THE BAWA WAY OF LIFE

Coomi Kapoor’s new book is a handy dictionary for all things Parsi

- Sunil Sethi

THE TATAS, FREDDIE MERCURY & OTHER BAWAS

An Intimate History of the Parsis

By Coomi Kapoor

WESTLAND NON-FICTION

Why and how is it that, for a minuscule community that numbers about 57,000 but will soon be down to 23,000, the Parsis cut such an inordinately high profile and exert huge influence—as tycoons (the Tatas, Wadias, Mistrys and Godrejs), jurists and lawyers (Nani Palkhiwala, Soli Sorabjee, Justice Rohinton Nariman), nationalists and rebels (Dadabhai Naoroji, Madame Cama, Kobad Gandhy) not to speak of soldiers, scientists, musicians and artists—from Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw to Homi Bhabha, Zubin Mehta to Freddie Mercury, Homai Vyarawalla to Jehangir Sabavala? And the name that outstrips them all in our anxious pandemic-afflicted age, Adar Poonawalla, of the flamboyant family that is the world’s largest vaccine producer, is also a Parsi.

Like an anthropologist decoding the rituals of a vanishing tribe, columnist Coomi Kapoor excavates their intricate ties of kinship, unflagging zeal in making money (and donating large sums to charity and institutions) and a dottiness that has earned them the affectionate sobriquet of “bawas”.

Born a Parsi, Kapoor’s own family history is conflict-ridden: descended from a line of hereditary high priests, her mother was only the third female not to marry a blood relation; when she died, her grandchildren were kept out from the fire temple’s inner sanctum for prayers. “I accepted unquestioningly that once I had married out, I had become a ‘