Zoroastrians Abroad
History as teacher
Living the Zarathushtrian creed without undue stress is the goal of the president of the Zoroastrian Association of Victoria
“We have always remained low key. We like it that way!” says Perviz Dubash, president of the Zoroastrian Association of Victoria (ZAV). Voted in for his fourth term in office last July, Perviz and his wife Nergish, who functions as the ZAV’s honorary secretary, were in Bombay for a brief holiday when Parsiana had the occasion of meeting them. They speak lovingly of Melbourne, which began as an illegal settlement on the banks of the Yarra River in the sheltered cove of Port Phillip Bay and now thrives as the cultural capital of Australia, as “the second most livable city in the world — the first being Vancouver.”
Victoria, the southernmost and smallest state in Australia, was different when these stalwarts moved there 30 years ago, with, maybe, “about 35 Zoroastrian families in the area.” Today they estimate about 350 individuals comprising 137 families, 15 to 20 Zarathushti families being of Iranian extraction, according to Dubash, though the demographic profile prepared by ZAV vice president Arnavaz Chubb notes that about one-third of the population may be Iranian and that there may be at least 40 more individuals who maintain no contact.
The earliest Zarathushti to arrive in the area was Dossabhoy Cooverji Patell, “the great grandfather of one of our current Melbourne Zarathushtis,” writes Chubb. Stowing away from Aden to escape a hard life serving British soldiers in an Aden bar, he set sail for Australia without even informing his family. Discovered midway, he was made to scrub the decks in payment for his passage. Arriving in 1890, he set up as an ice cream vendor to miners in Broken Hill where he lived with his wife and two daughters, one of whom died at a young age and is buried there, writes Chubb. Dossabhoy is said to have left Australia in 1926, returning to Siganpore in Gujarat.
The Zarathushti migrants of the 1960s were professionals in the academic, legal and medical fields, writes Chubb. The current Zarathushti population covers a wider range of professions — accounting, administration, banking, engineering, the hospitality and information technology industries and insurance, as well as law and medicine. Some have even set up in business, as per Chubb’s account.
Victoria, the southernmost and smallest state in Australia, was different when these stalwarts moved there 30 years ago, with, maybe, “about 35 Zoroastrian families in the area.” Today they estimate about 350 individuals comprising 137 families, 15 to 20 Zarathushti families being of Iranian extraction, according to Dubash, though the demographic profile prepared by ZAV vice president Arnavaz Chubb notes that about one-third of the population may be Iranian and that there may be at least 40 more individuals who maintain no contact.
The earliest Zarathushti to arrive in the area was Dossabhoy Cooverji Patell, “the great grandfather of one of our current Melbourne Zarathushtis,” writes Chubb. Stowing away from Aden to escape a hard life serving British soldiers in an Aden bar, he set sail for Australia without even informing his family. Discovered midway, he was made to scrub the decks in payment for his passage. Arriving in 1890, he set up as an ice cream vendor to miners in Broken Hill where he lived with his wife and two daughters, one of whom died at a young age and is buried there, writes Chubb. Dossabhoy is said to have left Australia in 1926, returning to Siganpore in Gujarat.
The Zarathushti migrants of the 1960s were professionals in the academic, legal and medical fields, writes Chubb. The current Zarathushti population covers a wider range of professions — accounting, administration, banking, engineering, the hospitality and information technology industries and insurance, as well as law and medicine. Some have even set up in business, as per Chubb’s account.
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From the archive