"Imagine never hearing `Saalo Ghelsappo" again! Lawyer and author Armin Wandrewala's recently released novel,...
Books Articles
Short stories about Mumbai: Murzban Shroff
Short stories about Mumbai: A woman is outraged when she sees a stark-naked sadhu on Marine DriveAn excerpt from the...
Hoshang Merchant: In Conversation
Q&A with Hoshang Merchant | ‘Liberation does not come in a day’ The poet on his autobiography, sexuality, authorial identity and Section 377 By Amirta Roy | Livemint A Parsi who has studied...
Marzban’s Dark Laughter
In my boyhood in Pune, the West End cinema would, at least once a year, transform itself into a live theatre to host a Parsi natak by a visiting troupe from Bombay. The wooden benches of the...
Parsi Author Rohinton Mistry wins $50K Neustadt Award
Toronto-area writer Rohinton Mistry has won the $50,000 US Neustadt International Prize for Literature, awarded for outstanding achievement in poetry, fiction or drama. Published on CBC News An...
A chronicle of Parsi theatre’s heyday
For Parsis growing up between the 1950s and 1980s, social life was defined by weekly visits to the theatre, to watch, re-watch and enjoy Parsi plays. Directors like Adi Marzban and Pheroze Antia...
Laughter, the worst medicine
Parsi theatre has been in decline thanks to its audience’s refusal of watching anything other than comedies and the language divide Coffee table books scare me for two reasons. I don’t have a coffee...
K. D. Sethna: A colossus passes on
To many of us, K.D. Sethna was the foremost mystic poet of our generation, next only to Sri Aurobindo. He has left behind nearly a thousand splendid poems and several volumes of prose. Future will...
Laughter In The House: Meher Marfatia On Parsi Theatre
That Sunday afternoon was as soggy with nostalgia as a khari biscuit dunked in chai. Fifty old troupers of Mumbai's Parsi stage had reunited to celebrate a new book, Laughter in the House. They met...
Dahanu Road: Three generations of Parsis, their secrets and fond dreams
Anosh Irani’s third novel Dahanu Road is a comprehensive account of a family of Iranian Zoroastrians who migrated to India before World War II. The story is a mix of historic encounters, family...
Insider trading
It had been a long day. Nina Godiwalla had stumbled home from a bar after work, and collapsed in bed. But she was wide awake in a few hours. She needed to talk to someone, be with someone. Her...
Sorabji’s book gives in-depth account of aunt’s struggle
In the early 1880s, Cornelia Sorabji became the first woman to be ever granted admission into the University of Bombay. Defying expectations, she scored a first class in her exams, and when the...
Ruttie Jinnah: A Book Review
THIS study deals with Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s marital life and its tragic break up, resulting finally in the death of his 29-year-old young beautiful and highly talented wife, Ruttie. Originally...
Yaraana: Edited by Hoshang Merchant
Hoshang Merchant is a senior poetic star in the firmament of Indian poetry. He and his work sparkle bright, like the mischief in his eyes. His Parsi background and early years in Mumbai, coupled...
Author Rohinton Mistry slams Mumbai University after book ban
Mr Mistry's second novel Such a Long Journey, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, was removed from Mumbai University's literature syllabus following...
Empire Records: Something Borrowed by Rohinton Mistry
Two months before I was to leave Bombay for Toronto, a friend from St, Xavier s College asked to borrow my copy of "A Hard Days Night," Empire Records Something Borrowed by Rohinton Mistry...
Nariman Point: Never Concede On Principles
By Khushwant Singh / Hindustan Times As I read Fali Nariman’s memoirs Before Memory Fades, an autobiography (Hay House), I kept thinking about Nani Palkiwala who I had the privilege of befriending...
Fali’s enduring life
Its authors sought to dismiss the June 1975 Emergency as an event of no consequence in four famous words: “not a dog barked”. The bench and the bar, which are regarded as the fair and fearless...
