The Parsi way of life

Currently I am reading the 'infamously' famous book by Rohinton Mistry " Such A Long Journey"... Though I must admit that I picked up the book coz of all the hype and hoopla surrounding the book... However, having gone through the greater part of the book, I must admit that its definitely worth a read...

The story revolves round the protagonist Gustad Noble who is a middle aged Parsi gentleman and how he has to deal with various events that unfold around him... The story vividly captures Bombay of the late 60s and early 70s... The rain, the chaos, the sea of humanity and above all the sheer callousness and indifference of the common man, the state machinery, the neighbourhood etc etc which drives the protagonist to insanity and back... What keeps him reined in is the fact that he has a sweet family of 3 kids and a loving wife... However fate is not also kind on this front often  playing truant ... 

Since my masters day in Bombay, I have often been fascinated by the Parsi community and their way of life.. I have come to understand the fact that Parsis are a very close knit community whose population are sadly on the decline as the proportion of elderly people far outweigh those of the young mass.. However, I fondly recount memories of my interaction with people from this small community (mostly faculty at the institute, students or friends)... Apart from being very warm in their interaction, they are also quite a hospitable lot... Treating you to food and dine as generously as you may rarely have seen elsewhere... 

I still remember visiting the Dadar Parsi colony or the Parsi community towards Colaba or Anderi... The serenity, tranquility  and calmness about these settlement was something which attracted me to them... The houses, typically in these colonies, dated far back in history... though old and dated, they were maintained quite well and had a very haunting old world charm in them...The colony would typically have a very thick green cover with age old tree lining the road which gave it such mystical aura especially during the rainy season...

What lingers in my memory, like the fresh aroma of hot coffee made from freshly ground coffee bean on a very wet rainy day, is the charm of the community, their way of living and how the parsis have lent a charm of their own to Bombay in this enduring love affair  from as early as 10th century A.D and have made mainly  it their home... (a fact which is reflected in the statistics which estimates that globally there are only 100, 000 parsis and as per the 2001 census of India, 69,601 live in India - mostly in and around Bombay)

So go on and read the book if you want to have a flavour of this small but magnificent community which lends, to a great extent, the old world charm to the great city of Bombay...