Jehangir Art Gallery. A queue...
The NavroZYNG Boat Party Ran Foul of the Cops
The Mumbai police brought an illegal boat party spread across three boats near Gateway of India to a screeching halt around midnight on Friday. By Vijay Kumar Yadav, Hindustan Times Colaba police...
8 CCTV cameras to keep a watch on Khada Parsi statue
In a bid to safeguard the Khada Parsi from drug addicts and thieves, the BMC is set to install eight CCTV cameras and a circular fence around the statue. One of only two such cast-iron...
Bombay Airport’s Terminal 2 Art Wall To Depict Parsi-Style Theatre
Having already set the standard in terms of artistic beauty, the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s (CSIA) T2 terminal is now undergoing the completion of its ‘art museum’...
Heritage enclave cracks open its door to redevelopment
At the entrance to Parsi Colony in Dadar, two new towers signal the changes creeping into this low-rise, historic neighbourhood. Article by Nergish Sunavala | Times of India One is Parsi builder...
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...
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...
A winter time walk in Dadar Parsi Colony
Many moons ago, the bead-like red seeds that emerge from the tiny star shaped yellow flowers were used by Arabian Jewellers as units of weight because all of them have identical weights. These are...
India’s oldest scouting group turns 100 on November 8
One of the oldest continuously run scout groups in the city will complete 100 years on November 8. Sethna’s 18th West Bombay, whose members are mostly Zoroastrians, was founded in 1914....
Kavasji Jamshedji Petigara: An Extraordinary Policeman
On reading a recent article on the Irani brothers in the Mumbai Police Force, Parsi Khabar reader Shahpur Doctor writes in to remind us of a legendary Parsi police officer from nearly a 100 years...
Defunct Tower of Silence lives on in the heart of an Andheri residential colony
The article has an UPDATE since it was first published. Read below At Malabar Hill, the Parsi Towers of Silence are shrouded in mystery— and thick foliage — with few community members ever spying...
The Capital City
Mumbai has its commercial roots in drug money. A profile of the City Just as one crosses the suburbs into Worli, Samudra Mahal juts up from the edge of Mumbai, casting its eye out into the Arabian...
Motherhood matters: Tehmulji’s Parsi Lying-In Hospital
We unravel the history behind the crumbling Parsi Lying-In Hospital on Prescott Road Article by Meher Mirza | DNA India The Parsi Lying-In Hospital at Fort In the 19th century, young Parsi women...
All Is Well at The Bhikha Behram Well in Mumbai
Trust a grandmother to leave you with lifetime of faith in the waters of a well. Mine did so with ease. Article by Meher Marfatia | Times Of India It started with her telling the children in the...
Vada Dasturji Khurshed of Udvada asks Parsis to vote for BJP
Below is an article by good friend of Parsi Khabar and acclaimed journalist Nauzer Bharucha. It is indeed a first for a Parsi head priest to endorse and support a candidate in a political election....
B. Merwan & Co. : No One Ever Asked Us.
Aashim Tyagi has some beautiful images of B. Merwan & Co. the most famous Irani café in Mumbai. At the start of the year there was a frenzy in Mumbai concerning the news that Merwan was closing...
The Irani Brothers: Last Two Parsi Police Officers Left in Mumbai
There is an update to the article since it was first published. See below Decades ago, on the last Wednesday of every month, the Mumbai police commissioner would take a group of senior officers —...
Bombay Meri Hai : Hot Beat for Bombay
Bom bom bom bom“ the staccato rang out. How my brother and I chuckled as children to first hear that syllabic quartet. Our giggles muffled by mouths stuffed with an edge of the living room curtain...
The dying profession of disposing of the dead
The gradual disappearance of vultures years ago almost led to the collapse of the Parsi ‘s doongerwadi system of disposing the dead. While the tradition now continues with the help of solar...
Mapping Mumbai: Gardens With Something To Tell
What could a Parsi knight and a Cross-crowned fountain on the grounds of the city’s first Anglican Church possibly have in common? Article by Meher Marfatia | Times of India To answer this...
How BMC completely lost the plot: Wadias Demand Land Back
The BMC is on the verge of losing a 40-acre parcel of land worth Rs 1,300 crore in Aarey Colony. The city corporation obtained the tract from the FE Dinshaw Trust in 1972 and reserved it in 1993 to...
Marzban Colony: Springing forth from history
The Marzban Colony in Agripada, south Mumbai, gets a new lease on life Article by Meher Mirza | DNA India The story of ‘The Lal Chimney Compound’ begins in the 19th century, with...
Requiem For A Bird: Documentary on the Towers of Silence
Requiem for a Bird currently stands as a last chance to document the singular relationship of the Parsi and the vultures. The two have been linked through death for centuries, with the bodies of...
Cafe 792 Opens in Dadar Parsi Colony
Be it cold cuts, set lunches or quick bites, Café 792, tucked inside Dadar’s leafy Parsi Colony, offers a variety of delicious chow, especially when you are on the go. We treaded on a gravel-laden...
The Khada Parsi Statue: In Animation
Sandwiched between the famous Byculla flyovers is the 152-year old cast iron statue of Shet Cursetjee Manockjee. The long forgotten 40 feet tall statue, once known to be a famous landmark, is back...
