TISS-PARZOR Parsi Literature in English: Parsi Prose, Parsi Plays

Two novelists, two playwrights, two filmmakers, two masterclasses, a wealth of stories in the last two plus weeks of this Zoroastrian Perspective course.

I last studied literature in the last century. The nice thing about studying literature in university, as opposed to high school, is that the professors don’t tell you what to think and how to interpret the text. Same with Coomi Vevaina in the Parsi Literature course. Prof. Vevaina was adamant on that score. No wrong answers!

Fiction

For Fiction Week, she picked books by two Parsi novelists: Canadian Rohinton Mistry’s Tales from Firozsha Baag and Ice-Candy Man by Bapsi Sidhwa. I’d purchased and devoured Mistry’s book of connected short stories when it was first published in paperback in 1987. I was loathe to read it again because I’m in a different place than in the 1980s. I adored it then. The stories resonated with my heart and my memories. For the first time, I was reading fictional stories about people I recognized. Even though I never lived in a Parsi Colony in Bombay — didn’t even know about them back then — I knew the Zoroastrian personality. Mine and my father’s family. The way of being, talking, connecting, instructing, bossing. Gestures. Language. Reading familiar characters evoked a sense of belonging since we’d moved to Canada.

I think when fiction reflects who you are, it reinforces that you exist.

Throughout this certificate course, lecturers have repeated how Parsis exist in a liminal space. We have a duality of belonging: we belong yet do not. We’re accepted yet not enfolded. Other minorities in Canada have their communities to anchor them. People like me do not because it’s so tiny and going extinct. So when I read Mistry’s book, I felt like I’d grasped an anchor. I was more than my own personal memories.

Since I’m now in a very different place, having learnt harsh lessons about friendship, family, connection, and belonging, I didn’t want to taint my memories of Tales from Firozsha Baag by rereading it from my current perspective.

Before my brain injury, when I picked up a book, I mayn’t have remembered the title, but I could regurgitate the entire book into my mind once I read the first sentence or, at most, the first page.

No more.

Luckily (though, really, I hate it), my brain injury took away that kind of instant recall. Before my brain injury, once I’d reached my mid teens or so, when this ability fully developed, I rarely reread books. Now I can reread them because I cannot remember how they end.

Tales from Firozsha Baag

Prof. Vevaina assigned us only four of the eleven stories, of which I remembered none and only sensed familiarity with the last one: “Swimming Lessons.”

Since my memory didn’t connect me to my past, I retained the pleasure I received from my first reading while seeing the stories through my current eyes.

Using discussion points, the class analyzed the stories. I learnt a little bit about some funeral practices I was unaware of (probably because when my grandparents died, we were not living in a Zoroastrian community). Visiting the bereaved reminded me of sitting shiva visits I’d made. The class discussed traditions and enforcing ritual rules on the mourning, making demands of the grieving, versus how we express grief. I’ve written about grief, focusing on brain injury grief, extensively. But had not thought about ancient practices beyond the three days of prayers the Parsi priests had conducted for my grandparents in our home.

The other stories led us into discussions about migration — something we discussed in the Zoroastrian Foundations course — and about what is good. Is migrating to Canada good? Or is working in a downtrodden area of India better? And what does the last story tell us about family connections and settling in a new country?

Ice-Candy Man

I found an Audible audiobook copy and listened to the first couple of chapters since the mail wasn’t coughing up the paperback. When the UK-Canada mail finally delivered my second-hand copy a couple of days before the class on it, I skimmed it. Even if I’d had had time to read all of it, I may’ve skimmed it. To protect my sanity in these erratic times, I’ve taken to avoiding certain topics and news items. Also, reading it on my own differed vastly from critiquing it with the class. The latter was enjoyable; the former not so much.

Perhaps I’m too Westernized now, but some of what is seen as humour, I didn’t see it. I found the character who provided the humour creepy. My assessment wasn’t off.

Perhaps, too, having lived over a quarter of a century of bad news after bad news — and even when I receive opportunities, they end up biting me — always some cost to a benefit to my everlasting frustration! — I can no longer read an opening scene as playful or innocent. My subconscious biases me towards assuming something bad is going to happen.

