In Praise of Parsis

PARSIS

Sooni Taraporevala

March 6th - April 6th, 2013

I've studied for 12 years in a school run by a Parsi trust, been taught by Parsi teachers, grown up around Parsi friends, done the chicken-dance at Navjotes, attended accounting and French lessons in baugs and in the course of so doing, acquired the art of navigating said baugs while avoiding eye-contact with their resident eccentrics. I was taught Hindustani classical music for several years by a wonderful Parsi teacher named Zarine. She was already in her 70s when I started studying with her. But she didn't let her age, or the fact that she had been blind virtually her entire life, dissuade her from wearing floral printed saris and garas, pearls, perfume and a glittering colour-coordinated sari pin to every single lesson. She taught us entirely by ear and I cannot remember her repeating a single sari although of course, she must have. 

All of this is an extremely long-winded way of saying that I know Parsis, at least a little bit. And that I like them, a lot. So in visiting Sooni Taraporewala's exhibition, I thought - portraits of Parsis, what's not to like?

Plenty of paeans have been sung to this city's Parsis, all richly deserved, and this exhibition is an addition to the chorus. A community whose members are equal parts irascible, cantankerous, orderly, gregarious, boisterous, insular, sophisticated and crude; whose mighty contributions to Bombay and India are out of all proportion to its tiny numbers; increasingly lamented as dwindling in size and influence, but continuing to thrive regardless. I've realized that the rest of us think of Parsis affectionately, but in terms of stock 'roles' or 'types' - the flamboyant eccentric, the chic ingenue, the mummy's boy, the elegantly wasted, the pernickety store-owner, the protector and preserver of all-things-automobile, the piner for past (imperial) glories, the punter at the races, the teacher/ tormentor, the titan of art and industry. All of these characters are very much in evidence in the photographs, but so are others - mickey mouse boys, piano tuners, grandparents, pickle-purveyors, ladies catching up at street-corners in their big-print dresses. The exhibition, for me, is a pleasant pause - a reminder of a different (and better) city. 

It's all very pleasant and likeable. Though sometimes I wonder if we're doing Parsis a disservice by imbuing them with our nostalgia a little too soon, even though we can agree that the city and its other communities would be much the poorer without them. 

And for all the conversations I've been hearing lately about who is really from this city and when a person becomes of this city - here's one simple, innocuous question  that could help settle matters - do you know Parsis? Do you have a story about them? To qualify as a true-blue Mumbaikar, one with real roots here, you must. It almost goes without saying.