The Parsis have a love affair with eggs. You have the Parsi pora or omelette and, of course, the various versions of whipped eggs covering myriad vegetables such as tarkari per eda and sali per eda (sali: shoe string chips), of which The Ripon Club (a club restricted to Parsis) in Mumbai’s Fort area does a particularly greasy, though sinfully delectable, version.

There is even eda per eda, egg on egg which is a bit of a joke. This is something perhaps which the Parsis derive from their Persian roots. Persian cuisine offers much in terms of egg preparation, particularly the kuku, an interesting variety of omelette similar to the Italian frittata and the Arab eggah.

Akuri holds a special place in this pantheon of egg-based preparations. In fact, the daddy of them all, the Bharuchi akuri uses an obscene amount of cream, dry fruits, fried onions and dollops of ginger and garlic and is occasionally served at Parsi wedding bhonu. Such is the esteem akuri is held in.

The principle using vegetables in scrambled eggs is not uncommon.In China the Cantonese do these extraordinary stir fried eggs, soft almost set, a rather ingenious halfway house between scrambled eggs and an omelette, a common addition are spring onions and chives. The Spanish have their oye rancheros, which is almost the same as akuri without the chilies and coriander.

Even English scrambled eggs can be inventive; there is a marvellous recipe by Jane Grigson using asparagus spears in scrambled eggs, although there is a tendency to use good cheeses like Emmanthal or Gruyere. You have the magnificent Basque preparation,piperade — capsicum, onion, tomato in scrambled eggs, the distinctive feature being the attractive contribution of the red and green capsicums to add a whiff of Mediterranean colour and magic. What piperade lacks though is spice and that is where akuri scores.

I recently got the opportunity to discuss akuri with a delightful Parsi lady, Nilofer Ichapuria King (now based in the US), who has written an uncommonly good cook book, My Bombay Kitchen (University of California Press 2007), receiving accolades from the legendary Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, no less, who has even written the foreword to it.

All akuri recipes I have come across including Katy Dalal’s (Jamva Chalo) have the usual suspects in the ingredients including tomato. Nilofer consciously excludes this, she believes that it adds a wateriness which is unnecessary and spoils the flavour and texture of akuri.

A Parsi connoisseur uses tomato paste which he claims eliminates the wateriness. Having done a little research into akuri recipes, I note with some satisfaction that Niloufer is supported by none other than the akuri recipe in the Time and Talents Recipe Book(the bible for all authentic Parsi cuisine, given the eminence of some of the contributors), a recipe by Gool Shavaksha.

The recipe uses 6 eggs, 1 onion which is crisply fried, seasoning, 1/4 cup milk, 2 teaspoons of ghee, 5 green chillies and a small bunch of coriander.Simplicity at its best.

Original article by Javed Gaya for DNA

Men in PLO T-shirts march through noisy, chaotic streets; their leader, all in white, stands before the wrought iron gate of a Zoroastrian fire temple urging followers to pledge purity and denounce outsiders.

Welcome to the fictitious world of the Parsi Liberation Organisation led by a buffoon character in a zany movie that looks at India’s Parsis — both their excesses and endearments — as a minuscule minority of some 70,000 in a country of more than one billion people.

Veteran screenwriter-turned-director Sooni Taraporevala has put the spotlight on the Parsis, an ethnic-religious group whose name derives from their Persian origins, in a film and in a book of photography because, for starters, she’s one of them.

"When you’re a Parsi you’re just used to nobody knowing who you are — and always having to explain yourself," she said before a screening of her film at the Quai Branly museum in Paris, where her Parsi photographs also are part of an international exhibition.

"I think I got tired of that and I just wanted people to know who Parsis were," added Taraporevala, whose screen writing credits include such hits as "Mississippi Masala", "The Namesake" and "Salaam Bombay!"

The Parsis arrived in India more than a 1,000 years ago, fleeing the Arab invasion of Persia to preserve their religion, Zoroastrianism. Today Taraporevala says they still seem to be living at once in many centuries, "from our religious rituals which are so many thousands of years old to being so modern and at the same time being so conservative and exclusive."

This "amalgam of contradictions" in the Parsi community is what she tackles in her comedy "Little Zizou", narrated by a Parsi boy in contemporary Mumbai, who is mad about soccer and French football star Zinedine "Zizou" Zidane.

The boy is also the younger son of a Parsi fundamentalist leader who is pitted against his arch rival, a reformist newspaper editor.

"In my film there are two warring families, one is a fundamentalist lunatic and one is a reforming journalist, a very particular subject but it also can be seen universally. That’s the battle being fought in the world today; in every religion you find the same thing," says Taraporevala.

But rather than take a heavy-handed approach to extremism, she said she chose to treat the Parsi ultra-conservatives in an exaggerated, mocking way in a light-hearted comedy.

India’s Parsis, mainly living in Mumbai, have been known down the centuries for maintaining their ethnic identity, marrying among themselves, and keeping to their ancient religion based on the teachings of one of the oldest monotheistic prophets, Zarathustra.

Even as their numbers dwindle, some Parsis still insist on exclusivity, making outcasts of those who take a non-Parsi spouse.

These "ridiculous policies" in Taraporevala’s view include religious membership, "that if a Parsi woman marries a non-Parsi their kids cannot be Zoroastrians," but she adds that other movements are now forming to make the religion more inclusive.

"Fundamentalist Parsis want to make laws that nobody can be Zoroastrian, but I think Zarathustra was a universal prophet, I don’t think we can lay such exclusive claims to him."

Taraporevala, 52, grew up surrounded by Parsis in Bombay — as she still calls her hometown — where Parsi families from the shipbuilding Wadias to the giant industrialist Tatas have helped grow India’s economic capital, right back from British colonial times.

And many a Parsi home, like those in her film, have on the wall a photograph of a favourite son — world-renowned symphony conductor Zubin Mehta.

Parsis with other musical tastes can point to Freddie Mercury of Queen.

After studying film at Harvard and New York University and spending 20 years adapting other people’s work for the screen, she said she sat down and wrote "Little Zizou" in 10 days, her first spec script and her directorial debut.

"I think that when you make your first film sometimes you choose a subject that is very personal and close to you," she said of the movie, which has won awards at Indian film fests in Los Angeles and New York and the Asian-Pacific First Film festival in Singapore.

The film was also well-received by the Parsis back home, she says, adding that "those Parsis who didn’t like it, just didn’t say anything."

Her happy-ending comedy lets the forces of tolerance and tender-heartedness win the day in the Parsi community, although the fundamentalist charlatan goes on to prosper with new followers on a cruise ship gig.

The film production does not stray far from the fold — most of the cast are Parsis and the leading child roles are played by brother and sister Jahan and Iyanah Bativala, who are literally family.

"They’re my kids," Taraporevala says with a big grin and laughs. "But I promised my husband (a Parsi dentist) only one film until they grow up."

IDEAL RESTAURANT ….a gastronomic heaven (Still there in 2009,But shifted about 100 mtrs away and inside from main road.)

(The IRANI Restaurant… quintessentially Zarathushti Restaurant of old.)