My bias is like watching a K-Drama where the two romantic protagonists stand on opposite sides of a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and me expecting that when one of them starts crossing on the green, a car will hit them. Not normal, I know! Usually the characters reach each other; that doesn’t stop my mind from ratcheting up my adrenaline to expect one gets hit. Yeah, trauma response. Intellectual understanding doesn’t change the stress response. I can at least recognize the good characters from the destructors.

So reading Ice-Candy Man about the Pakistan-India Partition from a child’s point of view didn’t float my boat. However, I particularly appreciated how Sidhwa’s use of the child’s perspective contrasted innocence with adult self-justifying betrayal, violence, and horror. I thought choosing that kind of narrator for this kind of book was unique.

The discussion Prof. Vevaina led, with her enthusiasm and incredibly expansive knowledge, showed me so much in both books.

Plays

We studied two plays: Mister Behram by Gieve Patel (yes, the Patel of poetry) and Doongaji House by Cyrus Mistry, brother of Rohinton. He put Rohinton in the play as Rusi, the character who trundles off to Canada and writes letters not worth reading. I do love watching a sibling interaction in fiction and plays!

Mister Behram

I loathed this play. It’s not that I believe the subject matter of incestual* sexual predation disguised as homoeroticism and homosexuality shouldn’t be discussed — this kind of raw story is the kind of subject matter to make audiences think differently — but because I’m beyond fed up with authoritarian patriarchy within a community that lauds itself as differing from everyone else on how it treats the genders. As if. If anything, patriarchy in Parsi families as written in fiction and in this play, and as the Jiyo Parsi program revealed, is more extreme than in Canada. (*Is it incest if it’s sexual attraction to an unofficially adopted son?)

However, Prof. Vevaina’s delving into the play and the discussion brought up elements I hadn’t appreciated. When I understood more about the Warli and Naval’s character and how they’re perceived in India, that also heightened my understanding of the themes. I still wouldn’t go to watch it; still dislike it; still think Patel’s poetry is so much better than his playwriting. But I appreciated the richness, the subtext and various themes, the interplay between the characters. I think we all related to the character Dolly.

Prof. Vevaina used this play to teach us about universal female and male archetypes based on Greek goddesses and gods. I hadn’t heard about this before and wondered if literary critics would see those archetypes in my books (if my novels ever passed muster to be read that way). Since I had studied classical civilizations in high school and some of the Greek tragedies, have I subconsciously channelled some of these archetypes into my characters?

Doongaji House

This play also left me cold. But I found it interesting how Doongaji House had more scene description, set direction, and character description than Patel’s did. We didn’t discuss that aspect of it. When Farrukh Dhondy sent us materials for his masterclass on plays, they contained even more set directions, character descriptions, etc. I’d be in that category of a writer wanting to have a say in the settings, staging, character portrayal than Patel’s minimal direction. Perhaps that’s the difference between a filmmaking mind versus strictly playwriting…

What stood out for me about Mistry’s portrayal of a Parsi family in a rundown Parsi Colony was the contrast of how Parsis treat their elders versus how we do in Canada. Perhaps the influence of the First Nations, who venerate their elders, prevents us from jettisoning the older generation from our lives and disrespecting them like they’re has-beens who live in the past and thus aren’t worth keeping in touch with.

Farrukh Dhondy Masterclass

I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this class. Dhondy sent us materials well ahead of the class. Finally! No more trying to cram in the reading with hours or a day to spare. Of course, I, well, ahem, procrastinated. I know a lot about novel writing; his class taught us the fundamentals of playwriting, and I asked him about the contrast/commonalities of the two approaches. I took copious notes and am excited to attack my plays again with this new knowledge. I’ll have to wait, though, because finishing the third novel of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy takes precedence.

His plays and monologues were head and shoulders above the other two we studied. The masterclasses are only an hour long, so we didn’t do a literary criticism of his plays like with the other two. Instead, he used them to elucidate the art of playwriting.

