“Conservation at the...”

On reading "Conservation at the Cama” (Parsiana, August 2003), the following publications came to mind:

•The Letters of Dadabhai Naoroji, ed. R. P. Masani, printed in Bombay in the war years (1945-49). It deserves augmenting and reprinting. When I returned home in 1939, soon after the Munich Crisis, I was appointed lecturer, part-time, at Wilson College, Bombay. Some time after, Sir Rustom Masani asked me to edit the Letters of Dadabhai Naoroji which were crumbling away. I declined as I was working on the Gathas under the guidance of Dastur Framroze Bode. May I suggest that the Oxford University Press be invited to edit these letters and a Parsi scholar, competent in English and Gujarati, be asked to see it through the press? Copies of the Letters must be at the KRCOI and also at the University library. The library at the Indian High Commission in London should also be explored for letters from Dadabhai.

•Iran — from the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest by R. Ghirshman, Pelican (Penguin) Book, 1954, is essential reading for all Parsis. May I suggest that Penguin be approached to bring out a new paperback edition? There should be no problems of copyright as 50 years will have elapsed next year since its printing in English.

PILOO N. JUNGALWALLA

New Delhi