It was an old building standing guard –resolute and proud – on Hornby Road, a street that was and still is the main artery of Bombay. It used to have a typically Victorian façade, elaborately decorated in stone and brick, an edifice that was not only a symbol of times gone by, but a fine Irani Restaurant I first set foot in, before fire reduced it to a shell. They called it the IDEAL RESTAURANT Building thought it had another name.

It stood at the corner of Hornby Road and Ghoga St, next to the DadySeth Agiary, at Flora Fountain. Just a hundred yards down the road lived my uncle Ardershir Sorabji, on the top floor of the Kalfati Mansion and this is where we spent most of our vacations during the 1930 /40’s.

Often after visiting the Agiary, the aroma of the freshly baked wine cakes, cheese cakes, chicken patties lured us into the restaurant with our parents in tow. For these little perpetually hungry Parsis coming from North India, the Irani restaurant with its Faloodah, Ice cream, Irani Daram-No-Juice, Fresh Khari Biscuits, Batashas, mouth drooling chicken or mutton puffs, Kheema-na-pattice, wine “cake”, warm cheese “Cakes” with a crispy cheese crust, luggan –nu-custard, Bun/Muska, etc., was like being in a gastronomic heaven.

What I found peculiarly interesting if not amusing was that the waiters and the staff were all Iranis or Bawas very much like us, dressed in traditional black velvet “bhunva-nitopees", white Bundis (jackets), long white shirts on top of wide flowing white “lay-gas” (pajamas) with the long ends of their Kustis trailing behind. Only the Manager or the boss man, the man at the counter near the entrance /exit, to whom you paid your bill, was dressed in a coat type “Duglo” and wore thick horned rimmed spectacles . And when waiter came to take your order they spoke grammatically incorrect Gujarati. We had a tough time trying to choke our laughter.

Another peculiarity I noticed was that at the end of the meal no bill or cash-memo was presented. But no sooner you got up to go, from the corner of the huge sprawling hall, some one would shout in a sing song voice, giving details of what you ordered and the total amount you had to pay. We never could figure out how they did it. It is said no one ever escaped the shouter’s watchful eye or got off without paying. If one happened to walk into the restaurant and walk out without buying or eating, all could hear the loud sing-song chorus as the person passed by the cashier’s counter, “ this one did not eat or drink”.

Another thing we found amusing was, we kids were addressed as, “BOO-CHAAS” & “DICK-RAAS”! No body referred to us or called us so in the Delhi restaurants. This may interest some of the readers who in Jan 2007 paid RTI, Rs.15 for a mutton Puff or a pastry, or cutlets, or Rs 35 for packet of wafers or Khari biscuits, In the 1940’s at the Ideal Restaurant we paid:

Large glass of Faloodah with ice cream or Pomegranate Juice Annas 2= (Rs 0.125)

A large portion of Custard or ‘Kheema na pattice’ Annas 2.5 = (Rs 0.16)

A full breakfast with 2 eggs, bun, muska & tea, also cost the same.

Cheese Cake as big as a standard muffin was 5 Paisa or Annas 1.25 = (< Rs 0.08)

Pastry same size as today, chicken/muttom/vege puffs, packets of 8 khari butter biscuits, Nan khatais, packet of batasas or wine cakes, were just Anna One each; that was the price also for a large 5 inch fresh bun with a liberal helping of muska (butter) with a hot cup of tea.

Many a times as we were leaving after a spicy meal, the good natured man sporting the black horned rimmed thick glasses would politely enquire in his grammatically incorrect and broken Gujarati ; “Khaadhaa? Gumyaah”? meaning “khaadhu? Gumyou”? i.e. Did you like what you ate?

And then hands out small packs of 4 English toffees or caramels. On other days it would be cubes of Gaaz from Iran. In response to our shy ‘thank yous’ he’d say, “God Bless you my child”.

We, it seems lived in a World then full of Zarathushtis who derived joy from simple & natural things.

While selecting a table in the Ideal Restaurant we would choose the Hornby Rd side, sitting so we could watch the double decker trams & buses pass by, and also to walk down to the vendors on the side-walk to pick up British comics, war books and penny dreadful.

In later years and until the 70’s, these sidewalks were my happy ‘hunting grounds’ for things foreign like watches, calculators, electronic gadgets, imported fabrics etc. Here sometimes you found good bargains and often got cheated.

Other of the now disappearing Irani Restaurant we frequented during the World War II days in Bombay was the "Badsha’s", opposite Crawford Market. This used to be one of the best place for Faloodah and Mango Juice…….(STILL HERE IN 2009).

There was another, Irani Restaurant that we frequented for lunch, was called Standard or something, it also was on Hornby Road, opposite Evan’s Frazer, (Handloom House, in later years).

In our scriptures there is a mention that ‘it was obligatory, as thanks-giving’ to save a bit of the meal at the end for the dog – during Sassanian times, it was called the "Chom e shvaa". Those who did not have a pet dog , used to carry the saved food to the back door ‘paachhloo baannu’ to give it to the stray dog.

My parents, did the same in Delhi. Besides the dogs of which he had many, my father had a handsome pet Rhode Island Red cock who would walk in at breakfast time to peck at the piece of omelette on toast, or "charveloo eedo with rotli".

My wife carries on the tradition here in California. Before she has a bite at breakfast, she offers our dog a piece of toast that is held out on a fork, you should see the dog gently walk up to her, sits down and then delicately slips the bread off the fork with the side of his mouth, without ever touching the fork. Then with an expression that conveys a silent "thank you’, without waiting for a second helping he softly tip-toes away to the entrance room where he sits at the window as the self-appointed guardian. We sometimes wonder if this four year old did come to us from a "finishing school".

Breakfast time is when we have several winged visitor at our back door waiting for the
daily hand out of bird feed. Sometimes on weekends when we are late for breakfast, the inquisitive squirrels would come scratching on the dinning room door to remind us that we have delayed their mid-morning hand out.

Some readers may frown on such acts, but this daily ritual with our pet, this insignificant act of kindness passed down to us, gives us a tremendous sense of joy, a great lift-off to a beautiful day.

My late octogenarian father-in-law Dinshaw Burjorji Karbhary in Valsad used to feed
crows and "mynah" birds after breakfast. They would fly into the first floor balcony in
time to see if the old man was at the table. Dinshaw and his wife Gool had given each
bird from the group, an identifying Parsi name. It was really wonderful seeing the birds
assemble in a row on the parapet awaiting their piece of "malhai-nay-rotli’ or just "rotli"
from the old man’s hand. When making the ROTLI my mother-in-law Gool, would
always say," Ah-ay chalia-o-nay-varey chai".i.e. this is for the birds. The birds would
share the "nastoe" and fly away. Sometimes a bird or two would linger on, the old man
would tell his wife , "Gool, Muncherji nay Cawasji nay varey please rotli laoso kay? Aaje A’ logono hisso koi beejo khai gee-yo"? ( Translated: Gool. Will you please bring bread for Muncherji & Cawasji; today someone else ate their share.)

It was so wonderful watching the old folks happily excited and delighted hosting this
daily Rotli parties for the birds. The dogs had their day at night time from the ‘Kutra nay
varey Bhonu" that was saved from dinner to be equally divided amongst the dogs that
would be waiting.