Fali Nariman: Mea Culpa And Other Stories
Three Zoroastrians (Parsis) have dominated our jurisprudence through the last four decades: Nani Palkhivala, Soli Sorabjee and Fali Nariman. Fali Nariman lets memory strike its own patchwork path,...
Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani
"Death and time are like two clowns," Shapur Irani, the patriarch of Dahanu Road, tells his grandson, Zairos. "They play pranks only they find funny." By Kate Wallace / Telegraph-Journal It's true....
Ardashir Vakil: Having the write stuff
You don’t become an award-winning author without having a flair for words, and London-based Ardashir Vakil is certainly a good example of that. His impeccable sentences, tinged with the lilting...
Alice in Bhuleshwar: Kaiwan Mehta
A book review of Alice in Bhuleshwar: Navigating A Mumbai Neighbourhood by Kaiwan Mehta While wandering through the streets of Mumbai's old town, Kaiwan Mehta comes across a Venetian-style bust of a...
Parsi Author Murzban Shroff uses word “Ghati” and lands in court
Use of the word ‘ghati’ in his book Breathless in Bombay has landed first-time author Murzban Shroff in trouble, with an activist claiming that it “lowers the reputation and image of Maharashtrians...
Architect Nari Gandhi: Monograph
We are very happy to inform you about the soon to be published Monograph on one of India’s foremost architects Nari Gandhi. There is a personal connection here for me. The author of the monograph is...
City of Thieves by Cyrus Mevawalla
Cyrus Mevawalla a.k.a Cyrus Moore is a UK-born Parsi whose first book was recently published in the UK. City of Thieves abstract: Nic Lamparelli works for a leading US investment bank in London....
Thrity Umrigar Wins Cleveland Arts Prize
The employees of McLean & Eakin Booksellers are so taken with Thrity Umrigar's stories that they pooled frequent-flier miles to bring her to a July 9 reading at their Petoskey, Mich., store....
Photo Collection Tells Stories of Parsis in India
Recently I came across this old interview that Sooni Taraporewala did on NPR Radio here in the US. This was on the launch of the second edition of her book Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India. You can...
Bapsy Sidhwa: Mystique of Her Art
The irremovable stains of blood marked on the dead body of an innocent girl compelled her to pen her thoughts and that’s when it all started. Bapsi Sidhwa, noted writer and Pakistani-based American...
The permanence of Persia
The remarkable perseverance of Iran's cultural identity By David Morgan Iran is now widely spoken of as a “regional superpower”. That status owes a good deal to the operation of a law that Michael...
The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture: Nerina Rustomji
Islamic conceptions of heaven and hell began in the seventh century as an early doctrinal innovation, but by the twelfth century, these notions had evolved into a highly formalized ideal of...
Tribute: Kersy Katrak
Poet of the soul By KEKI N. DARUWALLA As a poet Kersy Katrak did not get his due, but his poetry had yet to be fully explored and articulated when he died. Katrak’s poetry blends the serious with...
Review: Personal Score – Zubin Mehta
Don't look for cheap thrills in Zubin Mehta's autobiography By Rekha DixitI thought it would be hypocritical to write about how good I am, so I've been very candid in my autobiography," said Zubin...
The pages of history: J. N. Petit Library
The staff of the JN Petit, home to 150,000 titles, do more than just take care of books If you can’t remember the last time you visited a heritage library, you are not alone. Edged out by modern...
Shahnameh: The Great Poem That Came Out of Persia
By ROYA HAKAKIAN My earliest memories of the Shahnameh, the greatest work ever written in the Persian language, belong to my childhood in Iran. I and other girls in my elementary school recited...
Mehernosh Mody: La Porte des Indes
The Legacy of France in Indian Regional Cuisine The creation of the famous La Porte des Indes restaurants that sprinkle Europe is as much a love story as it is anything else. In 1986, Mehernosh Mody...
