Mumbai Samachar had its humble origins in the form of a handwritten weekly publication.Article by Khushboo Ali |...
History Articles
The Faravahar Soars: Parsis in the Indian Air Force
Prepare to be amazed by the Parsi community’s extraordinary journey in the Indian Air Force! From soaring heights to...
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 History unfortunately has been superseded in favour of flighty...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...
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...