Talking of "PAACHCHLOO BAANNU", and dogs, takes me back some sixty years or
more in Delhi (1940s), when I was still wearing short pants. After the dogs were fed the left-overs from dinner ( like your "FOOi" used to), we remembered that we should give some hot milk to the six pups that were about a month old. I gave four annas ( a quarter of a rupee) to the servant to get hot milk from the nearby "Halwai" ( that is a
meethaiwalla nee dukaan). Those days 4 annas would get you one SEER of milk, that’s about one litre. Hot milk is better than hot chocolate for the North Indians especially on a cold Delhi night. So when the servant brought the milk and went to feed the pups,

I wanted to make sure the man did not gulp down half of it before feeding the pups, so in the darkness flanking myself with the PAACHCHLOO BAANNU I was peeping out to
watch. It was then I noticed what appeared to be a long line of black ants carrying their
white eggs along the corner of the BAANNU. Ants do that when the seasons change.
Looking closer I was petrified, when I realised I was starring into the beady eyes of a
snake when his forked tongue shot out, trying to get a taste of this young Parsi. Quickly
backing off, I called the cook, who would not do anything as it was against his religion to offend the snake, I called my father who came and sent the snake to his heavenly abode.

I wonder if future generations of Z’s will have any knowledge of these beautiful little
rituals like "Chom e-shvaa" or have time or inclination to follow them with the same love and reverence as our forefathers did. Will they ever experience the transcendental joys inherent in these little Zoroastrian acts ?

One of the daily ritual in a Parsi/Irani homes in India of the early 20th Century, that brings back happy memories of our childhood, of a bygone era, when the days had morehours, families had more members, dinning tables had more chairs, we were more religious and the community felt like being a large close knit happy and contented family, always in concert with each other, always helpful.

Reminiscing of those days, in my minds eye, I caught glimpses of mom or grand mother glide by at sun-down with the silver or German-Silver afargan through each room as did the grayish-blue smoke, fragrant with sukhar (sandal wood), loban (incense), agar that when mixed with the sent of tube-roses, or jasmine or ‘motia.’ (Arabian jasmine) from the cut flowers on the prayer table or in the rooms was a heavenly experience . With one small hand we, brothers, sister, aunts and uncles, would cover our heads and with the other add a pinch of "whair" , loban or agar, then hurriedly putting both hands together, say an Ashem Vohu. Then with both hands, we would pull the smoke towards us. At the end of the round of the house, the Afargan was place at the "prayer table" and before the charcoal embers died they’d be transferred to the coal burning "choohlow" ( stove ).

In the 1930 there was no gas or electric stoves except in parts of Bombay or Karachi. The LOBAN did the round of the rooms in the morning also, but we were then well on the way to school.

The prayer table was where mom or dad , who so ever got ‘ready’ first in the morning, would light the "Divo". The kids got their turns on their birthdays. The divo used to be a short glass partly filled with water topped with either, pure ghee, cooking oil or special oil-lamp media with a long ‘kakrow”,( i.e. wick) held by a metallic clip or a floating ‘kakrow”on a cork float or even a candle that were kept alit perpetually. As pure ghee became expensive, ghee was only used on festive occasions or on birthdays.

In our uncle’s house in Bombay the ‘divo" was suspended from the ceilings in all the main rooms, in an old fashioned chandelier, like you find in some of the Atash Behrams.

Maybe it was something left over from the pre-electricity days and these were the lights that the BATTIWALLA’s as a profession lit.

What is nostalgia but an attempt to preserve that which was good in the past? The past has served us well.

The above is a first in a series on Memories of the Parsi Past. More will follow in the days to come. If you would like to add to it, please write to us and we would love to publish it on the site.

My earliest memories of going to a fire temple are of seeing a bearded man dressed in all white sitting all alone, greeting us when we entered. Feeling awed and scared at the same time, it took a while to understand why this man looked so similar to the ones in photographs on the wall. It took patience and effort on my late grandfather’s part to make me understand that this was “aapra dastoorji.” The man in question was the revered head priest Dasturji Hormazdji of the Batliwala Agiary in Tardeo all those years ago. Since then I have had numerous friends and relatives who are priests and that has led to a deeper understanding of what they stand for and what they mean to our ancient religion.

In a religion as ancient as ours, the center of our spiritual physical being lies with these very priests. The dasturs, as they are known, are the custodians and implementers of all matters pertaining to religion, customs, ceremonies and the overall conscience of the religion. Zarathusti priests have over the centuries been the guiding force in the interpretation of our ancient texts, performing ceremonies of happiness and sadness, and being the silent custodians and arbitrators of our religious ethos.

You can continue reading the article on NextGenNow.com

Comments, opinions and critique appreciated.

Abhishek Mande / Rediff

For over ten years now, Khushroo Poacha has stood by the sole belief that to do good work you don’t need money. Poacha runs indianblooddonors.com (IBD), a site that lets blood donors and patients in need of blood connect with each other almost instantaneously. He also does not accept cash donations.

The site has been live for almost ten years and with over 50,000 donors in its database, IBD is perhaps a classic example of what the Internet is truly capable of. But more importantly, it is a reflection of a single human being’s desire to make a difference to this world.

It all started in the mid-’90s when Khushroo Poacha, an employee with the Indian Railways in Nagpur saw a doctor being beaten up because he couldn’t save a patient’s life. No one in the mob seemed to understand that it was the lack of blood that caused the death.

"A few years later, I witnessed the death of a welder because he couldn’t get blood. The two incidents really shook me up," Poacha says, "And that was when I expressed to my wife my desire of doing something."

Poacha, however, had no clue about how he could make a difference until one day, sitting in a cyber cafe with a 56 kbps connection, the idea came to him.

"I did not know head or toe of the Internet, let alone about domain names, but I knew this would be the tool that would make a difference," he says, explaining the dotcom extension to the site.

Over the next few months, Poacha liquidated practically all his savings, purchased a domain name and started up indianblooddonors.com.

"During the time, there were no companies booking or hosting web domains in India. I was paying USD 300 every three months to keep the site live and running. Meanwhile, I had spent almost Rs 40,000 in developing the site and had gone practically bankrupt," he says.

Poacha says he even went to a local newspaper to place an ad. "I needed visibility and that was the only way I thought I could reach out to the people. The day the ad appeared, I was expecting a flood of registrations," he recollects. "No one registered."

The silver lining to the dark cloud came when someone from the outskirts of his hometown Nagpur contacted him, expressing interest. "It was a saving grace," Poacha says.

Meanwhile, the dotcom bubble had burst and Poacha was being told what a fool he had been. And then there were household expenses to be taken care of too.

"There were many occasions when unpaid phone bills would be lying in the house and there would be no money to pay them off," Poacha recollects, adding that "things always have a way of sorting themselves out. And mysteriously during such times, a cheque would make its way into the mailbox."

Poacha admits that his wife was quite apprehensive about his endeavour. "But she believed in me," he says, "And that has made all the difference."

