Criticizing Cyrus

Being Cyrus is not Being Parsi! The work on celluloid is unfortunately a work by a Parsi, who thought it fit to present a so-called Parsi story. Had it been just another film, then it would have been engrossing and a good thriller with a totally unexpected end!

But we have preconceived ideas (most of them true) of ourselves, like honesty, loyalty, philanthropy, and an uncanny ability to laugh at oneself. But the movie goes on to shatter every aspect of the traits we are known by, and so it hurts. As if projecting a dirty home, nose picking and demented individuals was not enough, they had to show us as cold- blooded killers! The end is the last straw, it professes that crime pays! If you can dissociate yourself from being a Parsi while watching the movie, then maybe you may enjoy it. Sorry, I couldn’t.

RODA D. HAKIM

Baroda

Having read some of the e-mail diatribes floating through the internet against the film Being Cyrus, I am now convinced that Parsis fall into two distinct groups: those who love to laugh at themselves and the community and those who take everything too seriously and as a personal attack on the community.

Homi Adajania’s film is an excellent one. It is about people, characters who we see anywhere in the world. That they happen to be Parsis in Adajania’s film, is incidental. If every community took umbrage at any depiction in a film, there would be no films. Do the American Italians rant at The Godfather? Where has our liberalism disappeared? I am truly disappointed — disgusted would be the milder description — at this holier-than-thou reaction to a film that is interesting, intelligent and artistic.

Let Adajania not get the wrong impression that all Parsis are sanctimonious and hypocritical.

FARROKH MEHTA