Parsi fiction—a piece of fiction?

By Editor on April 30, 2009 12:51 am

Roshan G. Shahani retired as reader and head of the Department of English at Jai Hind College, University of Bombay, where she taught for thirty-nine years. She is the author of Family in Fiction: Three Canadian Voices (Bombay: The Registrar, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, 1993), based on her doctoral dissertation, and Allan: Her Infinite Variety (Mumbai: SPARROW, 2000), a memoir about her mother, as well as of several journal articles. She has also edited numerous publications brought out by the Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW), for which she is also a trustee. Her research interests include contemporary Indian and British literature as well as women’s studies which she taught  at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Roshan was the editor of BEAM, the Bombay English Association Magazine.  In this reflection, she evaluates the work of a diverse range of writers who are Parsis, including Gieve Patel, Bapsi Sidhwa, and Adil Jussawalla. Questioning the very category of ‘Parsi writing,’ she suggests that a less essentialist perspective might be more fruitful for critically examining the work of the writers gathered under that label.   

At a college conference, a few years ago, I was asked to speak very specifically on Parsi culture and its impact on Parsi writers. I began by sorting out certain confusions in my mind, which led me in turn to ask a few questions to myself and to my young audience about the ontological nature of such a category.

Is there something quintessentially Parsi about Parsi culture? Can there be any such classification into which writing by Parsis could be slotted? Why do we distinguish writers of this particular community as a specific category? Do we, for instance, talk about Christian writing, or Hindu writing?  Unlike regional writing, say like Sindhi or Bengali literatures, it is not the commonality of a specific regional language that can group such writing together, since English is virtually the first tongue of the Parsi writers, at least when it comes to the written, if not the spoken, word. Unlike Dalit writing, which emerged as a very conscious movement, challenging certain hegemonic notions of ‘Indianness’ and of Indian cultural traditions, Parsi writing, if one can provisionally use such a term, did not, at any given moment, form a cogent movement. Parsis have, traditionally, been a privileged minority, in terms of economic and cultural status.  

True, we do talk of women’s writing or diasporic writing as distinct categories. But even in these instances, are we not tending to homogenize what is heterogeneous? The goal of fostering women’s writing as a project had emerged, initially, out of the need to challenge set notions of what constituted literature–a kind of literary self-affirmative action that set itself against the Leavisite canon that was dominant at that point of time. Nearly half a century later, there is a need to problematize women’s writing as a separate category. It cannot, simply by virtue of being written by women, fall under the rubric of feminist writing. The term ‘diaspora,’ similarly, has been loosely used for those writers who have migrated from the ‘third’ world to the ‘first’ world. But if we were to look for the original meaning of the word, it would refer to those who were forced into exile from their native homelands. Partition writing, by that definition, would fall more readily into the category of diasporic writing.  

For the purpose of this essay, I have selected a group of Parsi writers but, more or less, the commonality begins and ends at that point. I mention their names here although I will discuss some in greater detail than others: Rohinton Mistry, Cyrus Mistry, Gieve Patel, Bapsi Sidhwa, Farrukh Dhody, Firdaus Kanga, and Adil Jussawalla.  I would say that they are writers who are Parsis but that does not necessarily  make them Parsi writers. In terms of literary and cultural influences, they have been open to ideas and issues that range from the local to the global, from the familial to the multicultural. I give here a set of examples to elaborate my point.   

Adil Jussawalla, who has been called the poet’s poet, has influenced and helped many contemporary writers, Parsi or otherwise. In turn, he speaks of the influence of the Church, of Christian mythology, and of the English landscape in his earlier anthology, Landscape, and a subsequent absorption into Hinduism and Buddhism. Keki Daruwalla speaks of the variegated influences upon his poetry, from Camus’ writing to his eleven- year experience in the police force, from an exposure to Latin American culture (a region which he had never visited) to the 1982 droughts during Charan Singh’s brief tenure as prime minister when Daruwalla was the prime minister’s special assistant.  

Gieve Patel acknowledges the influence of Nissim Ezekiel, who, incidentally, has not considered himself, nor is he considered necessarily, a Jewish writer. Gieve’s growing up years were spent in rural Nargol; his interactions with the local people as well as his awareness of class differences among the landowning and land tilling people find their way into both his poetry as well as his drama. Rohinton Mistry’s immigrant experience has been the very raison d’être of his first piece of fiction. 

The composite culture of Bombay has had a definite influence on most of the writers under consideration, since this city has been the city of their birth in many instances. Most Indian writers in English, had, at an earlier point of time, to struggle against the populist notions that Indians could not create in English, and, hence, Eunice de Souza’s caustic epigraph to her students who have “thought it funny/ that Daruwallas and de Souzas/should write poetry.” So Parsi writing seems a contradiction in terms—a case of talking about Hitchcock’s the-man-who-never-was. 
 

