A small fire is lit at dawn and quenched at dusk at the Zoroastrian center in Orange County, California in imitation...
Opinion Articles
A Parsi ceremony in Hong Kong delivers a universal message
I don’t think I’m alone in having an ambivalent attitude toward religion. My ambivalence is captured perfectly in an...
The Exodus
She calls it the U-Trip. Setting out from Karachi, 15-year-old Rosheen Birdie plans on visiting every major hub of Zoroastrians in the world, just so she can find one to marry. It’s not so easy to...
Can Zoroastrians save their faith?
By Deena Guzder / The Washington Post Many of us recently finished celebrating Christmas, Eid, and Hanukkah; however, few of us have heard of the religion that deeply influenced those traditions of...
Parsis have civilization; other Indians don’t
Culture is our attitude to beauty and ugliness, to power, to religion, and to family. It shows in our music, in what makes us laugh. Civilization is our attitude to mankind By Aakar Patel / Mint...
“Parsis exude no sense of victimisation”
By Farrukh Dhondy / DNA India Sitting next to the grandson of a late great English writer, himself a writer, at a dinner party in Exmoor, I am asked if I am a practising Zoroastrian. I say...
Religious Education and the Future of Young Mobeds in North America and Beyond
In early summer 2009, Jim Engineer, one of the founders of NextGenNow got in touch with me to see if I would like to write an article for the Fall 2009 FEZANA Journal. NextGenNow as an organisation...
Religious Adultery and Parsis
Ervad Marzban J. Hathiram, a good old friend, editor of Frashogard.com and the Panthaki at the Jogeshwari Daremehr has written a hard hitting post on religious adultery. Marzban writes My...
Dead as a dodo? Why scientists fear for the future of of the Asian vulture
You have to feel sorry for vultures. For animal campaigners they are a difficult case. Other, more photogenic, slightly less sinister creatures may gain the world’s sympathy at the drop of a...
Parsi Statues: Cenotaph To History
The route from Churchgate to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is sprinkled with memorials to sentinels of Mumbai history. Only, nobody cares Sipping my masala chai one morning, I suddenly realized that...
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 –...
LAHORE LAHORE AYE: The Parsis of Lahore
As the sun is about to set, a group of pale tall men in spotless white can be found on the beach, the sacred Zorastrian belt knotted around their waists. They stand at the edge, bend down and...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Some Christmas”magic” may have done a disappearing act
The below posted article is something that we completely detest. People with no intellectual prowess to actually research and educate the readers are now columnists in newspapers. The only reason we...
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...
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...
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...
The Fun of Being a Parsee
[received via email. Author Unknown] It lies in many things …. It’s like belonging to an exclusive Club worldwide. Birth, the only credential and consideration; nothing, but nothing else...
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...
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...
Parsi Anthem
We received this via an email tip. It makes interesting reading. Author Unknown When my time has come, when my race is run I want to go that very way of my Fathers and their Sons. When my breath has...
Muktaad
Ruby Lilaowala remembers Muktaad, in the Afternoon D.C. Muktaad are the ten days preceding the Parsi new year which are devoted to intense prayers and elaborate rituals for the departed souls...
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...
Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling
In his day job, Kersey H. Antia is a psychologist who specializes in panic disorders. In his private life, Mr. Antia dons a long white robe, slips a veil over his face and goes to work as a...
Bachi Karkaria : Navroze Mubarak everyone!
An article by Bachi karkaria….at her hilarious best .. Parsi to Past-si … By Bachi Karkaria Soli Solicitor shuddered at the Census sentence, knowing there was no reprieve. Nusli had an...
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...
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...
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...
Shrinking flocks of vultures spoil ancient culture’s funeral rituals
Destruction of birds by a cattle drug presents the Parsis of India with a dilemma MUMBAI — Smack in the middle of the thicket of ultramodern high-rises that make up Malabar Hill, one of...
Run Lola
Of all her celebrity guests so far, she’s loved chatting with the Parsis–Boman Irani, Homi Adajania and Perizaad Zorabian. “It’s probably because Bawas and Malayalees are...
Some thoughts, some reservations
A case of great constitutional significance is being argued before a bench of five justices of the Supreme Court, presided over by the chief justice of India. A few years ago both houses of...
Parsi debate: panchayat vs federation
Don’t force radical changes on us: Ahmedabad panchayat to governing body Express News Service Ahmedabad, April 30: Accusing it of forcing its radical propaganda upon Parsis, the Ahmedabad...
The Dilemma of Iran and US relations
Historically, a mass exodus of Iranians from the greater Persian plateau has occurred presumably for fear of religious persecution, by people of the Zoroastrian faith emigrating to Gujarat and...
Anglicisation Of The Parsis
by Polly Noshir Chenoy My mother’s contention is: “British gayan ne’ opre vadhare British thai gayan” (We have become more British after the British have left). This, she...
Vultures That Vanish
Spare a thought for the scrawny vultures — those once-familiar birds of prey that used to circle lazily high in the air, scanning for anything to scavenge. In my youth, they even perched on...
Australian sculptor scraps Zarathushtra’s name
Move comes after protests by Parsi community against a nude scultpure named after the Prophet Mumbai Mirror Bureau The Australian Consul General in Mumbai has informed Mumbai’s...
India will be indebted to the parsi community
Ashish , a blogger from Pune, writes about the Parsis The community though very calm,composed & peace-loving, have succeeded in very walk of life, business in particular. Their business acumen...
Holy cow! Rajnath remembers Hindutva
CNN-IBN – New Delhi,India … “India has a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister and a Christian heading the ruling coalition, a Parsi Field Marshal and a Sikh Army Chief because...
Offending nude ‘Zarathushtra’:.Parsis get their way, but quietly
By Bachi Karkaria/TNN Mumbal: The culture-vulture Parsis would be mighty pleased over a prestigious Australian sculpture symbolizing their ancient religion commissioned by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch,...
DOKHMENASHINI CONTROVERSY
by Mr. Noshir H. Dadrawala Thanks for provoking me to respond on the latest controversy surrounding ‘Dokhmenashini. I believe this controversy has a time cycle of its own for the past century...