LEVON

The following is an extract from a novel I had started writing in 1994 about a charater, Kairsy Kaikoobad Kerosenewala.  The passage is about the conflict Kairsy’s father, Kaikoobad faces living in Karachi in the early 1970’s. 

The emphasis here is about the horrendous dichotomy that exists in the juxtaposition of the two worlds in which the Parsis live.

The novel, “Levon” will remain incomplete as I have no interest in further pursuing this project.

Dinshaw

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Kaikoobad, who was now fifty years old, had spent an equal portion of his life under the rule of the Union Jack and the Crescent Star.  He, like most Parsis of his generation, would still have preferred to live under the former flag which in its divide and rule policy had made some communities more equal than others.  The Parsis of India, though miniscule in number, had enjoyed an economic and social stature second only to that of the alien rulers.  In return the Raj had brought about a cultural metamorphosis within this small community.  The Parsis mimicked British institutions, such as, schools, colleges and clubs from their disciplinary rules to codes of dress.  Porridge became as much a staple diet for mornings as sherry and scotch for the evenings.  Even English eccentricities trickled down through literature.  Jeeves had become a household name and British military marches stirred deep sentiments.  Sir Edward Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory became the Parsi anthem with its revised lyrics.  And, no social gathering was complete without some pianist or baritone leading the crowd into a chorus of emotional frenzy with,

Children of the Royal Race of Noshirwan,
Rally round his banner, sing of old Iran
Charity and Ashoi, these are watch-words true,
Mazda Lord of Good Mind, ever will save you,
Mazda Lord of Good Mind ever will save you.

Yet, nowhere was this transformation more evident than in their speech.  The fashionable Parsis of high society spoke mainly in English and when on occasion their lips uttered sentences in their native Gujrati, it was inundated with English words and heavily accented with an Anglicised drawl.  Other than reading material and personal association, the key facilitator for this transmutation was with the airing of the BBC’s Empire Service in 1932 which later for political correctness was renamed the World Service. For even the untraveled Parsi, it became a window to the world from its broadcasting house in London.  All wristwatches were synchronized with the radio’s time beeps.  World news and sports were followed diligently and regardless of the quality of the reception because of stray atmospheric interferences, never was a play, recital or concerts ever missed. It is said that had Hubert Spencer been around to see the Parsis of this period, he would have loudly uttered, quod erat demonstrandum.  The only area where the Parsis did not budge was in accepting Christ as their eternal saviour.  They cherished their crutch in their Zoroastrian faith and remained grateful to Ahura Mazda for fashioning them more like the English than any other dominant group of the subcontinent.