Mesmerized… you might say obsessed with China,” is how author Mishi Saran describes her interest in the Middle Kingdom. It was natural that her "ears pricked up” when she heard in 2012 of former Shanghai resident Jehangir Bejan Tata. "Nobody has firsthand accounts of Parsis in Shanghai…It was thanks to Tata that all these stories about Shanghai Parsis came tumbling out,” she said. The author was speaking on "Stray Birds on the Huangpu: Why were Parsis in Shanghai Over a Century Ago?” at a lecture organized by the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghrahalaya) and the Museum Society of Mumbai on January 20, 2020. Saran first wrote about China as an exchange student in Peking in 1988.
Tata was a nonagenarian when Saran interviewed him in San Francisco. His father Bejan, a distant relative of industrialist Ratan Dadabhoy Tata (cousin of patriarch Jamsetji) was an agent in the then fledgling business house of the Tatas. When the Tata businesses withdrew from China, Bejan stayed on and "turned entrepreneur,” she narrated. A prayer hall "around which social life came to be centered,” opened in Shanghai under Bejan’s stewardship as trustee of the Shanghai Parsi Central Trust Fund. Bejan built a home called Avan Villa in 1935 in the city. "The Villa had seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, long passages, a prayer hall… They had a privileged existence,” she noted. After the change of regime in China in 1949, Jehangir and his wife Lydia were the last to leave Shanghai in 1952 when Jehangir’s business operations ceased. The Villa was rented out. "Jehangir never stopped hoping that he would get Avan Villa back!” she said. The writer’s interviews with Jehangir are documented in "A House for Mr Tata: An Old Shanghai Tale,” a chapter in the 2015 publication Travelling in, Travelling Out, A Book of Unexpected Journeys edited by Namita Gokhale.
Jehangir’s story continues in an article dated May 15, 2015 written by Saran and carried in the online newsmagazine Quartz India (
www.qz.com). The writer explained that when they left Shanghai, the family had entrusted the custody of Avan Villa to a trusted agent, a Mr Tang. When communication from Tang ceased, "the Tatas decided that no matter how much they loved their house, and worried over its fate, it was not worth more than a man’s life.” They abandoned efforts to track down their home as they were fearful for Tang’s safety with the changed regime.
In 2001, at the age of 82, Jehangir travelled to Shanghai with his daughter Irene. "Incredibly, Avan Villa was still there! Somebody had turned the ground floor into an antique shop. The upper floors appeared empty. The store manager quite proudly showed the Tatas around. He explained he was renovating the building, that the house had belonged to an Indian, that the four smaller houses were for his sons,” wrote Saran.
Jehangir may have snapped (to the store manager), "I know,” Saran notes pithily.Of opium and war
The early Parsis drifted northward to Shanghai from Hong Kong soon after the British acquired the island from the Chinese in 1841. They were well settled by 1847 as traders in cotton, yarn and opium. The prayer hall set up in 1866 in Shanghai was known as the "white hats’ prayer area,” in acknowledgement of the Parsi headgear, perhaps, she said. Saran showed an image of the building that now stands in the place of the prayer hall. The exact age of the current structure is not determined, she stated. "It seems to have borrowed motifs from Persian/Zoroastrian culture,” the researcher surmized, pointing out to the pillars on its frontage.
The Shanghai anjuman is listed as The Shanghai Parsee Cemetery Trust Funds in the Directory of Hong Kong Zoroastrians 2016-2017 and is stated to have been founded in 1854. Records show that from $ 1,700 given to them by the Hong Kong anjuman (now called Zoroastrian Charity Funds of Hongkong, Canton and Macao), the Shanghai Trust’s funds grew to two million dollars in 1934, notes the directory. The Shanghai association also "donated funds to the Hong Kong anjuman at various times thereafter,” it states.
"The same records show that the Shanghai Trust Funds had four properties in 1934, which included the 1854- established cemetery.” The community population grew from four or five in 1847 to 124 in 1934. While the first death recorded in Shanghai was in 1859, there were 47 Zoroastrian graves in Shanghai up to 1946. Due to the Japanese occupation, the Second World War and the country’s socialist policies, "most of the funds including the properties were lost.” There were also Parsi cemeteries in Amoy, Hankow and Peking. Some Parsis were also buried in international cemeteries in Tientsin and Changchun (Manchuria). "Whether these cemeteries still exist or not is not known,” notes the Directory.
Saran narrated that Hirji Jivanji Readymoney may have been the first Parsi to reach China, probably in 1756. The men could alight only for short periods of time on Chinese soil outside the city gates of Canton. Later a Parsi cemetery was set up in Canton, and by 1809 there were 52 Parsis, along with other communities in China, she explained. "The Chinese wanted silver bullion…Their financial system was built on it…They had the silk and the tea that the English wanted,” the writer stated. "‘What else can we sell the Chinese?’ mused the English traders… They had a solution by the 1820s… Opium” which was packed in mango-wood chests. "Parsis and other non-English East India Company traders did the dirty ... work in Canton,” opined Saran. The Chinese outlawed the import of opium due to the resultant drain on their treasury. When the Ching Emperor sent officials to confiscate the opium, it led to the first of the British-Chinese (Opium) Wars, Saran stated. However, in later years, "It was said that if (China trader and businessman-philanthropist) Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy was in a bad mood, he could shut down a large section of the (English-Chinese) opium trade,” the writer quipped.
In response to a question from a member of the audience, the historian noted that the community population of Shanghai never went above 200.
Saran has conceptualized and written several chapters in the bi-lingual (English and Chinese) 2018 anthology Stray Birds on the Huangpu: A History of Indians in Shanghai. (The 113-km Huangpu River flows through Shanghai.) The book was to be launched along with the talk but copies could not be arranged due to "bureaucratic issues,” stated Dr Pheroza Godrej, chairperson of the Society. "Hopefully there will be an Indian edition of the anthology in the near future,” Saran wrote to Parsiana.
Author of an award-winning 2005 Silk Road travelog Chasing the Monk’s Shadow: A Journey in the Footsteps of Xuanzang, Saran’s first novel, The Other Side of Light was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize. She is currently finishing a second novel, set in Shanghai of the 1930s. Despite a vibrant history of westerners living in Shanghai, much less is known about the Indians "of all stripes” who played a role in the city’s history, Saran stated. She went on to explain the trade prowess of the Bohra and Muslim settlers and that of the Sephardic Jews as well as the "very visible” presence of Sikh policemen in Shanghai.
The lecture was "supported by Harsha and Mehernosh Heeramaneck (who run the antique shop Heeramaneck and Sons), well-wishers of the Society,” noted the invitation. Godrej appreciated that the evening was made memorable by the presence of "grand dames” who had spent their childhood in the heady days of Shanghai.