Recently we came across very old records of a Parsi-only covenanted building in Dadar Parsi Colony where a tenant called Miss Griffith had resided for 30 years. An Anglo Indian intrusion into the hallowed precincts of a Zarathushti building? Not at all. Sheroo Cawasji Griffith was born of both Parsi parents and had not a drop of juddin blood in her veins. Her paternal grandfather had been a cook in the service of a bachelor called Charles Griffith of the Bombay Presidency. Enraptured by the thick lentil and mutton dish conjured up by the industrious Parsi boy from Amalsad — a hamlet between Navsari and Valsad — Griffith adopted him. The boy promptly dropped the Amalsadwalla surname and proceeded to spawn a line of Zoroastrian Griffiths.
Illustration by Farzana Cooper
Parsis, though, are highly allergic to this surname due to Sir Charles Griffith of the West Indies causing a severe injury to Nari Contractor, the India cricket captain, in March 1962, during a cricket match. Griffiths, a controversial fast bowler, bowled a nasty bouncer which fractured Contractor’s skull, ending his Test career and nearly his life. What the incensed Parsis mouthed about Griffith and his complexion is unprintable today. Perhaps this is why Miss Griffith of Dadar Parsi Colony remained a spinster.
Some Parsis did not like the trade-derived surnames of their ancestors. Mewawalla was too unfashionable for an upcoming dentist in the late ’60s who did not want to make his dry fruit trade origins public lest the image of sticky resin being stuck in a cavity put off discerning patients. He struck off the surname altogether and adopted his grandfather’s name, Sorabjee. That is why the Sorabjees, Dorabjees, Pestonjis and Pallonjis are not necessarily related to each other. A certain Dr Ghorkhodu (grave digger) realized that his surname was rather inappropriate for his medical practice and became a plain Dorabji. And so did a Mr Chothia, tired of his name being mispronounced to sound like the most popular Indian word of abuse. The Screwallas, though, seem to be quite proud of their surname. Gookhaoo (literally, shit eater), expectedly, has been disowned.
Surnames shared with Hindus sometimes cause consternation to the ultra-orthodox. Patel, Mehta, Desai, Gandhi, Mistry are acceptable; Bajirao (officials of the Peshwas) or Ganjawala or Rao raise eyebrows. Of course, English and European names were most acceptable to the royalty loving Parsis. Forbes, Marshall, Boyce, Devitre, Grant, Noble, Morris, Nicholson are seldom applicants to Parsi charity trusts. While there are a few Bottlewallas and Sodawaterwallas, it unlikely that there are any Sodabottleopenerwallas though there is a chain of restaurants bearing the name.
Then there was dark complexioned Sorab Shah from Baroda, working as a godown inspector for the Central Bank of India. He spoke shuddh (pure) Gujarati; an agnostic who never wore the sudreh and kusti. One morning Shah casually sauntered into an atash behram at Dhobi Talao wearing a bush shirt and looking ill at ease. A lout asked him his name and heard it as Saurabh Shah. Frowning with suspicion, the lout was shocked when Shah admitted, in chaste Gujarati, that he never donned the uniform of the faith. Gujarati, the lout queried? Shah vigorously nodded. Shah was manhandled and thrown out of the fire temple. His namesake Nadirshah fared better.
At a function to felicitate Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, organized by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, its then chairman, Eruch Nadirshah had the temerity to tell the Shah, an autocrat proud of his Persian origins and having a soft corner for Zoroastrianism, "You are Shah and I am Nadirshah!” The Shah had a bemused look on his royal visage.
If the Supreme Court of India rules, as it is widely expected to, that the children of interfaith married Parsi mothers are Parsis, then the day is not far when a priest gingerly eyes a dark complexioned girl fumbling in the agiary and asks her her name. Kavita Laxman Manjrekar, she replies, adding, meet my friends entering the fire temple for the first time, Alex Justin Gonsalves and Nafisa Karimali Abbas.
Berjis Desai, lawyer and author of Oh! Those Parsis and Towers of Silence, is a chronicler of the community.