Word: parsi
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Brahms & Dogfish. Indeed, he seems to have been destined for ein Heldenleben. He was born into the Parsi sect, whose members he calls "the Jews of India"; they are descended from a group that fled Persia 1,300 years ago so that they could continue to practice their Zoroastrian faith. The Parsis, 150,000 strong, are business, commercial and social leaders of Bombay, noted for their receptivity to Western culture...
...last adherents of a great religion that once enlisted millions of ad herents throughout central Asia,&* the Parsis have traditionally influenced In dia well out of proportion to their numbers. Prosperous, cosmopolitan, literate, they dominate today the business community of Bombay. Industrialist J.R.D. Tata, whose steel mills constitute India's largest privately owned enterprise, is a Parsi; so are General Sam Hormuzji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, one of India's top military leaders, and Zubin Mehta, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Parsi girls for the last three years have won the title of Miss India...
...Balance Sheet. In a nation with a 25% literacy rate, the Parsis can boast that more than 90% of the sect's members can read and write. Despite the widespread hunger and poverty of India, the Parsi poor rarely starve; in the city of Bombay alone, one trust established by wealthy members of the sect provides low-income housing for more than 6,000 Parsi families and welfare payments for the unemployed...
According to Parsi tradition, Zoroaster was assassinated at the age of 77 by an unbeliever while worshiping at a fire temple. Within a century after his death, his teachings seem to have been accepted as the state religion by the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes. Although the faith was driven underground after Persia's conquest by Alexander the Great, Zoroastrian ideas circulated widely in the Middle East. Almost certainly the magi who came to Bethlehem to honor the newborn Jesus were Zoroastrians, and many scholars believe that echoes of Zoroastrian theology can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Revived...
...independence. Poor health and the onset of World War II forced Indira to break off her studies and return home in 1941. She plunged at once into her country's increasingly bloody battle for independence. Showing some independence of her own, she defied her father and married an obscure Parsi lawyer named Feroze Gandhi (no kin to the Mahatma). Within a few months Feroze and his bride were both in British prisons on charges of subversion. Much like her dolls, Indira had been arrested while leading a parade of women demonstrators down the main streets of Allahabad...