Visibility, however, was still an issue. No publication was willing to write about him. No major hospital or blood bank was interested in taking his calls.

And then the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake happened. As visuals of the devastation flashed before his eyes on television, Poacha realised yet again he had to do something.

Only this time he knew just what.

"I called up (television channel) Zee News [ Get Quote ] and requested them to flash the site’s name on the ticker and they agreed."

Five minutes later, the ticker was live. Ten minutes later, the site crashed.

"I spoke to the people who were hosting the site (by now website hosting had started off in India) and explained to them the situation. They immediately put me on a fresh server and over the next three days or so I received some 3,500 odd registrations," Poacha recollects.

Realising the difference he had made, the 42-year-old started working on getting visibility again.

Over the next few months, Poacha had contacted every major magazine and sure enough, a few responded. "Outlook (magazine) wrote about me, then (British newspaper) The Guardian followed suit and then came the BBC," he says.

Along the way, IBD had also gone mobile. All you had to do was type out a message and send it to a short code and you’d have a list of blood donors in your inbox.

As luck would have it, the service became far too popular for Poacha’s pocket. "By then I had stopped taking cash donations and had to discontinue it," he says.

Interestingly, IBD is not yet registered as an NGO. "We function as individuals. We don’t take donations and only accept bumper stickers (of IBD) and postage stamps to send out those stickers and create awareness," he says, "I was asked to deliver a lecture at IIM during a social entrepreneurship seminar and was asked what my sustenance model was. I replied I didn’t have one. And I have been doing this for the last ten years."

Today, the database of IBD is growing at the rate of 10-15 users every day and the requests have grown from 25 to 40 per day.

Poacha says he eats, drinks and breathes IBD. "The zeal I had ten years ago has not diminished and the site continuously sees innovation." The latest, Poacha tells us, is the option of being an exclusive donor to one patient.

"During my journey, I realised there were some patients who required blood every month. So if you want, we can put you onto them so you can continue making a sustained difference to one person’s life."

IBD is currently on an auto pilot mode and Poacha continues to keep his day job. He says, "Initially I would take the calls and personally connect the donor with the patient’s relative. But I know only three languages and I’d get calls from all over India," he laughs.

Poacha recounts an incident that never left him: "A man from Chandigarh called me and told me he was desperately seeking A-ive blood for his 2-year-old. About five minutes after the call, he got the (difficult to find) blood group he needed. Soon after the surgery he called me up crying, thanking me for saving his child’s life. For me, it was just another day at work. But his whole world was at stake that day. I can never forget that call."

Last year Poacha was invited to the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit 2008 in South Korea where venture capitalists argued that it wasn’t possible to sustain an endeavour without money. He says, "I pointed out that Mother Teresa [ Images ] had no revenue model when she started the Missionaries of Charity. If you want to do good work, you simply do it."

For someone who has sustained his enterprise for a decade with just a few bumper stickers and postage stamps, Khushroo Poacha knows best.

[Hat Tip: Jasmin]

By Ashutosh Shukla / DNA

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) announced the project at a meeting with the community after the new trutees completed one year. They hope to build an aviary in next three to five years’ time.

It is against the Parsis’ Zoroastrian faith to either bury, burn or submerge their dead as they believe it pollutes the environment. Hence, they leave the bodies at the tower of silence left to be consumed by the vultures.

"Earlier, a proposal was scuttled but we are working on a vulture breeding program. It will also take care of the threat of the drug Diclofenac as we will try and ensure that the human body is Diclofenac-free," said Khojeste Mistree, BPP trustee. It is believed that the vulture population is tapering off because of the intake of drugs like Diclofenac from the human body.

The meet also presented a white paper of sorts and the future plans the BPP has for the community. Among them is a housing project that will see 2,257 spacious flats for the Parsis built in the six colonies in Mumbai. "Of these, 1,457 flats will be allotted free to the Parsis after cross-subsidisation," said Dinshaw Mehta, chairperson of the trustee.

A new logo was also launched with two wind bulls featuring on either side of the BPP. "It is done with a motive to bring healthy interaction and harmony in the community," said Jimmy Mistry. Its symbolic importance represents strength in the physical world, consciousness, and spirituality.

A youth program — Zoroastrian Youth for Next Generation will also be launched with a dedicated website by December that aims to promote healthy interaction, encourage participation, bring a sense of pride in the community, recognise its achievements, promote networking, provide details on scholarship, religious events, jobs, matrimony and lists social events.

By Manoj Nair / Mumbai Mirror

Trustees of Bombay Parsi Punchayet, the apex representative body of Parsi-Zoroastrians, have decided to replace the trust’s fire logo, which they thought was symbolic of the ‘trial by fire,’ into which it has been dragged into lately by community groups accusing it of corruption.

The logo will be replaced with winged bulls that are emblems from the ancient Archimedean empire. The old logo shows the letters of the acronym ‘BPP’ stylised as flames.BPP Trustee Dr Khojestee Mistree said, “If you look at the old logo, it looks as if the letters of the acronym are being burnt in the fire. There was something wrong with the concept. The new board of the trust wanted a more modern logo and it was unanimously agreed to adopt the new symbol.”

Fire is a sacred symbol in the Zoroastrian religion; so are winged bulls. The new emblem with two bulls dates back at least 2,500 years to the Archimedean empire of Persia. The images of the bulls were depicted as sentinels that guarded palaces and also the gates of heaven.

Though the BPP – which is one of the largest land owners and charity groups in the city – is nearly 330  years old, the fire logo is less than 10 years old. The organisation did not have a logo before that.

The new symbol was inaugurated at a community meeting in Dadar on October 25.  Mistree said that the new emblem symbolised the trust’s new plans for the community, including a proposal to set up a youth wing.

Lately, the trust has been under intense scrutiny by community groups that have filed complaints at the office of the charity commissioner and in civil courts accusing the body of corruption in housing.

The BPP controls nearly 5,000 flats in trust colonies across the city, that are meant for community members who cannot afford to buy their own homes. Recently, the Bombay High Court allowed the trust to sell flats in an Andheri colony so that it could generate funds to construct homes for poorer members of the community. The plan had been challenged earlier by community groups.

Chairman of BPP, Dinshaw Mehta said he associated the fire symbol with these constant tribulations. “We have been hounded by people who lost the trust elections to us. They have been filing one complaint after another against us in various agencies, and they are not giving up. The old logo was shown burning in the fire. The trustees felt the logo was not appropriate,” said Mehta.

[Link via email: Mickie Sorabjee]

The loudspeakers were switched off halfway through the function after complaints to the local police station.

This forced the trustees to shout to the 3,000-strong crowd and allege that some people within the community were jealous of the BPP’s achievements.

Even after the mikes were switched off, speaker K Mistree remained defiant, shouting his last words, "This is a work of sabotage, though the voice of honesty and truth cannot be scuttled."

This lead the irate audience to even suggest that they pile into cars and gherao the Dadar police station to find out who was behind the complaint.

A woman said, "Functions have been held here in the past, but loudspeakers were never shut."

And resident S Panthaky said philosophically, "When a community tends to dwindle, it goes into destructive mode. This is what is happening with the fighting here."