To go a step further, this motley, heterogeneous group of writers has more in common with other Indian writers than with one another. The holocaust created by the partition of India, has, for instance, been the thematic preoccupation of writers like Bapsi Sidhwa and Khushwant Singh. Of course, here again, this very comparison cannot entail a simplistic comparative study of Khushwant Singh’s A Train to Pakistan and Sidhwa’s The Ice Candy Man (Cracking India.) Jussawalla’s collection of poems, Missing Person, shares with Eunice de Souza’s poetry, the sense of urban isolation and alienation, a common trait in much contemporary poetry. Rohinton Mistry and Farrukh Dhondy travel along with Rushdie on their long, literary journeys home along with a host of so-called diasporic writers who need to dig their native soil before they explore new terrains.

Undeniably, most of the fiction and drama of the writers encompassed under the label of ‘Parsi writing’ are set in a Parsi milieu. Most of the protagonists or narrators are Parsis. But if the writing is generated in a particular milieu it does not necessarily foster that milieu. In fact, at their best, while they write out of their roots these writers don’t remain embedded in them. When writers remain on the border—to shift the metaphor a bit—they have a better perspective, the perspective of the two-headed Janus, able to see as insider-outsider. What Rushdie says of writing in the diasporic context could well be said of any writing that is able to straddle two cultures or, one might add, multiple cultures.

One could also cast a backward glance at an early twentieth-century writer, as an illustration of what I mean.  Cornelia Sorabji, as the very name suggests, does not quite belong to the Parsi community and yet she does. Her Parsi-Zoroastrian father and Hindu-Gujarati mother, both converted to Christianity to escape persecution from their respective communities and religions. But, as her life and work testify, the broader category of Indianness was also a meaningful source of identity and affiliation for her.

This ‘Indian Portia,’ as she was called, fought the British on behalf of many widowed maharanis, but at the same time did not think India was fit for Home Rule. Nor did she believe in the women’s suffragette movement. To exemplify the complex nature of this woman’s world-view and the point I wish to make, I refer to her story— Cornelia is considered the first Indian woman fiction writer in English— called “The Fire is Quenched.” Without doubt, it is a story of a Parsi family, a priestly family to boot. But if that is the genesis of the story, it does not rest there. Rather, it dramatizes very pitifully how orthodox customs, when rigidly, not religiously, followed, lead to tragedy and death in the midst of a close-knit family.

I want to reiterate this point. Contrary to the nativist position that makes out a strong case for the rootedness of a writer I feel that while it is true that writers need roots, it is equally true that they need wings.  When writers are self-reflective, look upon identities not as things primordial but as constantly shifting constructs, they are moving beyond the rigid boundaries of tradition and fixity. It may be interesting to see the cultural specificities  which provide these writers with raw material for their narratives, but we need to be wary of pigeonholing them  and ignoring the complexity of their experiences, especially when we bear in mind the long tradition of secularism and pluralistic thought in India.

Two sets of examples—one from Sidhwa’s and another from Rohinton Mistry’s fiction—might clarify the point, that when writers transcend their ethnicity, they write better than when they are cloistered within it. 

Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man is arguably, among the most powerfully written novels on Partition. Her choice of a Parsi household, like the choice of Lahore as locale, may have been deliberate, may also have been inevitable, because it was the world she grew up in, in pre- and post-partition times. But it is a very salutary choice. The perspective becomes that of a neutral community which can perceive the anomalies, not only between Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs, but also between the colonial ruler and the colonized subject. At the same time, there is a suggestion that neutrality has its darker side. It could mean aloofness and withdrawal— a sitting-on-the-fence attitude, a running-with-the hare-hunting-with-the-hounds way of thinking. Now I don’t mean to say that pacifism or its flip side, passivity, have been the genetic traits of the Parsis. Nor does Sidhwa view it in these neat binaries. Instead, it is the depiction of the pulls and contradictions within this minority community that enriches the characters, their relationships with one another and with the politically charged moment in history.

The choice of the narrator augments the horror and meaningless brutality of the adult world. The child Lennie, belonging to a secluded, sheltered world, is propelled into the vortex of India’s recent inglorious history. The fictionalized eye-witness account of an innocent child captures even more terribly, the confounding, senseless horror of Partition, the way official historical documents cannot do. 
 

 I turn even more briefly to The Crow Eaters by the same writer; the title tells the tale at once. “ Parsi-Parsi-Kagra-Khaow” so went the old nonsensical rhyme that all Parsi chidren sang and all Parsi adults frowned upon. Here is a story by a Parsi, of the Parsis but no—not for the Parsi—it is in fact a rather self-conscious piece of Parsi writing, offering to the world outside about the what and why and when and the how and where and who of the Parsis.

In his first piece of fiction, The Tales from Firozsha Baag, Rohinton Mistry depicts, with a great deal of critical sensitivity, a particular manner of living among Parsis in the colony. I use the word ‘colony’ deliberately and not ‘housing society’ a now more frequently used term. This is not only because Mistry’s stories are set in the period of the 70s when the word colony was more commonly used. It is also to suggest that living in close proximity to one another, in a baag, with its self-contained playgrounds, nursery, pavilion, provision stores, and agyiary, provides to its inmates, a sense of self-sufficiency, a neighborliness and security. The author brings out, with a deal of tenderness, the warmth and bonding among these people. However, with artistic detachment, which, never becomes clinical, Mistry shows awareness of a certain insularity and self-segregation that can also be the outcome of living in such close and total proximity with one’s own kind.

