“Candy-floss stuff”

I have read Anmol Khajana — Pandar original tukki varta sangrah by Naju Rusi Dodhy which has been reviewed by Ruby P. Lilaowala ("Candy-floss stuff,” Books, Parsiana, February 2004).

Dodhy seems to be a much-traveled author. She describes various places at the beginning or at the end of some of her stories.

Her stories brought back memories of six decades earlier when reading serialized stories in Parsi Gujarati in the Jam-e-Jamshed, Gupsup, Kaiser-E-Hind were the rage of the then generation in the same way that the Hindi serials of Ekta Kapoor are being largely watched on television by the present generation. Many of these serials used to run for more than a year as do the Hindi serials by Kapoor or Aroona Irani.

The authors of the serialized stories who held our rapt attention were Zinny Paymaster, Gool Vatchha, Jerbanoo Kothavala, B. N. Kabraji and ‘Gulfam.’ Nearly all the serial stories had a Parsi milieu. Were there other Parsi Gujarati authors, besides the ones cited by me, whose serialized stories used to be printed in the above three publications?

BHIKHAJI M. ADENWALLA