Editorial Viewpoint
Being Parsi
Story tellers draw inspiration from their own life and experiences as well as of those around them. Our families, our neighbors and our community provide fertile material for both fictional and factual narration.
Thus it is not surprising that the Parsi and Zoroastrian community is the setting for many novels, films, documentaries, biographies, autobiographies and plays.
Rohinton Mistry's novels depicting Parsi characters have won him international fame. Photographs from Sooni Taraporevala's book The Parsis have been reproduced in numerous publications. And playwright Adi Marzban's depiction of fun loving, eccentric Parsis persists to this day, and is imitated in countless movies, skits and commercials.
Thus it was not surprising that the first movie produced by The Times Infotainment Media company should focus on this small but highly visible and much liked and lampooned community.
Being Cyrus is set in the contemporary Parsi community of Bombay. The director, script writers, several of the actors and production personnel are Parsis. So one would expect a certain measure of authenticity in the portrayal of the community.
The film reflects a somber aspect of the community, one in which homes are unkempt, dirt accumulates, the clothes worn are unwashed, couples are unfaithful, greed wins over family loyalties, filial piety is replaced with physical brutality, drugs blur reality and so on.
A director of course has a right to portray the community as he or she sees fit or as is required by the plot or to enhance a particular characteristic. With this bleak and bizarre setting very unlike Bollywood films, the audience is coaxed into believing the film has a thoughtful message to deliver. But instead the narrative degenerates into a Bollywood type plot. The producers no doubt wanted a commercially successful venture and the media reports published indicate it achieved that purpose. But little else.
You can use the community as a peg or backdrop for a film but you still have to have a credible story. Or you have to tell what you have to convey incredibly well.
In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare depicts Shylock as a money-grabbing Jew, no doubt playing on the 16th century British theatergoing audiences' prejudices. Who better than an avaricious Jew to rouse the rabble's contempt?
Shylock: "How like a fawning publican he [Antonio] looks! I hate him for he is a Christian; But more for that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis, and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, even there where merchants most do congregate, on me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him!"
The plot itself lacks credibility in parts (a woman disguised as a male lawyer arguing in court in defense of her beloved). But aside from his artistic masterliness that turned an old story into a classic, Shakespeare also demonstrated he understood the plight of the Jews.
As Shylock remonstrates: "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Shakespeare took the occasion of the play to focus upon larger social issues. The story lives because it became universal: greed versus goodness, justice triumphing over revenge.
The American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: Start with an individual and you get a type. Start with a type and you get nothing.
So many writers,
Thus it is not surprising that the Parsi and Zoroastrian community is the setting for many novels, films, documentaries, biographies, autobiographies and plays.
Rohinton Mistry's novels depicting Parsi characters have won him international fame. Photographs from Sooni Taraporevala's book The Parsis have been reproduced in numerous publications. And playwright Adi Marzban's depiction of fun loving, eccentric Parsis persists to this day, and is imitated in countless movies, skits and commercials.
Thus it was not surprising that the first movie produced by The Times Infotainment Media company should focus on this small but highly visible and much liked and lampooned community.
Being Cyrus is set in the contemporary Parsi community of Bombay. The director, script writers, several of the actors and production personnel are Parsis. So one would expect a certain measure of authenticity in the portrayal of the community.
The film reflects a somber aspect of the community, one in which homes are unkempt, dirt accumulates, the clothes worn are unwashed, couples are unfaithful, greed wins over family loyalties, filial piety is replaced with physical brutality, drugs blur reality and so on.
A director of course has a right to portray the community as he or she sees fit or as is required by the plot or to enhance a particular characteristic. With this bleak and bizarre setting very unlike Bollywood films, the audience is coaxed into believing the film has a thoughtful message to deliver. But instead the narrative degenerates into a Bollywood type plot. The producers no doubt wanted a commercially successful venture and the media reports published indicate it achieved that purpose. But little else.
You can use the community as a peg or backdrop for a film but you still have to have a credible story. Or you have to tell what you have to convey incredibly well.
In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare depicts Shylock as a money-grabbing Jew, no doubt playing on the 16th century British theatergoing audiences' prejudices. Who better than an avaricious Jew to rouse the rabble's contempt?
Shylock: "How like a fawning publican he [Antonio] looks! I hate him for he is a Christian; But more for that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis, and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, even there where merchants most do congregate, on me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him!"
The plot itself lacks credibility in parts (a woman disguised as a male lawyer arguing in court in defense of her beloved). But aside from his artistic masterliness that turned an old story into a classic, Shakespeare also demonstrated he understood the plight of the Jews.
As Shylock remonstrates: "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Shakespeare took the occasion of the play to focus upon larger social issues. The story lives because it became universal: greed versus goodness, justice triumphing over revenge.
The American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: Start with an individual and you get a type. Start with a type and you get nothing.
So many writers,
◆ ◆ ◆
From the archive