When any community lives in a collective group, meant exclusively for that group—be it based on class, community or religion—there is a tendency to think in terms of the herd mentality. Mistry shows an awareness of the danger of ethnic specificities leading to ethnocentric prejudices.  

I give just one story as an illustration. In the story, “One Sunday,” the writer empathizes with Francis, the odd-job man, who, when he steals a trifle, has the entire baag descend upon him and is brought to book, scared and whimpering. In an all-Parsi environment, a non-Parsi, particularly, one belonging to the class of domestics, becomes a ready target. He is the dark other, to be kept at bay, the parjaat who is a constant threat to this minority’s sense of wellbeing.

Hence, Mistry’s restricted locale is not necessarily restrictive artistically speaking. Rather, he exposes the garrisoned mentality of his characters whose restrictive, blinkered outlook refuses to acknowledge the changing world outside the doorsteps of their homes.

However, when one turns to Mistry’s novels, one notices an increasing self-consciousness, as though the writer were presenting the image of the community and its ways as a piece of ethnic writing. For example, a very moving moment in Rohinton Mistry’s novel, Such a Long Journey, shows Gustad Noble, the aptly named protagonist, reflecting on the death of a much-loved friend, on the sad mystery of human mortality. Immediately following this sensitively rendered scene is a prolonged, more public one, so to say, of the rites and rituals of the dead, as followed by the Parsis at the doongervadi. “These are our customs” the author seems to be explaining to the curious, fascinated spectator/reader. 
 
 

As a parenthesis, I would add that the cinematic version of Cyrus Mistry’s short story, “Percy,” had added on a doongervadi scene for good measure, which was non-existent in the original text. What these scenes add on, in one way, elaborating very lovingly upon Parsi customs and rituals, they take away in another. Thus, they lessen the tensions and dramatic moments within the narration. 
 

Paradoxically, in being more of a Parsi writer, Mistry becomes less of a one. In other words, when he becomes the self-conscious Parsi scribe, dusting and polishing and displaying typical Parsi rituals like so many curated museum pieces, he tends to overlook the multifaceted nature of contemporary Parsi living. In doing too much he does not do enough. Interestingly, it is this very ethnic component that has had popular appeal. There has been a great deal of research by Canadians on the fiction of this Canadian writer of Indian origin. A number of them have visited several of the Parsi baags of Bombay, trying to figure out which one has been the setting for The Tales from Firozsha Baag though Mistry has denied having any particular one in mind.  
 

This is a conjecture, but has Rohinton Mistry, living in Canada, been slotted a little too readily as an ethnic writer? Some pieces in the Canadian multicultural mosaic needs must appear more colourful than others. India is exotica and the Parsi-Indian (many had not heard who they were till Mistry’s fiction made them famous) appears even more quixotic and unfamiliar and therefore fascinating material. 

Closer home, it might be a similar reason that impels some of us to look at this group as a separate ethnic species. I suppose, and I emphasise the tentative nature of my  supposition—since  the Parsi community, unlike women—forms, numerically speaking, among the world’s smallest ethno-religious communities, it becomes invisible in some ways but paradoxically visible in other ways, in the sense that it becomes an object of curiosity. Besides, even after 1200 years of living in India, and of definitely intermarrying, (despite certain Parsis’ claim to racial purity,) Parsis are marked out by their distinct appearance from the majority of other Indians. In addition, the exclusiveness is apparent in their religion and in the practice of certain rituals. The close contact of certain sections of the Parsis with the British during colonial rule, has also led to the misconception that all Parsis are pro-British and ‘different’ from fellow-Indians.  

Nirad Chaudhari’s comment to Keki Daruwala states that 1200 years of living in India had not yet made the Parsi an Indian. Eunice repeats this comment to Gieve Patel in her book, Talking Poems: Conversations With Poets (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). The latter responds with the sarcastic comment that coming from Chaudhari, with his prejudices against Indians, this might have been intended as a compliment but he found it “callow” (51). “Anyone who lives among Parsis knows how Indian their life-style is” (ibid.). Gieve continues to characterize the Parsi community as being a composite whole, “having absorbed many good and many nasty characteristics of the British” (ibid.). There has also been the influence of Gujarati culture especially in the use of the language, all of which adds to the syncretic mix that makes for the Parsi or for that matter any community.  

The uniqueness of any culture is marked by a plurality of thought, by an eclectic openness to ideas. To cling to an essentialised past, is to fossilise it. Identities are being constantly refashioned and remolded and it is in these discontinuities and dissonances that a culture and a community can live and thrive, however small it might be. Resistance to fixed notions and ideologies, which many of these writers have offered in various ways, suggests a refusal to be confined by the boundaries of a defined culture. Their writing is a recognition of the hybrid nature of existence which alone can retain the livingness of a culture and religion.

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