Ironically, just before the mayhem started, BPP’s Jimmy Mistry had said to the audience, "Let the fires and fighting in our community stop today."

Original article here.

The invitation for the function was issued by the president of the Dadar-Matunga Parsi Zoroastrian Association (DMPZA) Rustom C. Chothia and other trustees on the board, with the blessings of Dastur (Dr) Kaikhusroo JamaspAsa. The inauguration was at the hands of member of parliament Eknath Rao Gaikwad in the presence of member of the legislative assembly Kalidas N. Kolambkar, municipal corporator Raghunath D. Thawai and other political figures. Dadar Athornan Madressa prin­cipal Ervad (Dr) Ramiyar Karanjia, princi­pal of the J.B.VachhaHigh School Banoo A. Makoojina and Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustee Amavaz Mistry were also present, along with members of Bha­rucha’ s family and other invitees, a press release notes.

Many tributes were paid to Bharucha, a dedicated teacher who believed that education must remain a joyful experi­ence. Her long-term of service to the J. B. Vachha School was recalled and appreci­ated. The Nagpur born and educated Bharucha was associated with the School from 1974 until her death at the relatively young age of 51 years in 2005. Under the guidance of her mentor and school chair­person Tehmy Nari Aga, Bharucha first taught English and Science before be­coming principal in 1989. During her ten­ure Bharucha received a slew of awards —Best Teacher Award from the National Welfare Teachers’ Foundation, Bombay in 1994; National Award for Best Teacher in 1997 received at the hands of the Presi­dent of India in New Delhi; Vocational Award for Excellence 2001 presented by the Rotary Club of Bombay Muduty; KalaGuru Award fromPrempurjiu Ashram in 2002; and in 2004 she was among those felicitated as aprominent educationist by Gurudas Kamat, member of parliament and Congress party officeholder, under the aegis of the DMPZA

Bharucha was remembered as an un­assuming and kind-hearted person, gen­erous to a fault and a valuable asset to the Parsi/Irani community as attested by the large turnout at the inauguration of the chowk, especially students, parents and teachers who came to honor the memory of their popular principal. Following the inau­gural ceremony which was accompa­nied by music by the School’s band and a march-past by the girls, the gathering proceeded to the nearby Palamkote Hall where the digni­taries were welcomed with garlands. Fit­ter called upon them to speak and Chothia was the first to do so, followed by others who lauded Bharucha’s legacy.

Karanjia summed up Bharucha’s role thus: "Our life is God’s gift to us. what we make of our life is our gift to God. God must be very happy with the gift that Ms Bharucha gave Him… (She) put a lot into the few years that she lived on earth… (She) was very secular in nature but in her heart she had a soft corner for her religion and community. May her soul rest in eternal peace and keep on guiding and helping her community, her family and her school."

[Original article published in Parsiana and forwarded to us by regular reader and friend of Parsi Khabar, Mickie Sorabjee]

At end-September, bird watchers from across the world were abuzz about the remote, dry highlands of Himachal Pradesh’s Lahaul-Spiti. The region was witnessing a rare event — a congregation of over 200 regal Lammergeier vultures, popularly known as bearded vultures.

These vultures inhabit the rarefied heights of the Tibetan plateau and have equally rarefied tastes. They dine almost exclusively on the bones of dead animals. They don’t eat the hard calcium, but head for the soft and nutritious marrow that is found inside bones. To obtain the marrow, the birds perform an exquisitely synchronised routine. They soar high into the sky with the bones, and then drop them, to smash on the rocky ground below. Then they descend to peck on the exposed marrow.

This sighting in Lahaul-Spiti was welcome news for conservationists. It meant that they could breathe a little sigh of relief that at least one species of vulture found in the Indian subcontinent seems to be taking care of itself. The Indian heartland, far from the mountains, is still no place for vultures.

It only takes one sentence from India’s foremost expert on vultures to put things in perspective. “We shouldn’t be celebrating the sighting of a few colonies of birds, sometimes as small as 50 in number,” says Dr Vibhu Prakash of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). Prakash knows what he is talking about. In just two decades he has personally documented how the vulture population in India has fallen off a precipice. The numbers have collapsed — take a deep breath now — from about four crore to hardly 40,000 today.

Prakash, flipping through files on his computer, stops at one image and asks us to try and count the number of vultures it shows. The scene is from the 1980s at Delhi’s erstwhile Timarpur garbage dump. The dump itself is the scene of a feeding frenzy for hundreds of vultures. On the horizon and lined up on the roofs of buildings nearby are at least a thousand more, waiting their turn. Prakash says an optimist would put the total figure for vultures in Delhi today at 1,000.

These important and impressive scavenging birds have fallen victim to a tiny killer. For over two decades they have faced chemical poisoning — mainly due to the use of diclofenac in veterinary medicine. Diclofenac is a cheap, simple and effective painkiller which is safe for use in cattle and humans. Unfortunately it is deadly for Asian vultures, especially from the gyps family, which are vultures that feed on the soft tissue and organs in animal carcasses.

Gyps vultures — principally the white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures — are the most numerous group, and they bore the brunt of increasing diclofenac use in Indian veterinary medicine from the mid-1980s onwards. This decimation is considered rare, as neither the vulture’s food supply nor its habitat have suffered significant damage, and there is no pathogen (disease-causing microorganism) involved.

By the time diclofenac was identified as and proven to be the offending chemical — in the late 1990s — the gyps had almost been wiped out. It was 2005 by the time the Indian government was convinced about the severity of the situation and diclofenac was finally banned for veterinary use.

That was the first step in saving the vulture. The second was the listing of white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Today things are looking up for vultures, and work by people like Prakash is setting the benchmark.

The smell of rotting flesh is unmistakeable as one nears the BNHS’s Vulture Conservation and Breeding Centre (VCBC). Nestled in the Shivalik jungles, an hour’s drive from Chandigarh near the town of Pinjore, this is ground zero for the vulture’s recovery. VCBC is the first centre set up exclusively to rescue injured or diseased vultures and to undertake captive breeding. BNHS is currently the only organisation spending time and money on an exercise such as this for the vultures. “I could have sat all my life researching and collecting figures. But here I am. People say educating people will save the vultures, but it is a slow process and we don’t have the time,” says Prakash who, along with his wife Nikita, also an expert on raptors, manages the centre.

VCBC is an unique initiative modelled on other successful programmes to captively breed predatory birds and then release them into the wild. Prakash says he embarked on the project after visiting and studying the programmes to rescue the Californian condor in North America. He says that the decimation of the vulture population has been so sudden, severe and “still continuing” that it is unlikely that nature can fight back on its own.

The five-acre campus, on land leased from the Haryana Forest Department, today houses 127 vultures. Special among them are the six who were born at the centre last year. And one of the six young ones is a slender-billed vulture, of the species which is most threatened.

Prakash has expanded this captive vulture programme by setting up two more centres, at Raja Bhat Khawa, West Bengal, and Rani, Assam. He says he has evolved a mathematical model that will serve to resuscitate the gyps vulture population in India. “Six hundred pairs of each of the three species will form a viable population. Twenty-five pairs of each of the three species at one centre will be able to produce a population of 100 pairs of each of the species in the next 15 years. Thus, we need six centres to produce 600 pairs,” he says.

