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"When someone encroaches your home, you feel the rage and hatred. We’re expatriates but we felt the same,” businessman Kaiomarz Mistry recalls the emotions of people in Kuwait when Iraq invaded the country in August 1990. To Mistry Kuwait had been home ever since his father Firoze started his business of specialized doors and loading systems in that country in 1977. 

"As Indians we were not harmed,” he acknowledges, but he remembers the killing of locals and hunting down of westerners. "We passed through Iraq (en route to India) when escaping from Kuwait. Iraq was not modernized.” Saddam had spent the country’s huge oil income on armaments and the eight year war with Iran, says Mistry.

Having lost everything in the invasion Mistry Sr looked to India to restart his business in 1990 when the Indian economy had begun to expand. When they went back to Kuwait after the liberation in May 1991, the scene was chaotic. They got minimum compensation. The Mistrys managed to restart their business — the Hamad & Firoze Trading & Contracting Company Limited — but thereafter "dad paid more attention to (the operations in) India, so I took on the business in Kuwait.” Two years ago he established a base in Sharjah, targeting the Middle East. However, "expatriates can’t own land or property” in the Middle East. 

"You need a local as a sleeping partner.” In India "Dad’s been very successful with three outlets in Goa, Poona and Himachal Pradesh. He had even gone to Bhutan two years ago and spent time with staff over Xmas,” installed a hangar door in Nepal. The hyper active Firoze is an original Dadar Parsi Colony lad, "always on the run. It’s difficult to keep up with him,” as notes his son.

Dealing in industrial doors — completely sealed, air tight, insulated — for food and pharmaceuticals warehouses where hygienic conditions are necessary, the company also markets racking systems for stowage, docking systems and dock levelers that provide an adjustable ramp for smooth loading and unloading of trucks at the warehouse. They also install hangar doors for airplane and ship repair yards such as the two doors of 17m by 23.5 m for the coast guard ship repair and maintenance hangar in Kuwait which was a "tough technical assignment.” Using the most modern and latest designs, the parts are sourced from UK and Europe, especially Sweden, and assembled in Sharjah according to requirements, Mistry informs us. Mounted on springs with minute adjustments, the doors can be operated manually with ease, but every increase or decrease of half a meter requires a change of springs, he adds.

An alumnus of the Billimoria High School in Panchgani, Kaiomarz briefly rejoined his mom Perviz and dad Firoze in Kuwait before proceeding to the US and London for further studies. Married to Soonu (née Pavri) who works with him part time, they have a daughter Freya, 13, and son Rayan, 7, for whose navjote the whole family had congregated in Bombay. The senior Mistrys are now based in UK as also their younger son Burzin who deals in mobile telephony and web designing in London and their daughter Kaizarin.

The Zoroastrian community in Kuwait numbers around 85 individuals — down to half the pre-invasion population — amid 1.6 to two million Kuwaitis, 50 percent of whom are expatriates, notes Mistry. The majority are well placed professionals in the 35 to 50 year age-group, averaging two kids per family — chartered accountants, banking and highly placed executives in major corporations. There are no doctors or architects among them and no businessmen save Mistry. Most expatriates live in close proximity to their respective communities, but the Zoroastrians have good friends among other Indians as well as locals, he adds.

As Thursday/Friday marks the Kuwaiti weekend, they meet for a "light social evening” on Wednesday or Thursday. Mistry says he and his wife have been committee members of the Kuwait Zoroastrian Association which organizes outings every month and at least three major events in five-star hotels in the course of the year. He laughs at Parsiana’s query regarding local controversies, noting "At the end of the day we manage to do things together,” which includes collecting donations for Zoroastrian charities in India. After returning from the annual visit to Bombay in January, the Mistrys and friends who had flown down to attend Rayan’s navjote had Ervad Aspandiar Dadachanji perform a series of jashans for individuals and the community at large.

"Life is very good in Kuwait, touch wood!” says Soonu and not as expensive, in terms of the cost of living, as in Bombay, notes Kaiomarz. The Kuwaiti Dinar trades at about 153 Indian rupees. "The dollar is nothing!” Domestic help  — Indonesian or Indian — is available from advertisements or agencies. How good it turns out to be depends on your luck but its availability makes life easier when there is no extended family, they add.

 Both their children were born in Kuwait but cannot claim citizenship — no foreigner can, says Kaiomarz. They go to very good local schools, Freya being very adept with the computer as a substantial part of her school work needs to be done on it. The laptop is mandatory in some schools though a lot of reading and writing is also enforced. The young Rayan "exhausts” his mother with questions on politics, religion, spirituality. His TV watch focuses on news channels and, occasionally, newspaper headlines. He is known as Mr CNN in school and broke the news of Saddam’s hanging to the family on his navjote morning, note the parents with a mix of pride and exasperation.

Work takes Kaiomarz to Dubai every month and the family knows a lot of Parsis there but "no one has mentioned the congress!” he notes. Parsiana had assumed that he would be excited about the upcoming Ninth World Zoroastrian Congress 2009 in Dubai, being chaired by banker Meher Bhesania.

Kaiomarz and Soonu had met in London when she was working after graduation as a courier with DHL. Her job required her to check in the bag as her luggage. Someone was there at the destination to clear it. The maximum three day trips meant free travel and accommodation, a chance to learn about places and people. The courier was "never responsible for the contents” of the luggage, she adds, and "DHL were very good employers.”

Being middle of the road, pragmatic Parsis, the Mistrys note that marrying within the religious community helps better understanding in the long run but are not averse to intermarriage when one meets a "soul mate.” Kaiomarz also states that he has seen Parsi marriages "go absolutely haywire.” Pro community and proud of being Zoroastrians as they are, they still "think its wrong if priests refuse to do the navjote of the child of an outmarried Zoroastrian if both parents agree to it — especially when the community is diminishing.” Soonu is all praise of the way her brother’s German wife had looked after their father during a visit when he was ill and laid up in bed so that the other members of the family could move around and meet their friends. Nonetheless, she adds she has already started conversations with her 13-year-old daughter about the pros and cons of marriage.

While on the subject of intra community marriage, Kaiomarz spoke with feeling about the demands that Parsi girls and their parents make. "Every parent wants the best for their child,” he acknowledged, but within limits. "When we got married, everything was in shambles because of the war. But both our parents helped and we pulled through…The boys have no spunk? Yes, some of them get easily satisfied, lack drive. The girls are doing extremely well. I’ve seen that too. I wouldn’t know where I’d be without dad. But I’m always looking to expand and build up the company more...”