Farrokh Khambata’s JOSS to Open in Santacruz Mumbai
Long after shutting down Joss at Kala Ghoda, owner Farrokh Khambata will now open an outpost at Santacruz (W). Launching in place of Two One Two All Day, next to the Mini Cooper showroom, the Pan...
BBC: Mumbai’s Disappearing Irani Cafes
Mumbai’s grand old Parsi cafes have long been a symbol of the city’s diverse cuisine and culture. They were first opened in the 19th century by settlers moving to India from Iran and...
Bhabha museum was planned near Gateway of India: Gerson da Cunha
Reacting to demands for Homi Bhabha’s bungalow to be converted into a museum, author and social worker Gerson da Cunha says it was already planned at Old Yacht Club, Anushakti Bhawan Article by...
Khada Parsi stands tall again, but do his values still hold?
It may have taken close to a decade to accomplish it, but the BMC needs to be complimented for restoring the Khada Parsi statue at Byculla: at the very least, the BMC cannot be accused of being...
Mumbai Samachar: Going strong at 192
On July 1, Mumbai Samachar, the city’s second most circulated Gujarati paper, will reaffirm its position as the oldest surviving newspaper in Asia. When copies of the Mumbai Samachar (MS) hit...
After restoration, Khada Parsi stands tall
After over two years of tedious restoration work, the iconic 150-year-old “Khada Parsi” statue, a Grade I heritage monument in Mumbai, was unveiled on Friday in the presence of Shiv Sena chief...
Smita Crishna-Godrej buys historic Bhabha bungalow for Rs. 372 cr
Smita has assured friends that the iconic home where brothers Homi and Jamshed grew up will not be torn down to make way for a highrise and will only be used as a family home. Dr Jamshed...
Homi Bhabha’s iconic home on the block today
Mehrangir on Malabar Hill, the bungalow where the father of India’s atomic energy programme, Homi Bhabha, once lived, will go under the hammer on Wednesday afternoon. Article by Nergish...
A Book on The Irani Cafes of Bombay
One of Mumbai’s most endearing albeit fast fading icons — the Irani cafés — will be chronicled in a coffee table book that is set for a late 2015 release It was in January 2014, when the news...
Wadias want back Parsi colonies their ancestors developed
The Wadias have taken exception to the BPP using the rent from these properties to pay the salaries of Parsi priests Industrialist Nusli Wadia, whose family developed five housing colonies for the...
Let wealthy Parsis repair community building: HC
In an observation that could ‘corporatise’ the restoration of dilapidated structures in the city, the Bombay High Court has asked a Parsi community trust to approach business houses...
300 trucks of Mud dumped at Doongerwadi kicks up a storm
Four trustees of Parsi Punchayet allege the ‘debris’ was loosely dumped without finding out if it is fit for plantation, and poses a threat of landslides during monsoon; BPP chairman...
Colaba Metro Wont Affect the Atashbehrams at Princess Street: MMRDA
There is a possibility of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) not disturbing the century-old Parsi fire temple at Princess Street near Dhobi Talao during the construction of...
Mumbai’s Kemp’s Corner flyover turns 50
“You know when the Kemp’s Corner flyover was being built… It was like a smooth concrete stretch. I’d sneak up there with my bicycle and it would feel heady to feel the bike...
Ashmick Snack Shack: Pali naka’s Parsi pride
Karan Johar’s mom, Hiroo digs the dhansak. But that’s not why you need to make a call to Ashmick. By Roxanne Bamboat | Mumbai Mirror For burb residents who whine about Parsi cuisine...
Chemould Prescott Road: Moulding modern art for decades
India was still taking its first steps as an independent nation when a young Maqbool Fida Hussain was struggling to find avenues to display his art in the city. He met by chance a young Parsi couple...
BMC allots land in Worli for Parsis who opt for cremation
With conservatives allegedly barring reformists from prayer halls in the Malabar Hill Doongerwadi, the civic body has allotted space to them in the Worli crematorium. By Jyoti Shelar | Mumbai Mirror...
A Burning Question
Mumbai’s Parsis find themselves divided over a crematorium for those who’d rather not opt for the traditional Towers of Silence. By Lhendup G Bhutia |OPEN Magazine When Dinshaw Tamboly was about...
B. Merwan and the Irani Cafe: A Fading Icon
Recently the news about B. Merwan the iconic Irani cafe with the best Mava cakes in the world, shutting down; has brought a sense of gloom over all those who love the restaurant and in fact the...
Brigadier Furdoon Mehta Meets with Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales met some of India’s last surviving Second World War veterans as he paid his respects to the country’s war dead on Remembrance Sunday. The Prince and The Duchess of...
Charges Against BPP Chairman: Is the World Congress in Jeopardy ?
Four Trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) Arnavaz Mistry, Khojeste Mistree, Jimmy Mistry and Yazdi Desai filed a complaint with the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Mumbai against BPP...
Stars in the milky way: Parsi Dairy Farm
Relative Value: Sarfaraz K Irani, 28, and Bakhtyar K Irani, 31 Meet the two boys who gave Mumbai’s iconic dairy a steroid shot of success. Brothers Bakhtyar, 31, and Sarfaraz K Irani, 28,...