While in Mumbai I wandered onto this statue. I read the plaque and it mentioned the Parsi community. This is a small sliver of India that I knew little about, although I was aware of them. I decided to learn a little more.
The Parsis came to India as religious refugees from Persia. They worship in something called "Fire Temples".
They are Zoroastrians, which is an ancient religion from Iran that believes that the spiritual world is ruled by two competing kingdoms - one good and one bad.
They put their dead on pillars called Towers of Silence, where vultures eat their bodies. They don't practice burial or cremation.
They have the highest literacy rate of any Indian group, more than 96% can read. Less than 65% of Indians as a whole can read.
They make up .0006% of India's population, but the Tata family, one of the most wealthy and influential in India, are Parsis. Their company makes steel, does computer consulting (I worked with them for years), grows tea, and just bought Jaguar as a car brand. Their influence far outweighs their numbers.
Freddy Mercury from Queen was a Parsi.
For those of you with a higher brow - Zubin Mehta is a Parsi.
^ Ratan Tata, he just snagged Jaguar as a brand for the family empire
^ JRD Tata, Ratan's father (now deceased). He shows how Parsis can often look very "non-Indian", although the longer one lives here, one starts to learn that an Indian can look like just about anything..... except perhaps a Norwegian.
Well, there you have it. A little lesson about the Parsi community here in India.
Hope you enjoyed it.
