On World Bicycle Day, we look back at a charming chapter from Indore’s civic and commercial history, one in which the...
History Articles
Finding Keki Gazdar: New exhibition traces the roots of an Indian Parsi family through its archives
It is easy to see why Joyona Medhi turns to cinema to describe her latest photobook and exhibition, Sparseeing. The...
On Sanjan Day, Parsis dwell on future
As you travel north on the railroad route from Mumbai towards Surat, the first station beyond the Gujarat border is Umargam. The second is a small, unassuming coastal settlement named Sanjan. By
A Who’s Who of Persian History.
Who was Who in Persian History. All the ancient Iranian historical events/facts are taken from a century old book. This list is compiled by Phil Masters. [Hat Tip: Mickie Sorabjee] 1)...
Tracing Dadabhai Naoroji’s Descendants: Request for Assistance
I would like to ask readers for assistance in helping trace any descendants of Dadabhai Naoroji. Letter to Dadabhai Naoroji by his young grandson, Sarosh. Dadabhai Naoroji Papers, National Archives...
Surti gave mystical insights into the Avestha
After Mumbai, Surat has the largest number of Parsis in India. The city has also played an important role in the religion of the community as it is the birthplace of a school of Zoroastrian...
We join BACHI KARKARIA as she wishes members of her Parsi community a Happy Navroz and takes us through a typical Parsi New Year celebration in Mumbai and Kolkata The Parsis celebrated their...
Flashback: Like sugar in milk
Gulbano Bamji talks to Moniza Inam about her golden childhood in Quetta: Legend has it that when the Zorastrian king of Persia, Yazedird, was defeated in the Battle of Nehavand, many Parsis fled...
Star Spangled Banner and the Parsi Connection
The American National Anthem and the Wadia Parsi Family America’s National Anthem is sung thousands of times on every 4th of July weekend. What many may not know is that it was written by Francis...
Nargol and Sanjan: Fire, water and a holy calm
The sandy shores of Nargol and Sanjan along the Maharashtra-Gujarat coast offer respite and a quiet escape, as well as a look at the Zoroastrian community's strong ties with this land. Chikoos,...
Lord Bilimoria Addresses The House of Lords on the Occassion of ZTFE’s 150 Year Anniversary
A crossbench peer and leading entrepreneur has criticised the UK's "madcap" immigration controls, warning they are damaging business prospects. Lord Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer, condemned the...
India’s Defence Minister Makes Amends, Gives Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw His Due
Today at a special ceremony at the Zoroastrian Parsi Cemetary at Ootacamund, Nilgiris, India’s first Field Marshal and one who bestowed on the country its first military victory in a thousand years,...
Zarathushtra: The Amar Chitra Katha Edition for Children
Amar Chitra Katha have for long been one of the best sources of children’s story books in comic format. Over the past few decades they have explained religion, mythology and historical figures in...
Asian Art Museum Acquires Rare Zoroastrian Bowl
One of the Asian Art Museum’s newest acquisitions is a solid-silver muktad bowl, a gift from the Zoroastrian Association of Northern California and several private donors. By Sunita Sohrabji | India...
The Parsis, Once India’s Curators, Now Shrug as History Rots
In the course of over one year of archival research in India, I have been heartened to see how, in a few institutions like the National Archives, the country’s rotting history now has a fighting...
Remembering Parsi greats on Navroze
Today Parsi’s celebrate Jamshedi Nauroze and will engage in celebrations, largely featuring good food and drink. They are possibly the smallest but most visible Indian minority. You will find a...
2600 years of history in one object: The Cyrus Cylinder
A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil...
The curious case of vanishing Parsis in Hubli-Dharwad
A greatly civilised clan, which has made valuable contributions to the socio-economic growth of the twin cities, has seen such a sharp drop in its population that demographic experts fear the...
A look at Mumbai’s dwindling Irani chai shops
UPDATE: Link to the documentary mentioned in this article is here. A lot can happen over chai. Once over 300 Irani tea-shops in Mumbai were as intrinsic to the city as streetside cafes are to Paris....
From Persia to Bangalore
Dinshaw Cawasji, President of The Bangalore Parsee Zoroastrian Anjuman narrates the history of Parsees; how they took refuge in a small coastal town in Gujarat after agreeing to several conditions...
Bachi Karkaria on the Kolkata Agiary Turning 100
The name is bond. Sacred bond. And it is licensed to send a warm thrill up the spine of every Kolkata Parsi. Not just of only the 550 who still remain, but all of us who had grown into our...
Dababhai Naoroji’s House in utter disrepair
Fellow Zoroastrians, Is this how we remember one of the greatest Zoroastrians of recent times, by letting his ancestral house fall into ruins and then be sold off to a builder?...
Tata Group’s Russi M Lala want exiting top managers to write memoirs
As India's largest business conglomerate prepares for a change of guard at Tata Sons — the main holding company for the Tata Group — Russi M Lala, the chronicler of the 143-year-old group, is keen...
Migration bringing down Parsi population in Kolkata
They number 600-odd in a city with a population of nearly 4.5 million. That nearly half of this 600 are senior citizens may have been a cause for concern for any community but the Parsis of Kolkata....
Mumbai’s original transformers: 5 superheroes you should know
Dadabhai Naoroji As I walk down the road past the maidans, at Flora Fountain Dadabhai Naoroji, book held open in his hand, asks me in Parsi Gujarati, “Are you going to Kala Ghoda? That’s where I...
A Lifetime Quest to Finish a Monumental Encyclopedia of Iran
Ralph Ellison wrote for 40 years without finishing his novel “Juneteenth.” Antoni Gaudí labored 43 years on the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona, but construction continues today. And in the...