Sugar in Milk : Lives of Eminent Parsis by Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy
Authoritative, fascinating and insightful, Sugar in Milk is a collection of twelve in-depth profiles of some of the greatest Parsis India has produced. Ranging from the nineteenth century to the...
Sons And Other Flammable Objects By Porochista Khakpour
Sons And Other Flammable ObjectsBy Porochista Khakpour. 398 pages. $24. Grove Press. By Judy Budnitz In the opening scenes of Porochista Khakpour's novel "Sons and Other Flammable Objects," we meet...
Thrity Umrigar: If Today Be Sweet
A Disquieting Clash of Cultures In a wintry suburb of Cleveland, a recently widowed Parsi named Tehmina has come from her apartment in Bombay to visit -- maybe to live with -- her only son, Sorab,...
The Song of Kahunsha
Canadian novelist and playwright Anosh Irani pulls back that iconic image of his home city of Mumbai, India -- malnourished and deformed beggar children -- to reveal the tender heart of human need...
Rusi Lala writing book on 100 yrs of Tata Steel
It is a history of the makers of steel. Make that Tata Steel. RM Lala, the official biographer of JRD Tata, Beyond the Last Blue Mountain, may be pushing 80 but he is busy with his latest work, The...
A Few Stray Thoughts by Farzana Contractor
Sweet Dadi, younger brother of Behram is here, all the way from the South of France, St Rapheal, where he now lives It's not often that I have house guests. And rarely if ever as welcome as the one...
Parsi Authors
Then there was a clutch of Parsi novelists--all settled abroad. Gifted story-tellers with good command of the language and the ability to laugh at themselves. They were at their best writing about...
The burden of a song
By Farrokh Dhondy The Archbishop of Canterbury wants to kill the tradition of singing hymns in colonial places. I can’t imagine Bishops School, Pune, without the hymns, alien songs to the alien...
‘Indian Cowboy’ to come to life in DreamAcres…
'Indian Cowboy' to come to life in DreamAcres barn By Gretchen Mensink Lovejoy Zaraawar Mistry may have never expected his character Gayomar Katrak to find himself in a barn, but that is precisely...
Whats the Fuss About: Da Vinci Code
It's the Da Vinci showdown As protests against The Da Vinci Code gather momentum, Mumbai comes out strongly in favour of freedom of expression I was invited by the Censor Board to watch The Da Vinci...
Rediscover the Axial Age ethos
complained to Lord Mazda (Aryan god of harmony): 'For whom did you shape me? ... Fury and raiding, cruelty and might hold me captive.' " Lord Mazda replied that Zoroaster, a priest, would protect...
In The Song of Kahunsha
In The Song of Kahunsha (Doubleday Canada, $29.95), the second novel from North Vancouver's Anosh Irani, paradise is a place of no sadness. Or so believes his protagonist, 10-year-old Chamdi, an...
Of myths, legends and fabled Parsi gems
SHAPURBAUG: A retired school teacher is trying to cull out fables and legends about the Parsis in a bid to retrace the path trodden by the community and record people's lives for posterity. Article...
Love, death and adjectives in Mumbai
Two for one, three for two: no noun without an adjective, never a single adjective where two or more will do. Silence is "utter", hatred "raw and naked", puddles "brown, murky and stagnant". The...
The Space Between Us;
A new novel by Thrity Umrigar; WHEN was it that you last thought of your household help as human? More importantly in a crunch who would you trust -- the help or your own family? Sera Dubash, a...
Parsi History: Objective documentation or hagiography?
Enduring Legacy: Parsis of the 20th Century Edited and published by Nawaz B. Mody 4 volumes Pages: 1,168 In my early years at school, I was frequently embarrassed by the clannish appeals of my Parsi...
Labour of love
This book has a little bit for everybody. City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore, edited by Bapsi Sidhwa, Penguin, Rs.395. AN anthology is like a Jack of all Trades -- it has a little bit for...