I hadn’t heard about Shakespearwallas before. I’ve seen contemporary versions of Shakespeare plays, but I think Shakespearewallas entertain and inform better. The only downside to them is you have to be familiar, to at least a little degree, with Shakespeare’s plays. Even with my memory issues and having not read King Lear before, I became engrossed in the monologues. A Shakespearewalla is a contemporary play that references Shakespeare plays, sometimes quite a few throughout the play.

As a writer, Dhondy’s teachings about monologues, their construction, and making them work, sparked some musings about using them in my novel in a more skillful way.

Films

Parzania

We began film week with Parzania. Again, the discussion brought out things I hadn’t noticed or thought much about while watching it. It doesn’t help that the riots it’s based on happened soon after my brain injury, which meant, though I’d read about them in the newspaper, I didn’t remember them or their consequences. I have to admit the first scenes foreshadowing tragedy involving a child drove me to sort of not pay attention to it, though I watched the whole thing. Then as the film progressed, it drew me in. The screen resolution sucks, but if you want to see a film that contrasts duality of identity, focuses on the individual story during and after riots, attempts to answer the question of the why behind senseless mob violence, then I share it here.

Ferrari Ki Sawaari

To balance out the tragedy, Prof. Vevaina assigned a comedy starring a Parsi father whose son has talent to go to Lord’s for cricket training, but he doesn’t have the money to send him. The comedic setup contained serious scenes and clashes between father and grandfather or father and son, but tiny fillips of humour anchored the end of serious scenes. I mused on how to replicate that device in my novel when warranted (and if I already am at a subconscious level since I don’t always perceive I’ve written in humour).

I couldn’t find the movie with English subtitles and so wasn’t sure if I’d be able to follow the class. A summary tells you of a movie, but it doesn’t give you enough to bite into it.

Our guest lecturer Sharlaine Vevaina showed many clips to illustrate the character duos — those relationships that develop versus those that remain stagnant — and I discovered something. I followed the scenes well enough to understand what she and the others were talking about. Body language. Gestures. Facial expressions. Movement. Space. Interactions. They all tell a story, far more than we realize because our conscious attention is usually on language.

The theme of this movie is honesty. Parsis have always been known for their honesty. We examined briefly the idea of ideology rooted in culture. What do you think of honesty as an ideology?

In the 5th century BC, “Herodotus noted that the most disgraceful thing (for the Persians) in the world was to tell a lie. The holy book of the Parsis — the Avesta — also mentions how evil came into the world only when the first lie was spoken.” — Sharlaine Vevaina.

On a separate note, Christianity as depicted in the New Testament teaches that the worst sin is lying.

In this movie, the Parsi father works against his innate honesty by “borrowing” a Ferrari in order to get the money for his son’s cricket training at Lord’s in the UK. Others persuade him into this illicit method, and the movie is about the consequences. I thought how it’s not just a Parsi theme; I’ve seen movies of good and evil, of telling the truth and the consequences of lying. But those are about individual mores. This one is set in a culture that preaches and whose people are inherently honest. I didn’t even know what a lie was until I came to Canada. When a Canadian friend explained it to me, I found the idea fascinating. I quickly discovered I suck at it. Honesty may catapult you into conflict, but it doesn’t generate doubt like it does when interacting with people who lie (habitually).

A Couple of Thoughts

The class is mostly made up of people from India or Asia. I think, but am not sure, that I’m the only one from North America. So I miss out on some references, but I also bring a perspective and knowledge that the others don’t have. This leads to a more interesting discussion, I think. I’m asking more and more questions as I become more comfortable. For example, in a brief break, I asked them what the temperature is in Mumbai, and I learnt people don’t go outside from about noon to five o’clock because the humidity is so high that it’s too hot. Wow. Climate change is brutal.

Prof. Vevaina brings such a wealth of knowledge and literary criticism, such enthusiasm for writers and their art, to her classes that she transforms my view of a book or play or film from “Ugh” to appreciation. If you only want to take one class in the TISS-PARZOR Zoroastrian Perspectives course, this is the one!