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 Erach Munshi came into my life in 1962, when he came from India and joined Dadi Dhabhar and myself in an apartment on 125th Street, near Broadway. Our friendship endured for over 50 years until his demise at the age of 85 on July 25, 2015 following a stroke.
Munshi and I were graduate students and Dhabhar, with a new Master’s degree, was working at Vicks pharmaceuticals. Dhabhar soon returned to India and Munshi decided to call his wife Perin to join him. He started looking for a bigger place and found a spacious three-bedroom apartment on Clairmont Avenue in a slightly better neighborhood. One of the bedrooms being quite large and somewhat isolated from the rest of the house, he invited me to live there. This worked out fine for us.
Munshi had been in the New York area from 1957 to 1959 and knew most of the Parsis there. He kept in touch with everyone he knew and had a list of telephone contacts, both Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian. In those days about 20 to 25 Zoroastrians in the New York area would meet for the Shahenshahi New Year and Jamshedi Navroz at someone’s home or at the Wadia’s restaurant on Manhattan’s 57th Street.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1965 another graduate student, Homi Dalal, his sister and we thought of making the New Year and Navroz dinners a more formal affair. We booked a small hall, used the kitchen facilities at International House on Clairmont Avenue and invited every Zoroastrian whose phone number we had to a New Year dinner for a minimal charge. We did all the shopping, cooking and cleaning. Forty people showed up for that dinner, the first time a majority of the community had a festive meal together. The food, pulav-dal, a chicken dish and our version of lagan nu custard, along with drinks, must have been reasonably good because six months later we drew a bigger crowd. We continued having these dinners for the next few years, moving to two or three other venues. By then the number of people attending, and fortunately the number of people helping with the cooking, had also grown. We had a number of hardworking volunteers and a community interested in getting together. Munshi was the glue that kept everyone together. The end of the 60s and the early 70s saw young families with children joining the community in New York.
In 1973 a need was felt to formally organize ourselves into an association. About 20 individuals, including Munshi, Dr Lovji Cama, Farrokh Patel, Framroze Patel, Mehru Jahina (Cama), Khushru Hakim, Lovji Hakim, Khushroo Patel, Edul Daver, Jehan Daruwala, Tehmas Dotiwala, Jal Guzdar, Pilloo Irani, Dara Sutaria and Rusi Sanjana and their spouses attended an ad hoc meeting at the home of Naval and Pervize Sidhwa on Staten Island to select nine individuals to form a committee. The mandate of this committee was to write the constitution and by-laws of the new association, hold the first formal election on the following Jamshedi Navroz and continue to arrange the two annual dinners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York (ZAGNY) was fortunate to have the pro bono legal service provided by Stewart Lyle, Esq. in the formative years. The first board of directors of ZAGNY, elected in 1973, had Munshi as president, the late Naval Sidhwa vice-president, Framroze K. Patel, treasurer, Cama, secretary, Khushroo Patel, joint secretary, Rohinton Cama, Jehan Daruwala, Nancy Daruwala and Rusi Sanjana as members at large. During its term ZAGNY started religion classes for children which have been run continuously since then. Munshi was supportive of the classes, and though not involved in teaching, was very active in finding venues for them as we did not have a dar-e-mehr.
In 1975, during Munshi’s second term as president, Dr Rustom Sarfeh attended the Shahenshahi New Year dinner which was held at the United Nations School. He was impressed by the number of Zoroastrians, both Parsi and Iranian, who attended and expressed concern over the lack of a permanent meeting place. On a visit to Iran a couple of months later Sarfeh met Arbab Rustom and Khanum Morvarid Guiv and spoke of the struggling Zoroastrian community in the New York area. Guiv agreed to help build a community center and committed $ 100,000 (Rs 6,600,000) for the project. The search for a suitable building in the tri-state area began. Munshi played a central role in looking for suitable properties, contacting real estate agents, organizing community members to visit and evaluate them. Many evenings and weekends were spent by the board and interested members searching for and looking at different properties.