The birds released from these centres and from centres in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh will be the nucleus of the vulture’s revival. He further adds that collecting nestlings from the wild will add to the numbers, as vulture nestlings take to captivity easily. There will also be attempts to breed birds that are too injured to fly. For this purpose he has networked with bird watchers and conservationists across India, to report nests and injured birds, which can then be collected and flown to VCBC at the centre’s own cost.

VCBC has managed to collect a wealth of scientific information on vultures, as it is the first time the birds have been observed at such close quarters. But more significantly, the centre monitors levels of diclofenac in the environment. When vulture carcasses are reported from across the country, the team arranges immediately to collect viscera samples. These are then analysed and frozen for future reference. “Earlier we had to use expensive gas chromatography to detect diclofenac. Now we use the ELISA test, which detects the enzymes suppressed when diclofenac is ingested. We are working to develop this into a dipstick test where we can instantly, in the field, detect if diclofenac is present in cattle or vulture carcasses,” says Prakash. He is also helping to formulate plans for selected zoos across the country to set up similar breeding and monitoring centres.

Meanwhile, on the ground, NGOs and enthusiastic bird watchers across the country have been documenting sightings of vulture colonies and conducting education programmes. Wildlife filmmaker Mike Pandey, who produced a documentary on vultures, has been using his NGO Earth Matters to educate farmers to not use diclofenac on their cattle. “Some farmers have voluntarily stopped using diclofenac once we told them of dangers of diseases such as anthrax breaking out if carcasses are left rotting in the open,” he says. Parsi communities across the country have been eager to be involved in vulture conservation as the birds are integral to their funeral rites. The situation has been dire at Mumbai’s Parsi Tower of Silence as there are no vultures to scavenge on the dead bodies.

But the danger of diclofenac has still not disappeared. It is estimated that it will take five years for diclofenac to disappear from the environment, even after a ban. And a ban, unfortunately, will not happen soon. Prakash, Pandey and various NGOs have been protesting the misuse of human doses of diclofenac in veterinary medicine, and the circulation of old stocks of veterinary diclofenac. For human use, diclofenac “comes in smaller doses, so you just use a few more bottles. Essentially it is the same medicine,” says Prakash, while adding that the only solution is a complete ban.

The first batch of captive bred vultures are set to take off after 2020. It will be a momentous occasion. It is critical for the environment that the vultures hold their place at the end of the food chain. Prakash says he will be happy to release his vultures back into the wild, but warns that his flock will not fly out till the spectre of diclofenac is totally out of the environment.

By Anand Sankar for the Business Standard

But does that matter, when one can ‘eat one’s cake – and have it too’?

Its present owners are Tafti Iranis, originally from the small Iranian village of Taft. The affable Kaikhushroo Ardeshir Nejadkay, who hails from a family of agriculturists, arrived in Bombay at the tender age of ten, and worked with his father as an assistant baker at their Brabourne Bakery in Chira Bazaar, concentrating only on breads.

The family acquired the present Paris Bakery in 1963 from its previous Irani owners and turned things around for themselves and for us, forever.

Continue reading at Upper Crust India.

[Hat Tip: Regular reader and friend of Parsi Khabar, Mickie Sorabjee]

Paris Bakery, 278, Dr. C. H. Street, Our Lady Of Dolours Church Lane, Dhobi Talao, Mumbai – 400 002. Tel: 022 2208 6619

"I had stopped enjoying swimming and I felt stuck. It was the worst phase of my life and every day was a mental battle as I could not improve my timings," Poncha told DNA.

Today, the 23-year-old Arjuna awardee is the most successful Indian swimmer with three senior national titles, and twice a winner of the best sportsperson award at the National Games. The Olympian is also the proud owner of over 25 international medals.

"Five years back, my only aim was to enjoy swimming. I cannot believe that I have actually been able to achieve all that I have since then," said an emotional Poncha who was adjudged the best swimmer at the recently-concluded senior national championship in Thiruvananthapuram.

Poncha, who was training under Nihar Ameen at KC Reddy Swim Centre, decided to move to Basavangudi Aquatic Centre and train under national coach Pradeep S Kumar. Two years later, Poncha won his first senior national title dethroning Arjun Muralidharan of Indian Police who had dominated Indian swimming in the men’s category.

"I credit my success to the staff at BAC and Pradeep sir who has encouraged me during my toughest days," said the senior national champion who completes his fifth year at BAC.

Though Poncha defended his title in 2008 Hyderabad nationals, he says the championship he won this year means more to him. He eclipsed five senior national records in his five individual events to win the title. Poncha also defeated Arjun in the 200m butterfly for the first time and also claimed the gold in the 100m butterfly.

"I had lost to Arjun in the last four years. I have worked three times more than what I have in the past to get this kind of result at the nationals and it feels good. Although at the end of the day, I still feel I have not achieved what I was really looking for," says Poncha.

The Olympian, who clocked 2:00.70 secs in the 200m butterfly at the Asian Age Group meet in Japan this year, has been aiming to go sub-two minutes in the event. "I had targeted to go below two minutes. With my current timing I would have been placed in the top eight at the previous Asian Games but I am not happy with that. My target is to clock 1:56 by next year’s Asian Games," he said. Poncha, who is pursuing his MSc, is awaiting the sports ministry’s clearance to train in the USA from December onwards.

With his toughest days behind him, Poncha is optimistic about swimming for the country up to the 2012 Games.

The joint charity commissioner in November last had revoked the permission to sell the flats given earlier by the commissioner’s office on the grounds that the Punchayet had concealed facts. The order decreed that the flats should now be either sold to poor Parsis at susbsidised rates, or be leased to them. It said that Parsis would be selected by a representative of the BPP, and if not, by the commissioner himself.

Setting aside this order, the division bench of Justice D Deshmukh and Rajesh Ketkar on Thursday directed that the proceeds from the sale be utilised to construct new flats for poor, needy or deserving Parsis. Deshmukh said, "The Punchayet has to construct 300-400 flats in the next two years from these proceeds." The Punchayet can now sell the flats at Rs2,400 per sq ft.

"Our policy [of cross subsidy] has been upheld by the court. We are happy with the decision," said chairperson of the BPP, Dinshaw Mehta. Kersi Randeria, who had challenged the commercial sale, was also satisfied with the order. "They (new BPP trustees) haven’t constructed flats for poor Parsis in a long time, and now they will be forced to construct 300 of them as per their admission made to the court."

SC judge to review 104 pending allotments

The division bench on Thursday also directed that a retired Supreme Court judge be appointed to review the 104 housing allotments cleared by the previous board of trustees for needy Parsis, but which the new board has so far failed to honour.

A section of Parsis had approached the charity commissioner’s office after waiting for years to get houses from the Trust. The joint charity commissioner had asked the BPP trustees to make these allotments. When the Punchayet said it had only 74 residential flats readily available, the commissioner had asked the Trust to reveal the total number of houses in its possession.

