3 parsi families of Kashmir

 

Three Parsi families with the names of Pestonjee, and Patel arrived in Srinagar during Dogra rule, and chose to live on The Bund, Srinagar, near the banks of river Jhelum.

That is the most prestigious address in the Srinagar city, as historically, the bund Srinagar is the site of first house boats in Kashmir, and a place where the 'Resident' (British Commissioner), his staff, and missionaries lived. After some time all the three families either constructed properties or hired a few on the state-leased land, both for private and commercial use. Mr. Patel was appointed by Hari Singh to serve in the traffic wing of the police department which was nicknamed as Patel Police' by the locals. Mr Patel had two sons and a daughter, Rustom alias Russia, Jahangir alias Jangu. Russi is living in Mumbai and Jahangir too is on and off to Mumbai. Dhanjiboy, another Parsi was allotted around 11 kanals of state land on lease under the JK Land Grants Act, by Hari Singh, and allowed him to use the site for commercial purposes namely to run a horse-drawn postal carriage services between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. Mr Dhanjibhoy constructed a stable for horses, and a small residential hut on the same premises now housing 'Sadiq Handicrafts, Mehta photographers, 'Suffering Moses'. Dhanjiboy sold the whole property to Sheikh M. Abdullah (former CM) and Haji Ghulam Moli-u-Din, renowned a businessman, through an irrevocable power of attorney, in 1967. Dhunjibhoy and her two daughters are presently living in Mumbai. 

The third and the most influential among the Parsi families in Kashmir was Mr. Pistonjee 1 (Sr.). He was registered state auctioneer who ! too was allotted a patch of land on lease nearby.

He also constructed a couple of buildings both for his residence and commercial purposes. One of the properties housed India Assurance Company where two of the Pistonjee family members by the name of Behram Pistonjee and Khusroo Pistonjee are working; Khusroo was the class fellow of Dr. Farooq Abdullah. They have two sisters, Fehmi and Mehar Khusroo is fond of visiting a famous hair cutting saloon at Sonawar area of Srinagar in his Parsi traditional dress.

A white horse that stands in the premises of Pistonjee building is brand model of scotch whiskey from Edinburgh. It was gifted by the company to its sole distributor Pistonjee (Sr.) in Srinagar and was specially packed and brought from London to Srinagar. Fortunately the present owner has preserved the model in its original form. Dr. Jolly Morilla was the youngest and the only Parsi participant in an International Medical Conference held at SK Institute of Medical Sciences Soura, Srinagar.

In a face to face television interview, she elaborately spoke about the genetic study about Parsis. She said, Parsis are closed to pre Islamic Iranians, even more than present day Iranians. There are some female genes from Indian sub-continent showing some mixing but for the most part we have retained the traits of our ancient Iranian forefathers. Upon asking the cause of their shrinking population, she was candid in her reply, "with regular fall in the population inter-community marriages are increasing, which in turn catalyses the shrink. But we are completely happy with our lives, unlike other communities. We have given the host country more than any other people like Dr. Homi Baba, Ferozshah Mehta, Zubin Mehta, Tata to name a few.

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Courtesy:-    Hira Lal Kak  and  Koshur Samachar 2022, July