It was the epic tales of "great emperors, warriors and heroes" of the Persian empire related in Firdousi’s Shahnamah that inspired H. D. Darukhanawala to publish Parsis and Sports and Kindred Subjects in 1935. The author termed the Parsis "descendants of a martial race" who excelled in "manly sports."
Over the years few other books on the subject have the same archival value as Darukhanawala’s 488-page tome filled with short biographies and photos of the Parsi muscle men and sports stars of yesteryear. In her talk on ‘Lost Worlds’: Parsi ‘Cultures’ and Strongmen in Twentieth Century Bombay," Dr Namrata Ganneri......