Kapoor, Coomi

Tatas, Freddie Mercury and other Bawas : an intimate history of Parsis - Chennai : Westland, 2021 - xi, 308 p. ill., 23 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Parsis are fast disappearing. There are now only around 50,000 members of the community in all of India. But since their arrival here from Central Asia, somewhere between the eighth and tenth centuries, the Parsis’ contribution to their adopted home has been extraordinary. The history of India over the last century or so is filigreed with such contributions in e very field, from nuclear physics to rock and roll, by names as Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Petit, Homi Bhabha, Sam Manekshaw, Jamsetji Tata, Ardeshir Godrej, Cyrus Poonawalla, Zubin Mehta and Farrokh Bulsara (aka Freddie Mercury). In this engaging, accessible, intimate history of the Parsis, senior journalist and columnist Coomi Kapoor, herself a Parsi, pores through the names, stories, achievements and the continuing success of this tiny but extraordinary minority. She delves deep into both the question of what it means to be Parsi in India, as well as how the community's contributions—from tanchoi silk to chikoos—became integral to what it meant to be Indian. In Kapoor’s hands, the story of the Parsis becomes a rip-roaring, incident-filled adventure: from dominating the trade with China to being synonymous with Bombay, once, arguably, a city defined by its Parsis; from the business success of the Tatas, the Mistrys, the Godrejs and the Wadias, to such current contributions as the manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines by the Parsi-founded Serum Institute of India.

9789390679553


Parsees History
Parsi in India
Avesta
Bombay Parsis
Cama, Bhikhaiji
Covid-19 Pandemic
Gathas
Godrej
Iranian Zoroastrians
Poonawalla, Adar
Tata
Wadia, Nusli
Zoroastrianism
Sam Manehshaw
Homi Bhabha

305.9295 / KAP

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