Jeejeebhoy Senior Citizen’s Centre Navsari
Here are two video clips about the Bai Manechbai P. B. Jeejeebhoy Senior Citizen’s Centre situated in Navsari Gujarat. Part 01.
The Nanavati Case
Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra was a 1959 Indian court case where Nanavati, a Naval Commander, was tried for the murder of Prem Ahuja, his wife's lover. With Nanavati frequently...
Godrej Typewriters: End of the Road
Just Not My Type Godrej and Boyce to shut typewriter production Godrej and Boyce silenced the click-ding of its iconic typewriter last week. The company stopped production at its last typewriter...
The First Vendidad Sade and Baj in North America
The First Vendidad Sade and Baj in NA at a Dar-e-Meher Inauguration, and Enthronement of Dadgah in the ZANT Brand New Built From Scratch ZCNT (Zoroastrian Center of North Texas) April 29-30 2011! By...
Godrej & Boyce shuts world’s last typewriter facility
More than 140 years after the first typewriter was sold commercially in Europe, the epitaph for the writing machine is finally being digitally recorded on millions of PCs across the world. To...
Hanging by a thread
Parsi embroidery is being kept alive by a few patrons in the Capital. At Navjote or during a Parsi wedding, the entire congregation of Parsi women is transformed into a sea of Gara saris, in shades...
Weave of glory: Parsi Panorama Exhibition in New Delhi
At a time when the Parsi-Zoroastrian community records a drastic decrease in its population with every count, what's the point of basking in its glorious past, a few cynical minds can always ask,...
India’s Zoroastrians dying out for lack of Parsi clergy
In the cramped heart of the suburb called Andheri, the MF Cama Athornan Institute was strangely quiet. The institute, founded in 1923 to train Zoroastrian priests, is a large, M-shaped edifice with...
The Pioneering Parsis of Karachi
UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that the article below was originally authored by Farishta Dinshaw and published on Vohuman.org. The original article is now available here. We regret...
Gustadji Hathiram And The Power of Prayers
Over the years Parsi Khabar has published several articles [ 1, 2, 3, ] about the tremendous, fantastic feat of Parsi Cyclists cycling around the world in 53 months way back in the 1920's. One of...
Dorabji Damania and Life in the Indian Railways
Below is an article by A. B. Damania who talks about his uncle Dorabji Damania. Parsis were once a very large presence in the Indian Railway system, both pre and post Independence. MY FATHER’S OLDER...
Dishoom: An Irani Cafe in London
Bombay's old Irani cafes are dying a slow death, and the only people doing anything about it are in London Irani cafes -- of which Mumbai has less than 20 original examples left -- have recently...
Wadias: Built Oldest Surviving UK Warship
India has been shamed in front of the world, thanks to crumbling bridges and cracking ceilings at the Common Wealth village. But, about 200 years ago the same Indian hands built for the British...
Desperate measures for a fading Indian faith
What do musician Freddie Mercury, the Tata family who own Corus and Jaguar, and the conductor Zubin Mehta have in common? They all descended from migrants who fled Iran more than a 1,000...
We want to break free
India's Independence month has another little-known first. It was in August 1907 that Madam Cama defiantly unfurled the first Indian flag to the world and inspired a generation of Parsi firebrand...
Bhikaiji Cama – Indian Independence Movement Figure
"This flag is of Indian Independence! Behold, it is born! It has been made sacred by the blood of young Indians who sacrificed their lives. I call upon you, gentlemen to rise and salute this...
Parsis’ emotional connect with Tatas
In Indian family businesses, there is no dearth of successors. The Tatas, however, are an exception. As there's no heir apparent to Ratan Tata after he retires in December 2012, a search committee...
Ferdowsi, the Reviver of Persian Language
The United Nations cultural body (UNESCO) has named the year 2010 as 1000th anniversary of the composition of The Shahnameh, the renowned national epic of the Persian-speaking world which has been...
Bombay Panjrapole
If you aren’t looking for it, you’d probably miss it. Tucked somewhere in the by-lanes of the crowded Bhuleshwar bazaar is the Bombay Panjrapole, a 176-year-old infirmary that primarily looks after...
The last Bhuj Parsi passes away
Roadaben Sorabji Botwala spent her whole life in Bhuj Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch, which once boasted of a large population of Parsis is sad at the death last weekend of the last...
The Private Papers of Sir Dinshaw Wacha
Below is a request by Dinyar Patel, a PhD candidate at Harvard University. Dinyar Patel writes... I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Harvard University and the grand-nephew of...
Priceless Tata heirlooms to see the light of day
Though City Museum Has Permanent Exhibit, Not All 5,000-odd Artefacts Are On Display Bella Jaisinghani | TNN The story seems to be the stuff of legend. Over a hundred years ago, the two sons of...
Zoroastrianism: Its Stewardship for all Creation, the Animate and the Inanimate.
Below is the text of presentation by Pervin J. Mistry at the Parliament of Worlds Religions, Melbourne, December 5th, 2009. This was circulated by the author via email to a newsgroup. All copyrights...
From Persia to Bangalore
Dinshaw Cawasji, President of The Bangalore Parsee Zoroastrian Anjuman narrates the history of Parsees; how they took refuge in a small coastal town in Gujarat after agreeing to several conditions...
Wadias: Gujarat’s philanthropic architects
Masterstrokes, an exhibition of models of the iconic works of Richard Meier, was held at the Sir J J College of Architecture. The college is a fine example of Parsi philanthropy by Sir Jamshedji...
Nanabhoy made mota-bhai Mumbai
Fleeing from tormentors in the Middle-East, this community first found refuge in Gujarat. They speak the Gujarati language and every chronicle of Mumbai’s history has them at the centrestage. By...