The Zoroastrian community in Sydney lost two nonagenarians in the last week of July 2021. Their oldest member, 97-year-old Jer Rusie Rustomjee, passed away on July 26, 2021. Three days prior, 94-year-old Dorab Ratan Kotwal, past president of the Australian Zoroastrian Association (AZA), died peacefully at his home, reported AZA honorary secretary Mithi Daver, giving insights into their meaningful lives.
Remembered by all as "the quintessential gentleman with a smile,” Kotwal’s interest in AZA never flagged until the end. Within a week of his arrival in Australia in 1972, he was coopted on to the management committee of AZA that was established a year earlier. "A strong supporter and backbone of our Association,” he served on the management committee from 1972 to 1979, as honorary treasurer and president, recalled Daver.
Jer Rustomjee (l) and Dorab Kotwal
One of the pioneers of the AZA Sunday School which started in 1977, as a teacher for many years, he would share stories from the Shahnameh with enthusiastic children. This inspired him to learn Urdu. Fluent in French, Kotwal also took interest in German. He had directed and participated in various Parsi nataks that AZA staged in earlier years and is still remembered for his roles in comedies like Moogi Mehra (Speech impaired Mehra) and Pavitra Pareen (Chaste Pareen).
For 30 years Kotwal was associated with The New Zealand Insurance Company from where he retired in 1984 as company auditor. After joining the firm as a chartered accountant in Calcutta, he was later sent on a posting to Singapore, then appointed general manager in Delhi before being transferred to Sydney.
"A man of varied talents,” Kotwal was a violinist and Fellow of the Trinity College of Music, London. He regularly performed with the Ku-ing-gai Male Choir at the Hornsby RSL Club. He is survived by his wife Sherna and son Rashid.
"If there is one word that can describe Jer, it would be ‘amazing’. She was a veritable powerhouse,” confirmed Daver, recalling Rustomjee’s motto through her fulfilling life inspired by the lines from William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Until the age of 94, Rustomjee ran her own home and cooked her own meals. "We will forever remember her legendary ‘love cake’ with her secret recipe,” added Daver.
Devoted to her husband of 65 years, Dr Rusie Rustomjee, whom she considered her idol and mentor until his demise, "there was nothing she would not do for him,” noted Daver. Rusie was an eminent ENT (ear, nose and throat) surgeon in Colombo, Sri Lanka and among his patients was Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the erstwhile Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. On relocating to Australia, he started his ENT practice in the Blue Mountains in Sydney, with Jer helping as secretary.
Her family was her greatest joy, and she showed admirable care and devotion to her son Jamshed who being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at an early age required institutional care as the disease progressed. She would visit him daily at the nursing home, sometimes twice a day with his meals until she was 94. Three years ago when Jer was admitted to the nursing home, daughter Tehmi Meher-Homji looked after both mother and brother. Jer is further survived by daughter Zarine, and sister Dr Piloo Rustomjee.