The ZXX study was created as a tribute to Zarthusti women and as a way to celebrate their lives. Our aim was to...
Culture Articles
The Parsi in history, imagination, life and culture
A series of events in the capital seeks to demystify the fast-dwindling community who migrated to India more than a...
Of Dhansak and Nan Khatai
During the sixties, the city had over 3,000 Parsees. Today, there are just 650, and the community is counting every birth and death. Thus, when the Parsee Club on the Maidan recently completed its...
Calcutta Parsees: Christmas Show as Part of Centenary Celebrations
The Calcutta Parsee Club, founded in 1908, will have the last of its centenary celebrations during the Christmas week. The 100-year-old club will organise a big show on December 25 night, followed...
Zoroastrian faith flourishing in Illinois
Despite declining numbers of Zoroastrians worldwide, immigrants from India and Iran help the religion grow in Chicago area The ancient faith of Zoroastrianism is in decline worldwide, its numbers...
Tales from Cusrow Baug
by ShwetaTeotia Posted online: Oct 26, 2008 at 0205 hrs A peek into the Parsi bastion in Colaba, which is out of bounds for most Mumbaikars On Colaba Causeway, there is a place that intrigues the...
Wedding trousseau, the Parsi style
Women display Parsi wear at the exhibition on Friday. Picture by Bhola Prasad Jamshedpur, Sept. 19: After wearing saris of Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra and south India to your relatives’ weddings, if...
Sacred Space: Parsi New Year
On Ahura Mazda Ahura means the Lord Creator, and Mazda means Supremely Wise. This was the name by which Zarathushtra addressed his God. He proclaimed that there is only one God, who is the singular...
Doomed by faith
India's Parsi community is shrinking fast. For every birth, there are five deaths, prompting fierce debate between reformists and traditionalists who are concerned about ethnic purity. By...
Chaiye Hame Bawaji
This is a wonderful piece written by Ms. Natasha Viraf Deboo of Poona The word 'Parsi' is derived from the word Pars or Persia. Hence, Parsi literally means 'people who have come from...
The Parsi Wedding
By Firoze Hirjikaka The main theme and the true raison d’etre for a Zoroastrian wedding is food. Zoroastrian wedding banquets are definitely for the weight watchers. Demurring protestations to the...
A Passion for Persia, Disneyland and Dolphins
KISH, Iran — The indoor dolphin show was in full swing as Hossein Sabet walked in to a burst of applause from the 1,200 people in attendance. Clad in tight beige equestrian pants and tall black...
Fire temple enters its 300th year
24 Apr 2008, 0434 hrs IST,Nauzer Bharucha,TNN MUMBAI: For the past few centuries, they have been one of Mumbai’s most important religious and architectural landmarks. On Thursday, the...
Zoroastrian helps keep the traditions of ancient religion alive
An interview with Dr. Farzana Irani. Irani was born and raised in India, where she graduated from medical school. She immigrated in 1978 to Albany, where she is an obstetrician and gynecologist in...
The Navroze table
Parsis have a reputation for being major food lovers, as anyone attending a Parsi celebration will confirm. And that’s a reputation likely to be upheld on March 21, when Parsis the world over mark...
PM greets Parsis on occasion of Navroz
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today greeted the nation, especially the Parsi community, on the occasion of Navroz, the New Year Day of the Zoroastrians. In his message, Dr. Singh said that the...
Sadeh Celebrations in Iran
Iran’s Zoroastrian minorities gathered at their temples across Iran on Wednesday to mark Sadeh _ an ancient feast celebrating the creation of fire that has been observed since the days when...
Migrants are Mumbai’s shapers, not its shame
By Bachi Karkaria, Jug Suraiya’s Second Opinion (January 4) may be dead-on in blaming India’s ersatz modernity for what happened in Mumbai , but it is way off the mark in also damning...
4th WZYC: Small in number but big in spirit, Zoroastrians lay claim as the original greens
IT IS one of the world’s oldest major religions, and certainly the smallest, but according to its followers its impeccable “green” credentials make it the ideal religion for the...
Among the Zoroastrians
The Washington Post has a great feature titled “Among the Zoroastrians” Jackie Lyden vividly brings out the culture and lives of the few Zoroastrians still living in the desert plateau of Yazd,...
Spinning the yarn
Perveez Aggarwal tells story behind her creation: the traditional Parsi gara embroidery MUMBAI: She wears her years as gracefully as she does her saris. Parveez Aggarwal became a model by chance, at...
Faithful few embrace Zoroastrian ideals
CHICAGO — When a group of young Zoroastrian people gathered around a bonfire in a Chicago suburb to pray for their religion’s survival, they sang a modern hymn of their adopted homeland...
Dwindling numbers: Parsis at the fire temple in Secunderabad.
HYDERABAD: In a bid to understand the genetic factors, which are apparently leading to high incidence of various kinds of ailments among members of the Parsi community, a project named...
Ancient Persian influence on Hinduism
Ruby Lilaowala | Friday, August 17, 2007 10:28:58 IST The Aryan settlers who lived in Persia and later, in India, had a lot in common by way of phonetics, language, spirituality and reverence for...
Zoroastrian Fires and Temples
Standing before a sacred fire, Zoroastrians pay homage to a creation that represents life and the power of Ahura Mazda. There are three kinds of sacred fires in Zoroastrianism, each standing for one...
