The Tower of Silence located in Parsi Gutta, the final resting place of the 1,200-strong Parsi community in Hyderabad,...
Issues Articles
Kamalrukh Khan: Anti-conversion law should be nationalised
Wife of late Wajid Khan writes on her sufferings in an inter-faith marriage, says anti-conversion law should be...
Funeral billboards raise cash, ire in India
Some might see the towering billboards that rise out of a centuries-old Bombay funeral ground as a message from beyond the grave. But the signs — which exhort motorists to “Rev up your...
Vulture breeding plan shelved
The world’s first vulture breeding programme for a socio-religious purpose has been shelved. Parsis are traditionally laid to rest in Mumbai’s Tower of Silence where vultures (now...
Concern Over Delhi’s Dwindling Parsi Population
Delhi Minorities Panel plans to meet Parsi families New Delhi, May. 17 (PTI): Concerned over the declining population of Parsi community in the Capital, Delhi Minorities Commission is planning to...
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...
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...
Microphones, Planes, and Stereotypes: Those behind the Making of 300
Microphones, Planes, and Stereotypes: Those behind the Making of ‘300’ By Touraj Daryaee and Warren Soward, California State University, Fullerton I have been following reactions to the...
The Islamization of Europe
Excerpt from a longer article here Mary Boyce, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of London, has confirmed the external validity of Bat Ye’or’s analytical approach...
300 Evil-Doers
It’s been said that the movie “300” draws certain analogies about the US and its fight for freedom. People say that the Spartan’s fight with the Persian armies is a lot like...
300 Reasons To Get Mad
By Firoze Hirjikaka Parsis (Zoroastrians) – in India and abroad – are up in arms over the unflattering portrayal of ancient Persians in the recently released movie ‘300’. The...
Parsi Demographic Statistics
This article was sent to us by our regular reader Dilnaz Mory Indian census data (2001) records 69,601 Parsis in India, with a concentration in and around the city of Mumbai. There are approximately...
Persian king a barbarian: Parsis are not amused
Unknown to many, Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster of the year 300 , which has caused a major uproar in Shia Iran because of its depiction of a historical battle, denigrates a much-revered...
Iranian cyber attack against American movie
Tehran, March 11, Taliya News – Once again U.S propaganda machine raid another attack against Iran, its culture and civilization through a hateful movie:”300″ “300” is...
Warring over ‘300’
In a scathing attack on the producers of the movie 300, Maneck Bhujwala comments Barry Koltnow’s article, the “Mighty Spartans” [Entertainment, March 9]quotes comic-book artist...
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....
Sustainable solutions for plastic problems
Karan Billimoria and Earthsoul’s replacement products for plastics claim to consume less fossil fuels and emit low greenhouse gases. At a time when the issue of global warming is attracting the...
Sonia buries ‘drug’ for Parsis
Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s intrepid letter writing activity, one particular missive — in no way as contentious as her intervention on FDI in retail — stands out for reaching out to a...
HC verdict on Parsi trust row soon
Come Thursday and the Parsi community will know whether most of the trustees including chairperson Minoo Shroff can continue on the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) board. The Bombay high court will on...
Dwindling Numbers in India
Concerns for dwindling numbers. Seminars on how to save their race. In 1940, when their number in India was a sizeable 1.14 lakh, the community probably never imagined that 67 years later, it would...
Parsi Punchayet trustees can continue to hold posts
The Bombay high court on Thursday ruled that the withdrawal of resignation of the four trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) was valid and they still continue to be trustees. Justice Roshan...
Rebel Parsis ready with agiary plan
A group of reformists acquires land at Malad to build a fire temple that will be open to even spouses of community members married outside the fold It could be an event quite unprecedented in the...
Sorabji Byramji Sanatorium residents allege harassment from BPP…
The 46 Parsi families residing there live in deplorable conditions and according to them the BPP Trust does nothing about it. Instead they want them to vacate the premises, they declare The Parsi...
Hill Road hawkers
Hill Road has long since been a bone of contention between the shopkeepers, the residents, the ward officers and the hawkers. Protests were evident when the BMC announced their plan of widening the...
Ancient religion may face extinction
This article appeared in the Boston Globe. I cannot seem to find the online direct link. However, read on… As screaming children raced around the hall in joyous play, adult workers readied...
Out with the Old
A similar situation exists across the 120-foot Road at Parsi Colony where as many as 45 out of 225 four-storey building plots have been cleared. A multi-storey building, complete with a swimming...
Parsees protest redevelopment on Tardeo agiary land
Members of Parsi community fear that the sanctity and ambience of the Kappawala agiary in Tardeo may soon be lost. Reason: An age-old structure in its compound that is the house to the priest of the...
