Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
JRD sent 81% of Tata Sons’ income to charity. We thanked him by nationalizing his
beloved Air India, firing him as chairman and running it into the ground.
The Tatas set up Teri, India’s first green industry initiative, in 1974.
Under R.K. Pachauri, in 2003, the name Tata was neatly excised from Teri and
replaced with the word “The”. Now, Teri’s magazine and website are testament to
the greatness of Pachauri, who will show up to collect any award you give him,
including GQ Man of the Year. But that is our culture.
Parsis have civilization, but not culture. They cannot speak old Persian and their
Avesta they cannot read.
For language, they lean on Gujarati, for music they lean on Brahms. Their
beautiful women wear saris.
Their last names are Gujarati: Broacha (of Bharuch), Anklesaria (of Ankleshwar),
Surti (of Surat), Mehta (accountant) and Gandhi (grocer). Their first names are
great names in history, names that made Athens and Sparta and Corinth tremble—
Ksayarsa, Kurush Buzurg and Daarivush. Herodotus and Thucydides called them
Xerxes, Cyrus the Great and Darius. Parsis cannot even speak their own first
names.
From 500 BC, Parsis fought Europe. They spilt and drew blood in history’s most
famous battles: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. Hollywood’s cardboard
Leonidas looks heroic in 300 (Xerxes is shown as demented), but actually the Parsi
Immortals butchered the Spartans at Thermopylae and the terrified Athenians
abandoned their city. Alexander the Great conquered the Parsis in 334 BC and the
Arabs under Umar drove them from their lands in 644. But the real Parsi surrender
came in Bombay when they submitted to the individualism of Enlightened Europe.
We hate sweeping statements about Indians, and generalizations about India. The
problem is that everywhere in India the same evidence keeps slapping us in the
face. We’ve become good at looking away. We think we are Aryans, descended from
the Caucasus. Parsis also believe that.
Zarathushtra’s god was Ahura and his demons were Daiva. But the Rig Ved says Deva
must be our god and our demons Asura.