Editorial Viewpoint
“A palette of broken tones”
While viewing the paintings of the noted artist Jehangir Sabavala, community activist Dr Homi Dhalla believed he saw Zoroastrian elements in the works. This prompted him to produce a short film on the subject titled The inheritance of light which was released on June 10 this year before a gathering of the community’s and other elite.
In the film Dhalla and Ranjit Hoskote, noted art historian/cultural theorist and Sabavala’s “official biographer,” asked the artist and his wife Shirin if the religion and/or the community influenced what he chose to paint. “Not consciously,” he replied. He conceded childhood experiences, seeing the fire and the afargan moved him and may have influenced his concept of light and shade.
The short documentary directed by Sam Kerawalla, a theater veteran and sponsored by the House of Godrej, raised a fundamental issue: can one label creativity by ethnicity or culture? Over three decades ago when Parsiana did a cover story on four nationally acknowledged Parsi poets, Keki Daruwalla, Adil Jussawalla, Kersey Katrak and Gieve Patel (“The Parsi Quartet,” May 1974), some of them objected to the nomenclature. They were poets who happened to be Parsi, they countered. Their poetry was not focused on Parsi issues but universal themes which of course could include or address community issues.
“I don’t like this idea of creating subdivisions within subdivisions,” Jussawalla told Parsiana writer Geeta Doctor. “If you must have a discussion on poetry it must be on some other basis than that all the poets are Parsis… in any case the fact that I may be purple or black has nothing to do with my poetry.”
Stating he felt “pretty strongly about being a Parsi without causing a flutter about it,” Patel believed “a certain number of external situations can trigger off a poem… but each thing you pick up from the world — a child dying, a woman you love — has to be transformed into a poetic metaphor. It has to stand on its own. Any real poet does this.”
“I have a very warm feeling towards the Parsis,” said Katrak, an ordained priest. “As for myself I treat the fact of my birth and the Parsiness of it, as an accident. The fact that you are a Parsi is not an overriding factor, though naturally you can’t ignore it either… a poet has to make out of his life meaningful connections that may be of use.”
“You can’t write poetry in a vacuum,” Daruwalla stated. Having lived most of his life in North India, he was to a large extent cut away from traditional Parsi influences and the community could not have shaped his outlook considerably. Yet he is the only one of the four poets to have married within the community. “Poetry is expression, self-expression and if it can achieve this, it leads to the greatest fulfillment.”
But when it comes to writing novels, many of the leading, contemporary writers have relied heavily on their Parsiness. From Burjor Karanjia’s More of an Indian and Pervin Bharucha’s The Fire Worshippers in the 1960s to ‘70s to Bapsy Sidhwa, Rohinton Mistry, Boman Desai, Meher Pestonji and others in more recent times, their stories evolve around the community whether in India or elsewhere. Even writers such as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth have prominent Parsi characters while in Amitav Ghosh’s A sea of poppies, an opuim addict born to a Parsi father and a Chinese woman plays a supporting role. In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick there is a Parsi on board the whaler. While in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim the ship Patna has a “Parsee Dubash.”
Firdaus Gandavia who reviews books for Parsiana and holds a PhD in literature observes: “I wonder if there is such a thing as a Parsi novel. I think what we identify with a Parsi character is basically his eccentricities. One finds none of these in Gieve’s plays. In fact one wonders sometimes if merely writing about a Parsi character makes it a Parsi play or a novel.”
Adi Marzban in his plays portrayed the Parsi as a lecherous buffoon in a frayed Parsi coat or scruffy sudreh with a tatty pugree tilted on his head, a stereotype that still lingers and is presented in Bollywood films and even television commercials. As actor Boman Irani commented in The Week, “Why should every Parsi be eccentric? Why should every Sardarji have this one stock image?” But in Gieve Patel’s Savaksha and Cyrus Mistry’s Doongaji House Parsis were portrayed as real people.
In films, the earlier producers and directors such as the Wadia Brothers, Sohrab Modi and others stayed away from Parsi themes. Their movies catered to the box office. But in the last few decades several Parsi directors/producers chose community characters or stories to film: Pervez Merwanji (Percy), Homi Adajania (Being Cyrus), Sooni Taraporevala (Little Zizou). Pestonji was directed by Vijaya Mehta who is married to Farrokh, a Parsi.
So why is it that in novels and films especially, writers and directors have chosen overtly Parsi themes while in poetry and contemporary painting (Pestonjee Bomanjee and Jehangir Lalkaka painted Parsi subjects amongst others) it is not so? Perhaps with abstract art and a move towards abstraction in poetry, the outer shell, the traditional structures became less relevant. Art transcended convention. But in prose, drama and cinema, artists may be more comfortable with the Parsi label and its culture and ethos. Or is it because audiences do not tire of seeing or reading about this peculiar and somewhat quirky community that is amongst the last, dying remnants of one of the oldest religions of the world?
PhD student and Parsiana contributor Simin Patel writes, Dhalla “can attempt a Zoroastrian reading of the paintings, and find all the elements — it’s a legitimate academic exercise, but then to go back to the painter to confirm that it was the Zoroastrian that inspired in the first place is problematic.”
In his documentary Sabavala noted the obscure figures in some of his works represented the pilgrim, the wanderer, the thinker. When he sits before a blank canvas, Sabavala says “it is a terrifying prospect to fill it.” He meditates, draws sketches, “looks at his palette of broken tones” and asks himself: “What am I trying to say?” It is a question that haunts every creative mind. But the answer would to some extent reflect the values and traditions one is raised with.
