Parsi Culture

The aim of the paper is to explore the identity and voice of the surviving Diaspora in India. It is all about a parsi community (Parsee), a group of followers in India of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. The Parsis migrated from Greater Iran to Gujarat and Sindh between the 8th and 10th century CE to avoid the religious persecution of Zoroastrians by Muslim invaders who conquered Iran. They live chiefly in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Bombay, but also a few minorities nearby in Karachi (Pakistan) and Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune as well in Hyderbad (India). Their objectives is to guard the traditional custom of religious practice without restriction in any part of the worlds. It is about the Parsi writers who delineated

An increasing number of Parsi girls now marry outside the community.6

In spite of this threat of demographic extinction the Parsis’ faith in their unique identity and racial parity is unflinching. Otherwise adaptable in all the situations, the community has honoured its centuries’ old religious beliefs, once founded by Zoroaster, a pious scholar of the Spitma clan in Iran.

However, this minuscule community in a huge country like India, where racial differences are looked upon severely, has adapted itself quite comfortably in the existing mould from time to time. Initially they mingled with Gujaratis adopting many of Gujarati customs and language as well, and proved themselves to be those tell-tale grains of sugar poured into milk.

Their adaptability is again discernible in their collective migration to Bombay. They could perceive greater opportunities in the advent of the British in India. And Bombay being the centre of the British activities, they also, showing their everlasting elasticity, shifted their centre of activities from rural Gujarat to the city of Bombay. Gillian Tindall observes, in this regard

They migrated to Bombay during 1660s almost collectively, and thereafter they have progressed well. They benefited a lot from their hard-work and flair for education. They made Bombay their dwelling as well as work place, and the fact bears a proof that “Parsi names crop up all over Bombay today, attached to streets, blocks of housing, public gardens and water fountains.”8

With education and advancement, a further change is noticeably discernible;the change caused by further migration and, westernization. The very knack of changing with times and their mobility, which brought the Parsis to Bombay, also took them to western countries. Today many of the Indian Parsis, according to Nilufer Bharucha, live in Europe and North America. Gillian Tindall has a similar observation in this regard. She writes:

...it is also true that though they have played something of the traditional role of the Jew in