 

 

 

 

 The Guivs visited New York the following summer and were shown three properties that had been shortlisted. He liked a simple church in New Jersey, which Farokh Patel had been instrumental in finding, and an offer was made, but the deal never went through. The search was resumed and eventually the property at 249 Weyman Avenue, New Rochelle was purchased in May 1977. Guiv offered to renovate it so that it would be suitable as a community center and place of worship. Ervad Noshir Hormuzdiar played an important role in this initial renovation.
The inauguration of the first Dar-e-Mehr in the US, in December 1977, in the presence of the Guivs, Sarfeh and his wife and a majority of the active members of the community was the pinnacle of Munshi’s second term as ZAGNY president. A jashan ceremony performed by all the priests from the New York and Philadelphia area was followed by speeches by Guiv, Sarfeh, Munshi and others. The guest of honor was Nani Palkhivala, Indian Ambassador to the USA and the keynote speaker was Prof Stanley Insler of Yale University.
The Dar-e-Mehr Zoroastrian Temple was created as a religious organization to own the property and Munshi was one of the first six trustees.
In 1986 Munshi was once again elected as president of ZAGNY and served two additional terms. It was a time of uncertainty, when ZAGNY’s  home was in jeopardy because of a legal problem with Sarfeh and the Guiv Trust. A committee of about 10 persons was formed under the leadership of Munshi, Dr Farrokh Tarapore and Farrokh Deboo to raise funds for a New Zoroastrian Temple and Cultural Center (NZTCC). They were able to collect nearly $ 300,000  (Rs 19,800,000) and obtain pledges for another $150,000 (Rs 9,900,000). However, the goal of nearly $ 1,000,000 (Rs 66,000,000), which would have been necessary for completion of the project, was not met. The failure of this project was a great disappointment to Munshi although he would say, "Well it was not to be.” In one of the last conversions we had, he regretted that Guiv had not bought more of the school property behind the New Rochelle Dar-e-Mehr so that we could have expanded there. He was deeply attached to that first Dar-e-Mehr.
Munshi and his late wife Perin had no children. They always lived in New York at the same modest apartment that he and I had shared during our student days. He was president of the apartment house cooperative since its inception. In the early years of the community many people coming from India to New York were given his name and phone number by friends, in case they ran into trouble or needed a place to stay for a few days. New Parsi students were always welcomed by the Munshis with a good Parsi meal, if not always with a place to stay. As a professor in business administration at St John’s University for over 40 years, he was often helpful in pointing fresh graduates towards job opportunities and used his contacts to help newcomers to find jobs. He was known for his kindness towards the staff and students.
Munshi was born into a very poor family in a small village near Surat. His father died when he was very young and his mother sent him to the Parsi orphanage in Surat. He never forgot where he came from and helped the poor Parsis of India. About 35 years ago the Munshis began inviting the community to a lunch at the Darbe-Mehr to raise money for the Udvada Fund which was used to help the poor, primarily priests in Udvada, Surat, Navsari and the surrounding towns and villages. Today the Fund collects $ 30,000 to $ 35,000 (Rs 1,980,000-2,310,000) each year, not only from ZAGNY members but from donors all over North America. This became Munshi’s pet project. He spent hours on the phone raising funds. Every penny collected was sent to various charities and fire temples in India. The money was divided among the Udvada, Surat and Navsari communities and Munshi personally checked on the proper distribution of the Udvada Fund each time he visited India. ZAGNY’s support of the Fund over the years was greatly appreciated.
A leader of the New York Zoroastrian community, a memorial was held for him on August 30, 2015 which was attended by over 150 people. Munshi had some historic achievements to his credit, perhaps the greatest being the creation of the first Dar-e-Mehr in North America. A humble and devout Zoroastrian, he was personally conservative but could work well with people holding different views, never imposing his ideas on others. He firmly believed that young Zoroastrians should marry within the community and was very happy when they did; but when some did not, he accepted their decisions graciously. He would not allow himself to be nominated for a couple of FEZANA (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America) awards, among them the Jamshed Pavri Humanitarian Service Award and the Rohinton Rivetna Outstanding Zarathushti Award, which he richly deserved.
He often referred to me as his younger brother. Our friendship lasted not because we were alike in nature or came from similar backgrounds or because we shared the same views on the future of the community or society in general. I think it endured because we had a deep respect for each other’s abilities and points of view and had shared in creating and nurturing ZAGNY to what it has become today. All those who were involved in the formation of ZAGNY will always have this special feeling that comes from working together to create something good. Though we were young and inexperienced in a new country, and had very little money, we collectively made many right decisions that bore good fruit.