THE TATAS, FREDDIE MERCURY & OTHER BAWAS

Coomi Kapoor writes an intimate history of her community, delving deep into the question of what it means to be Parsi in India

The Parsis are fast disappearing. There are now fewer than 60,000 in all of India. But since their arrival in India from Central Asia, somewhere between the eighth and tenth centuries, the community’s contribution to their adopted home has been extraordinary. The history of India over the last century or so is filigreed by the contributions of Parsis in every field, from nuclear physics to rock and roll, by such 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, the senior journalist and columnist Coomi Kapoor, herself a Parsi, pore 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 and how integral the community's contributions—from tanchoi silk to chikoos—became to what it meant to be Indian.