After the Punchayet did not comply, the commissioner had stayed the sale of the 74 flats, and had threatened the Trust with annulment. The BPP then filed a writ petition against the order in the high court in March.

Justice Deshmukh said, "The appointed judge will review all the 104 cases and allot houses to the poor, needy or deserving Parsis in accordance with the merit rating scheme of the Punchayet, and his decision will be binding on both the parties." The court has set a time limit of six weeks for thereview, which will be conducted by JusticeB Srikrishna.

The sound of Avesta, on 27 Shahrivar (18 September) once again filled Azargoshasb Fire Temple.

In Azargoshasb Fire Temple Zoroastrians recited the Avesta and prayed for a strong unity and cooperation of Zoroastrians of the world.  It is 6 years that this ceremony is being organized, annually, by Yatha Ahu site.  Azargoshasb is one of the largest and most renowned fire temples of the Iranian plateau, situated in West Azarbaijan, 49 km on the northeast of the city of Takab.  The history of this structure goes back to over 3000 years.  Azargoshasb is located near the Urumieh Lake (Chichest Lake) and was surrounded by magnificent buildings in those days.

Amordad camera also went to the Fire Temple to once again display the get-together of Zoroastrians in this ancient holy site.

Continue reading at Amordad News.

Take two women: one a City lawyer turned banker, the other a multilingual journalist turned charity boss. Shake gently. And out pops Justgiving, the charity fundraising dotcom that is becoming a seriously profitable business. Just tread lightly when asking about their motivation.

“I didn’t set it up to make money. That’s an important distinction,” says chief executive Zarine Kharas, shaking her head.

Managing director Anne-Marie Huby is equally firm. “It just makes us sharper, being a for-profit company,” she says. Not least, it means Justgiving can pay competitive salaries in a technology service sector where talent is at a premium.

Or does it? Kharas and Huby, when I ask, can’t agree where they benchmark their salaries, but that seems par for the course in a singular business with 56 staff that has rewritten the fundraising rulebook. It has also annoyed some in the process.

Kharas and Huby have created a dotcom company that now dominates online charitable giving, providing a platform for most of the money pledged to good causes online in Britain, and taking a 5% fee for doing so. In the process, they have helped to raise £532m since 2001 for more than 8,000 charities in Britain and America.

The business, still backed by 16 original investors, could be heading for flotation, and wouldn’t be the first to mine money out of charity. The tech giant Blackbaud, which supplies software to America’s not-for-profit sector, floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2004 and is now worth more than $1 billion (£625m).

That makes critics uneasy. They distrust Justgiving’s near-monopoly, and feel its 9m users might still mistake the operator as a not-for-profit venture. Kharas, who won the RSA’s Albert Medal this year for “democratising fundraising and technology for charities”, says Justgiving simply sells a service. It wants to empower givers, and make money to improve itself constantly.

The reliance on fees also means she can turn away venture-capital firms that once rejected her. “I remind them of what they told me nine years ago,” she says crisply. “It would never work.”

It works now, and that’s why Sir Richard Branson has launched Virgin Money Giving, a rival whose unique selling point will be a smaller fee, and whose payback may be the chance to sell financial products to people who use its system. Virgin Money has just bought a five-year sponsorship of the London Marathon to back it.

A long-standing rival, Bmycharity, was relaunched this month on a no-fee basis, funding everything by advertising and sponsorship. We are about to see online marketing war declared.

Not a problem, says Huby with a smile. “There is so much headroom in this space, and we are very focused on the needs of charities, and what they need from us is serious investment. They want our systems to streamline with their own, they want us to be completely Facebook-centric, they want new forms of payment . . .”

The two founders make an odd couple. Huby, 42, is tall and tenacious, a former Belgian radio journalist blessed with covergirl good looks and a media-friendly manner. She made her name in London as UK head of the international charity Médecins Sans Frontières and was a familiar face on BBC1’s Question Time.

Kharas, 58, is short, funny and intense. Pakistani by birth and Cambridge educated, she is a poshly-spoken intellectual who lost faith with law and banking, and wanted to start something that would make a difference. She thought up Justgiving, before asking Huby to help launch it.

Both are formidable persuaders. Justgiving has pitched hard to get charities onside, enabling individual fundraisers to organise large groups of givers swiftly — no more tattered sponsorship forms — and small charities to reach a wider audience.

And Justgiving has still only scratched the surface: online giving accounts for 2% of total donations in the UK and 5% in America. That is growing rapidly as more users learn to trust the internet.

As for the profit motive, Kharas and Huby argue that it has to be that way because Justgiving has taken the risk, developing innovative software, upgrading and expanding. And it only takes its fees from the gift-aid tax relief it automatically collects, so all the money pledged by supporters reaches the charities chosen.

Other revenue options, such as advertising and sponsorship, could not have provided the same income so quickly. And Justgiving is transparent about its methods.

“The disciplines brought to bear are greater in a for-profit business,” says Kharas, “and that way, we’re better able to meet the needs of charities and supporters.”

Huby, part of the team that made Médecins Sans Frontières into an admired marketing machine, says they are providing something charities simply couldn’t do themselves. “Charities shouldn’t be taking risks with donors’ money where technology is involved. This is a different level of complexity.”

They found that themselves this summer, she adds, when Justgiving launched a new platform that crashed. It refunded transaction fees for a week. “We messed up,” admits Huby, “but we had a terrific July afterwards. And charities told us, ‘That’s why we prefer you to do it. It’s hard’.”

Both make light of Virgin’s appearance on their turf, targeting that 5% fee, but they must be worried. Kharas says they can change their revenue model. Huby says the key is investment. She doesn’t believe that Bmycharity’s no-fee stance will work. “I take my hat off to them for daring to introduce a new business model in this space, almost beating Virgin at its own PR game, but it’s a very brave choice. To make advertising work in a sustainable way, they will need significant volumes of traffic, which, looking at the figures on their site, they don’t appear to have. If their intention is to keep investing in their product, it will be a real challenge.”

That flinty logic unpins Justgiving’s softer-sounding exterior. Huby runs the day-to-day management. Kharas focuses on strategy and expansion, particularly the Firstgiving subsidiary in America, where the donation sector is worth $300 billion.

The two women dovetail well. Both are good listeners — keen to attune Justgiving to the sensitivities of its market — and broadly experienced. Kharas, the youngest daughter of a Parsi engineer, has worked at two City law firms, Linklaters and Simmons & Simmons, and the bank Credit Suisse First Boston. Her last job before Justgiving was an unsuccessful stint heading a small direct-mail firm.

Conversely, the charismatic Huby, whose father was a road gang foreman, was brought up with radical politics and understands the charity sector inside out.

Those who know both say their achievement should not be underestimated. “They are very energetic, driven people, and they have needed to be,” says James Kliffen, head of fundraising at Médecins Sans Frontières UK and a former colleague of Huby’s. “They have virtually invented a whole new way of fundraising.”

Because of that, other charity chiefs say the for-profit nature of Justgiving is not an issue yet. “Do you know what the cost of processing 17,000 sponsorship forms is? And getting gift aid back?” says Cathy Gilman, chief executive of Leukaemia Research. “There’s no point in them not charging fees if they can’t offer what we need next year.”