BMC has no permit, says heritage panel
The three heritage structures on Hill Road, Bandra, portions of which were to be acquired by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for its road-widening project, may find the Mumbai Heritage...
Parsi apex body seeks universal franchise
By Nauzer Bharucha MUMBAI: Parsis may be one of the most literate and progressive communities in the country. But for the past 350 years, a vast majority of them in Mumbai had no stake in appointing...
Strife over death at Parsi meet
Punchayet will form panel to decide alternative ways to dispose dead The body disposal issue reared its head last month when Dhun Baria clandestinely shot a video and took photographs of Tower of...
Breeding revives fortunes of India’s rare vultures
Indian conservationists have successfully bred a rare species of vulture, brought near to extinction by a drug used to treat cattle but which is highly toxic to the scavenging birds. Eighteen...
Ancient religions clash in modern Iran
It’s one of the world’s oldest religions, but Zoroastrianism is treated with suspicion by Iran’s Islamic state, writes Robert Tait The village of Chak Chak consists of a shrine...
Iran’s last Zoroastrians worried by youth exodus
TEHRAN: Flicking through photographs of immigrant Zoroastrian friends in sunny California, 40-year-old Farzad Dehnavizadeh sighs and wishes the young people of his faith stopped leaving Iran for the...
Biologists to help breed vultures
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology aims to rescue the ancient Zoroastrian practice of corpse disposal (writes Ashling O’Connor). Biologists are to inseminate artificially the...
Scientists to help breed Vultures
Parsis worried about the growing pile of bodies in their ‘Towers of Silence’ can take heart. The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has decided to take up, on an express...
Parsi Dead: A Video of the Towers of Silence Controversey
The video below is the segment that appeared on the Indian cable news channel CNN-IBN. The video has some disturbing imagery and therefore caution is needed when viewing the video. The controversey...
Religion and Materiality
Isn’t it strange how Rs.200/= seems like such a large amount when you donate it to a fire-temple, but such a small amount when you go shopping? Isn’t it strange how 2 hours seem so long...
Blog World Responds to NYT Article
Sepia Mutiny the power house Indian group blog points out to a response by a blogger to the NYTimes article. Amardeep at Sepia Mutiny writes Perhaps the reluctance by more conservative Parsis to...
Bury funeral ritual: Parsi woman
A centuries old custom has triggered off a bitter debate within Mumbai’s influential Parsi community. The Parsi community is now divided over how to dispose off their dead. The bodies are kept...
Islam, The greatest threat to humanity worldwide
Nearly 1400 years ago, a group of nomads from across the scorching Arabian Desert conquered Iran (Persia), the greatest empire known to the history of man. With that, they almost destroyed one of...
More good news for nature’s waste managers
Asian vultures faced with a plummeting population after eating animals treated with a toxic veterinary drug have been thrown a lifeline in Nepal. Three once-populous species of vultures have been...
Flat allotments sparked rift
Acrimony has been vitiating the boardroom of the 350-year-old Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP) for several months now. One of the ostensible reasons why four of the six trustees resigned on Tuesday was...
Resignation of Four Trustees of the BPP
The Remedy Is Worse Than the Malady By Noshir H. Dadrawala Ever since news regarding 4 out the present 6 trustees of the BPP resigning leaked out, my phone has not stopped ringing. I have been...
Fortune’s fallout: Parsis are victims of their own wealth
Religion and real estate make a lethal alloy, and its the one piercing the heart of the Parsi community. Its latest manifestation was the resignation on Tuesday of four out of six trustees of the...
To House or Not to House ???
Open land in Mumbai’s Parsi fire temples are the latest targets for re-development. How is the community reacting? It may be all quiet at Kappawalla Agiary, in Mumbai’s Tardeo, but...
Where have all the John Crows gone?
An item in my local morning paper this week grabbed my interest because it graphically evoked something I noticed in the island a few years back. The news story was about the rapid dying off of the...
Let vultures live for our death: Parsis
A motley crowd of Parsis and nature-lovers listened with rapt attention as Dr RD Jakati, Chief Wildlife Warden of Haryana, spoke at length on his pet subject, vulture conservation. The topic, of...
Split in the Parsi Parivar
WHEN Anju Dawar, a Parsi lawyer based in Ahmedabad married a colleague, she was expelled from the community. ”At best her husband will convert but will this not dilute the very essence of the...
‘Builders want temple land’
The World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (Wapiz) on Friday warned that fire temple lands in the city were under threat from unscrupulous developers and said one of its main objectives would be...
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...