Conservation & Restoration at Doongerwadi Large Pavilion Renovated in Honor of Roda & Noshir PardiwalaThe...
Bombay Articles
Mumbai’s Parsi Gate To Be Restored At 75m From Original Location
Here’s Why It Is So Sacred For ParsisIf you’ve been to Marine Drive before it was arrested by the development of the...
This Duo is Documenting Mumbai’s Fast Disappearing Irani Cafes
The culturescape of Mumbai is one that is vast and diverse and there are many elements – old and new, that make the city as you know it today. Some of these aspects are such that add...
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...
XYZ is MAD
Our dear friend Hoshaang Gotla writes in to inform us of an excellent initiative he is putting together with the Xtremely Young Zoroastrians, a program he founded. On the occasion of XYZ's...
How a new prayer hall is changing funeral patterns in Mumbai’s Parsi community
After more than a decade of controversy, a growing number of Mumbai’s Parsi Zoroastrians are now choosing to cremate their deceased loved ones instead of consigning them to the traditional Towers of...
Mumbai Rail Metro Threatens Bhikha Behram Well
Tunnel dug for project will deplete sweet, holy water, fear trustees; authorities respond, promise meeting to allay fears The Bhikha Behram Well, one the city's oldest sunken sweet water sources,...
Iconic Kekee Manzil on Bandstand Bandra Up For Sale?
UPDATE: From a friend who knows the family, we have been informed that the information below is not accurate. The house is NOT FOR SALE. We are thrilled to hear that. May Kekee Manzil continue to...
Check in to vintage Mumbai with Simin Patel
This evening, Mumbai historian Simin Patel will discuss the hotel trade in Bombay from 1860 to 1903. Excerpts from an interview Article By Anand Benegal | Mid-Day Q. What interests you about the...
Lecture on old Bombay hotels debunks myths and unearths scandals
There has been a persistent rumour that Parsi industrialist Jamsetji Tata was denied entry to the European-owned Esplanade Hotel or in a less popular account Pyrke's Apollo Hotel. In...
BH Wadia Clock Tower in Mumbai Vandalized
How safe is Mumbai's heritage from wrecking? How safe is Mumbai’s heritage from wrecking? A theft at Fort’s century-old BH Wadia clock tower throws up uncomfortable questions Mumbai isn’t free from...
Cheers to Lal Chimney
It’s a privilege I haven’t had. Of living in a baug, that quaint yet quintessential bastion of Parsidom, the housing hub whose clusters across town are home to over half the 40,000 members of my...
Supreme Court Orders Status Quo on Parsi Lying In Hospital Case
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to all Trustees of Parsi Punchayat and managing of Parsi Lying-in Hospital and directed that there be status quo on its development after Punchayet chief...
K Rustoms and Why Google was right to pick the name Ice Cream Sandwich
This October Google is rolling out the latest version of its Android operating system, codenamed Marshmallow. This series is called after confectionery, starting alphabetically with Cupcake, Donut...
Zubin Mehta concerts granted tax exemption
The Devendra Fadnavis government on Wednesday granted entertainment duty exemption to the Australian World Orchestra concerts to be conducted by Padma Vibhushan Zubin Mehta on October 25 and 26. A...
Mumbai’s pillar: The Parsi Community
After the decay of the Armenian dynasty what followed was with gradual rise a community that is well known today as the Parsis. The Holy faith introduced by their prophet, Zarathustra is recognized...
Cyrus Poonawalla buys iconic Lincoln House in Mumbai for Rs 750 crore
Bulge-bracket property deals by the rich and the famous are not new to the land-starved megapolis, but the weekend sale of the iconic Lincoln House here to the Pune-based industrialist Cyrus...
First service at new Parsi prayer hall
The new prayer hall at Worli for Parsis, who choose burial or cremation of the dead, will see its first prayer service on Wednesday -two weeks after it received a go-ahead from the Brihanmumbai...
Will Mumbai’s 99-year-old iconic Parsi Dairy Farm shut shop ?
For almost a century, Parsi Dairy Farm has fattened generations of Mumbaikars on its high-quality milk, butter, ghee, and an assortment of mithais. Eateries across the city have for decades served...
Reformist Parsis get a funeral prayer hall of their own in Worli, Mumbai India
Barred from prayer halls inside Doongarwadi for opposing the traditional method of disposing of dead or for marrying outside the community, the liberals build their own space to pray for the dead....
The Worli Prayer Hall For Parsi Irani Zarathushtis
In Febrarury 2014 we had informed you about the allocation of land at the Worli crematorium to build a prayer hall to be used for Parsi and Irani Zarathushtis who opt for cremation upon death. The...
Open Parsi dokhmas to kin, says protesting workers’ union
The Mumbai Mazdoor Sabha, representing the Bombay Parsi Punchayet's (BPP) 220 Class IV workers, has asked the trust to allow relatives of the deceased into the roofless towers where dead bodies are...
Parsis volunteer to turn corpse-bearers
BPP Trustee Scopes Out Substitutes If Khandias Strike About 25 Parsis, normally employed as plumbers, engineers and businessmen, will don crisp white uniforms and work as pallbearers or khandias if...
Mumbai’s Parsis fight to preserve the city’s greenest space in Dadar
The Parsi colony in Mumbai’s Dadar neighbourhood is unique. It is the world’s largest concentration of Parsis, now down to its last 80,000 despite the community’s wealth and education. Article by...
Parsi Punchayet sweepers, pallbearers threaten strike
On Monday, over 230 Class IV workers including the Tower of Silence's pallbearers sported red Gandhi topis with their union's name “Mumbai Mazdoor Sabha“ emblazoned across. This was the first phase...
Khada Parsi Statue to Get a Protective Barrier and CCTV
Protection Against Beggars, Drug Addicts et al for Iconic Statue Article by Chaitanya Marpakwar | Times Of India Almost a year after it was restored at a cost of nearly Rs 1 crore, the BMC has decid...
Tehmulji Parsi Lying-In hospital may see development soon
The hospital at Fort has not been functioning for over two decades now. For the past three years, the BPP trustees and the hospital committee have been locked in a legal tussle over the...
Vulture culture atop coconut palms sends bird numbers soaring
Conservation Centre At Raigad Gets Encouraging Results In Three Years A flock of vultures swoops down on a quiet open plot, flapping their wings with gay abandon while another flock takes sudden...
Café Mondegar, others won’t vacate Colaba’s Metro House building
Despite an eviction notice from the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), the tenants of Metro House in Colaba, which houses iconic establishments such as the famed Café Mondegar, have refused to vacate the...
Dadar Parsi colony residents fight for hawker-free zone
One of the oldest area in Mumbai, the Dadar Parsi colony area's residents came out, on Sunday in large numbers for anti-hawkers protest march. The protest which began from Five Gardens had residents...
Cafe Mondegar faces eviction after Bombay Port Trust terminates building lease
The Mumbai Port Trust has served an eviction notice for all tenants of Metro House building in Colaba including the iconic Cafe Mondegar for criminal violations of the lease agreement. The 7-page...
BPP Divided Over Rs 1000 Crore Silver Oaks Property in Mumbai
While a majority of Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees feel the property should be reserved for Parsis only, its chairman says charity funds should not be spent on legal fees to make it...
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 winds out of a...
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' on the walls, set...
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 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...
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. Started by...
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 —...