As for the worry that Kharas and Huby want to line their own pockets, that’s still to be proven. They pay themselves salaries of £150,000 and £130,000 respectively, plus profit share — high in small charity terms but not for heading a burgeoning tech business that made £2.2m profit after tax on £7.3m revenues in the UK last year. They also own 9% and 7% chunks of the business, but nobody has made money from that investment yet.

“The poor old shareholders have not had a penny in almost 10 years,” nods Kharas. And Justgiving’s principal backer, the veteran CD-rom entrepreneur Béla Hatvany, says he is happy with that. He sold his Silverplatter information business in America for $113m eight years ago, and now controls more than 50% of Justgiving, having gifted part to staff as share options. Other investors have tiny stakes.

Hatvany insists that none of them is in it for the money. “Our purpose is to unleash the giving potential of society worldwide,” he says. “I don’t want another pot of gold.”

In the end, users can decide. Kharas says she is always asked if she runs a “social enterprise”. No, she replies. “That is a very different kettle of fish.” This was about two women creating something that charities needed, and that would pay for itself. It will evolve, adds Huby. Watch this space.

Anne-Marie Huby’s working day

The Justgiving managing director wakes at her north London home at 6am and breakfasts with her family. Later she walks her five-year-old son to school and then cycles to Justgiving’s Leather Lane office, home to 45 staff.

“I focus on current operations. Zarine takes a longer-term view, especially in relation to our choice of technologies, our No1 area of spending and therefore risk,” says Anne-Marie Huby.

Her workload can involve liaising with charities, looking at better ways of serving users, and organising data thrown up by the service. Justgiving also provides technology training to smaller charities that pay £15 a month to join its scheme.

She finishes at 6pm, and often joins the team in the pub.

Zarine Kharas’s downtime

Outside Work, Justgiving’s chief executive leads a simple life.

“I meet friends, I watch films, I go to the opera and the theatre,” says Zarine Kharas.

Her preference is for foreign, subtitled art films. “Preferably films where nothing happens for a very long time. I hate violence, and horror films.”

Her taste in opera is “rather more plebby”: Verdi, preferably at the Royal Opera House. She has attended Glyndebourne, “but I don’t like the dressing up”.

Kharas is also a member of the National Theatre, and will watch most drama, but not musicals.

Otherwise she spends her money on holidays. “Greek and Roman ruins, not lying about on beaches.

I am not a great one for flowers and beauty, either.”

Vital statistics of the Justgiving founders

Zarine Kharas

Born: June 14, 1951

Marital status: single

School: Karachi Grammar, Pakistan

University: Girton College, Cambridge

First job: articled clerk at Middleton Lewis

Salary: £150,000 plus profit share

Home: Maida Vale, London

Car: “I don’t have a car. Where I live you can’t park, so there’s no point in having one.”

Book: The Golden Bowl, by Henry James

Music: Nina Simone

Film: Casablanca

Gadget: boiled-egg cracker

Last holiday: Syria

Anne-Marie Huby

Born: November 17, 1966

Marital status: married with one son, one stepdaughter

School: Athénée Royal de Malmedy, Belgium

University: Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales, Brussels

First job: radio journalist at RTBF

Salary: £130,000 plus profit share

Home: Islington, London

Car: 11-year-old Honda

Book: Belle du Seigneur

Music: Northern soul and Mahler

Film: A Matter of Life and Death

Last holiday: Lake District

Parsis in Kolkata have cause for cheer. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) moved by The Assam Company

Ltd against two charitable trusts run by the community. Calcutta High Court will now hear the matter and decide whether the company should vacate an office adjacent to Olpadvala Memorial Hall on 52, Chowringhee Road, and compensate the trusts.

The premises in question is the property of Calcutta Zoroastrian Community’s Religious and Charity Fund and Olpadvala Memorial Trust. These organizations provide financial support to poor Parsis in the city. To raise funds, the trusts let out their property.

Through a deed dating back to April 17, 1984, the trusts leased out a part of their property to The Assam Company Ltd. The lease was for 21 years (with effect from February 1, 1980). According to the counsel for the trusts, the terms and conditions stated that the lessee would have to vacate the premises and hand over possession of the property on expiry of the lease. The lease expired in 2001, but the company continued to operate from the premises.

On December 4, 2006, the trusts issued a notice to the company, terminating the tenancy and giving it 15 days to vacate the premises. The notice was received on December 7. The notice period expired on December 23 and the trustees than moved the HC, claiming a compensation of Rs 30,000 per day from December 24 for alleged "wrongful use and occupation".

The lawyers said the company was obliged to pay taxes and other charges to KMC to the tune of Rs 17,17,424. As it did not do so, the trusts had to pay the sum. They prayed that the company be directed to pay back this sum to the trusts.

The company contended that the matter was not under the jurisdiction of the high court. Justice Nadira Patherya directed the trusts to move the city civil court. Instead of doing so, the trusts preferred an appeal before the division bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice I P Mukherji. The bench struck down the earlier order and admitted the matter. The Assam Company Ltd then moved an SLP.

The trusts were represented in the SC by counsel Soli Sorabjee and Phiroze Edulji.

Original article here.

By Nauzer Bharucha, TNN

In the age of the Right to Information Act, the charity commissioner could not refuse to furnish documents under the cover of the

Official Secrets Act, said the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP) on Saturday. Charity commissioner (CC) M K Choure was hearing an application by the BPP, which opposed his decision not to supply the charitable trust a copy of a preliminary inquiry report ordered by him to look into the BPP’s accounts.

On the basis of this inquiry report, Choure had ordered a special audit of the BPP’s accounts and directed the trust to immediately shell out a fee of Rs 1.2 crore to an auditor appointed by him. When the BPP refused, Choure warned that he would suspend the entire board comprising the seven trustees.

During the hearing in the CC’s office on Saturday, BPP advocate Percy Gandhy quoted a Supreme Court judgment, stating that a party against whom a special audit was ordered, had to be given an opportunity to be heard and provided with all material.

The embattled BPP, which looks after the welfare of Parsis, is defending charges levelled against it by Percy Patel of Alert Zoroastrians’ Association, who alleged various malpractices in the trust.

Gandhy told the CC that his order directing the BPP to pay Rs 1.2 crore for a special audit was itself bad because it was passed ex-parte "without hearing us or giving reasons for such an order”.

"In one case, the Supreme Court had overturned a ruling which sought to levy a fee of just Rs 1.5 lakh on a party for a special audit. The BPP likewise is a charitable trust and its funds are meant for the community’s poor. Such a large amount cannot be diverted to pay the fees for a special audit,” he said.

As against the fee of Rs 1.2 crore that the CC has directed the BPP to pay for auditing its accounts between 1998 and 2008, the punchayat said its own auditor, Kalyaniwalla & Mistry, charged just Rs 90,000 a year. The BPP counsel also questioned the time-frame of the special audit ordered by the CC, and protested that even under the tax law, investigations were for a seven-year period. "So, on what basis had the CC ordered a special audit for 11 years,” he asked.

The CC is likely to deliver a final order on October 8.