In the film Dhalla and Ranjit Hoskote, noted art historian/cultural theorist and Sabavala’s “official biographer,” asked the artist and his wife Shirin if the religion and/or the community influenced what he chose to paint. “Not consciously,” he replied. He conceded childhood experiences, seeing the fire and the afargan moved him and may have influenced his concept of light and shade.
The short documentary directed by Sam Kerawalla, a theater veteran and sponsored by the House of Godrej, raised a fundamental issue: can one label creativity by ethnicity or culture? Over three decades ago when Parsiana did a cover story on four nationally acknowledged Parsi poets, Keki Daruwalla, Adil Jussawalla, Kersey Katrak and Gieve Patel (“The Parsi Quartet,” May 1974), some of them objected to the nomenclature. They were poets who happened to be Parsi, they countered. Their poetry was not focused on Parsi issues but universal themes which of course could include or address community issues.
“I don’t like this idea of creating subdivisions within subdivisions,” Jussawalla told Parsiana writer Geeta Doctor. “If you must have a discussion on poetry it must be on some other basis than that all the poets are Parsis… in any case the fact that I may be purple or black has nothing to do with my poetry.”
Stating he felt “pretty strongly about being a Parsi without causing a flutter about it,” Patel believed “a certain number of external situations can trigger off a poem… but each thing you pick up from the world — a child dying, a woman you love — has to be transformed into a poetic metaphor. It has to stand on its own. Any real poet does this.”
“I have a very warm feeling towards the Parsis,” said Katrak, an ordained priest. “As for myself I treat the fact of my birth and the Parsiness of it, as an accident. The fact that you are a Parsi is not an overriding factor, though naturally you can’t ignore it either… a poet has to make out of his life meaningful connections that may be of use.”
“You can’t write poetry in a vacuum,” Daruwalla stated. Having lived most of his life in North India, he was to a large extent cut away from traditional Parsi influences and the community could not have shaped his outlook considerably. Yet he is the only one of the four poets to have married within the community. “Poetry is expression, self-expression and if it can achieve this, it leads to the greatest fulfillment.”
But when it comes to writing novels, many of the leading, contemporary writers have relied heavily on their Parsiness. From Burjor Karanjia’s More of an Indian and Pervin Bharucha’s The Fire Worshippers in the 1960s to ‘70s to Bapsy Sidhwa, Rohinton Mistry, Boman Desai, Meher Pestonji and others in more recent times, their stories evolve around the community whether in India or elsewhere. Even writers such as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth have prominent Parsi characters while in Amitav Ghosh’s A sea of poppies, an opuim addict born to a Parsi father and a Chinese woman plays a supporting role. In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick there is a Parsi on board the whaler. While in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim the ship Patna has a “Parsee Dubash.”
Firdaus Gandavia who reviews books for Parsiana and holds a PhD in literature observes: “I wonder if there is such a thing as a Parsi novel. I think what we identify with a Parsi character is basically his eccentricities. One finds none of these in Gieve’s plays. In fact one wonders sometimes if merely writing about a Parsi character makes it a Parsi play or a novel.”
Adi Marzban in his plays portrayed the Parsi as a lecherous buffoon in a frayed Parsi coat or scruffy sudreh with a tatty pugree tilted on his head, a stereotype that still lingers and is presented in Bollywood films and even television commercials. As actor Boman Irani commented in The Week, “Why should every Parsi be eccentric? Why should every Sardarji have this one stock image?” But in Gieve Patel’s Savaksha and Cyrus Mistry’s Doongaji House Parsis were portrayed as real people.
In films, the earlier producers and directors such as the Wadia Brothers, Sohrab Modi and others stayed away from Parsi themes. Their movies catered to the box office. But in the last few decades several Parsi directors/producers chose community characters or stories to film: Pervez Merwanji (Percy), Homi Adajania (Being Cyrus), Sooni Taraporevala (Little Zizou). Pestonji was directed by Vijaya Mehta who is married to Farrokh, a Parsi.
So why is it that in novels and films especially, writers and directors have chosen overtly Parsi themes while in poetry and contemporary painting (Pestonjee Bomanjee and Jehangir Lalkaka painted Parsi subjects amongst others) it is not so? Perhaps with abstract art and a move towards abstraction in poetry, the outer shell, the traditional structures became less relevant. Art transcended convention. But in prose, drama and cinema, artists may be more comfortable with the Parsi label and its culture and ethos. Or is it because audiences do not tire of seeing or reading about this peculiar and somewhat quirky community that is amongst the last, dying remnants of one of the oldest religions of the world?
PhD student and Parsiana contributor Simin Patel writes, Dhalla “can attempt a Zoroastrian reading of the paintings, and find all the elements — it’s a legitimate academic exercise, but then to go back to the painter to confirm that it was the Zoroastrian that inspired in the first place is problematic.”
In his documentary Sabavala noted the obscure figures in some of his works represented the pilgrim, the wanderer, the thinker. When he sits before a blank canvas, Sabavala says “it is a terrifying prospect to fill it.” He meditates, draws sketches, “looks at his palette of broken tones” and asks himself: “What am I trying to say?” It is a question that haunts every creative mind. But the answer would to some extent reflect the values and traditions one is raised with.
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