Governor Greets Parsis on New Year
The Governor of Maharashtra S M Krishna greeted the people on the occasion of the ‘Parsi New Year’ on Monday. In his message, Mr Krishna said ”The contribution of the Parsi...
Celebrating Parsi New Year
BY Rakshande Italia If I cherished one special day during the year, besides my birthday, it was the New Year – not Jan. 1, but a day in August when members of my tiny Zoroastrian community in...
Rolling in gold but still poverty-stricken
IN 1865, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata – a one-time opium trader and scion of a sparkling line of Parsee priests, Zoroastrians who had fled to western India from persecution in Iran –...
Numbers down, but not their spirit
Numbers down, but not their spirit Family planning, migration, restrictions on conversion are reasons behind decline in Parsi population. Kolkata, June 21: Some thirty years ago, they were 4,000....
Lose the vultures, and lose the soul
By Bachi Karkaria As an Indian Parsi Zoroastrian, I’m proud to belong to a tiny minority widely admired for its material success and its philanthropy. But I feel a closing sense of siege. The...
Bringing up the mediums: Parsi Mobeds
Parents make the heartbreaking decision to send their children to residential schools for various material reasons. It’s seldom for a cause. But last year, parents of 30 Parsi children decided...
Parsis Are Australia’s most diligent workers
AT last the question on everybody’s lips has been answered: The hardest working believers in Australia are are Zoroastrians. With just two religious holidays a year, the followers of the...
Perin Ferrao: Activist refused to accept a woman’s lot in India
Even as a youngster Perin Ferrao never accepted the conventional view in her native India that women were subordinate to men. Committed all her life to the emancipation of women, the Montreal...
Zoroastrianism dying out in modern times
Many young boys being trained as priests will instead follow other careers Like most 12-year-old boys, Rayan Dastoor watches movies, goes to school and surfs the Internet for the latest tunes by...
A war is but a loser’s game
by Farrukh Dhondy I can’t remember which teacher it was who ventured to tell us about the Battle of Thermopylae all those years ago. Three hundred Spartans held the pass at the aforesaid place...
Bistoun Complex: Tourist Destination
Bistoun mountain with its world famous myths is annually visited by a great number of tourists from around the world at the beginning of spring. According to cultural heritage experts, the tablet of...
Persepolis Today
Two videos showing Persepolis today and a glimpse of the grandeur of what it was in its day.
Apropos of absolutely nothing at all
Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, I would like to say that whereas the Parsis laid the foundation of Mumbai and gave it some of its most beautiful buildings and colonies, the Gujaratis gave us...
Persepolis Recreated
An amazing video of Persepolis, completely recreated digitally.
A Small but Mighty Religion; What we Believe: Zoroastrianism
Mehlli Bhagalia and his wife, Perin, tend a small flame in their home in Carlsbad. Bhagalia said the flame, safe in the fireplace, has been consecrated by the couple’s prayers and is only...
Mumbai: Parsi community celebrates Navroze
The Zoroastrian community in India, particularly those in Mumbai, is all set to celebrate the beginning of the New Year or Navroze. For Mehrad Faroudi, this day is special as his grandmother Audokht...
Iranians Celebrate the New Year 1386
Right after midnight on Wednesday, 21 March, Iranians will be celebrating Norouz (new day), the start of 1386, the new Iranian year – a celebration which is at least 2,500 years old. The new...
Avesthagen initiates Parsi genome project
Avestha Gengraine Technologies (Avesthagen), a Bangalore-based integrated biotech company, has launched ‘Avestagenome’, a project to build a complete genetic, genealogical and medical...
Navroze Celebrations
Navruz: An evening crammed with joy For Zorastrians, Navruz is a time to eat, drink and celebrate. But in recent times, the festival has lost its zest as people leave celebrating to those precious...
Persian New Year full of symbolism, savory foods
One of the world’s oldest cuisines is that of Persia. And with the coming of the Persian New Year, or Norouz, on March 21, now is a good time to discover the rich flavors and scents from this...
Tonight Iranian people will celebrate the ancient festival…
Tonight Iranian people will celebrate the ancient festival of fire or Chahar Shanbeh Soori in all Iranian cities. Chahar Shanbeh Soori, literally means Red Wednesday, is an ancient festival, dating...
Iran readying for New Year
From Tehran to Isfahan to Mashad to Shiraz, businesses, shops and government offices are getting ready to close as Iran sets out to celebrate the country’s New Year, called Nowruz. Iranians...
Scrapbooking Projects
Although the Iranian government has condemned ” Scrapbooking Projects 300″ as insulting to the Persian civilization, the film has been packing them in at movie houses across the country....
Parsee Matrimony in Poem
A funny poem forwarded by a friend. Read on We are all somehow related Often times even belated. At reproduction they’re not the best By working in banks they get their rest. The community is...
Parsis love their bikes more than their wives!
Parsis have a certain love affair with their two wheelers, which only they can fathom. They’ll proudly spend hours lovingly washing and polishing their prized possessions and God help you if...
Heads of UNESCO National Commissions to Finalize Norouz File
Heads of UNESCO’s national commissions in ten countries sharing the Norouz tradition will get together in Tehran in April 2007 for a final review of Norouz file to be sent to UNESCO for...
Bandra residents want BMC chief’s written promise
The Bandra Hill Road Citizen’s Committee movement to save old heritage structures, including the Tata Parsi Agiary, St Peter’s Church, St Stanislaus’ High School and St...