10 Mumbai Parsis you wish you knew

They're known for being great doctors and lawyers, and also for giving back generously to their communities. So to mark the Parsi New Year, Navroze, we're profiling 10 artsy Parsi personalities who touch our lives in Mumbai without us having to fall ill or foul of the law. 

Shaheen Mistry, 39, social activist and educationist

Shaheen Mistry makes one marvel at how a simple idea, when backed with dedication and belief, can make a real difference to so many. She is the founder of both Akanksha and Teach for India. For 20 years Akanksha's dedicated volunteers, led by Mistry, have changed the lives of underprivileged children through art and education. And they continue to do so. They're now looking to expand into existing government schools. 

Teach for India, a newer idea and larger in scope, is taking the endeavor further afield. "Teach For India is a nationwide movement of outstanding college graduates and young professionals who will commit two years to teach full time in under resourced schools...." They're currently open for applications for their fellowship program, which has 8,000 places to fill. Through education, Mistry, a recent TED India speaker, hopes that the people she touches will become more self sufficient, with a possible route out of poverty. 

Astad Deboo, 63, contemporary dancer

He apprenticed with the legendary Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance company early on in his career, which led to his life-long dedication to dance. Facing hardships that all new art faces in terms of funding and appreciation, his is a remarkable career that blossomed against the odds. "The main problem is the lack of platforms and presenters for modern dance," in India, he says. 

Deboo's performances with Manipuri drummers, the deaf children from Chennai and the children of Mumbai's Salaam Balak Trust have taken him from Brazil, to choreographing a dance in Mani Ratnam's latest film "Raavan," to the recent coronation of the new King of Bhutan. He will soon go to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. His new work "Incontro" is a collaboration with Swiss choreographer Thomas Mettler and premieres in Munich late October. Sadly the world sees far more of him than we do in Mumbai. 

Sarosh Patel, 39, event manager

His unflappable manner helped Zubin Mehta conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra smoothly through an outdoor concert with Placido Domingo singing in front of a 5,000-strong crowd at the Cricket Club of India grounds in 2008. It was Patel's covered stage and arrangements that ensured a successful evening through the light drizzle and subsequent spectacular fireworks. As the evening had to observe Mumbai's strict 10 p.m. 'noise' deadline, his clockwork arrangements and on-the-spot adjustments were just the thing to please all parties.

His event management firm Effects Tech hosts corporate events for major companies across India and music concerts as well. 

Kainaz Messman, 29, chef entrepreneur

Kainaz Messman's Theobroma has, in the few short years since it first fired its ovens, become something of an institution at the southern end of Colaba Causeway. Serving cakes, sandwiches, excellent brownies and coffee, it is a hangout for tourists, the college crowd and all us mums who need to tuck in and use 'stocking up for our hungry kids' as an excuse. Messman's family pitches in; after all Kainaz cut her teeth early helping in her mother's home-baking business while still a young girl.

Ever smiling, she finds time to chat however busy and will often ask you to sample something new from the ovens with your coffee. After graduating from catering college at the Institute of Hotel Management in Mumbai, she honed her skills as a pastry chef with years of rigorous training at Oberoi hotels around the country. The business took a while to pick up as she learnt commerce on the job, but she now has outlets in Bandra and Mahalaxmi. 

Zane Dalal, 46, conductor

Dalal, a Parsi who came from Los Angeles to Mumbai in 2007, was intrigued when told by an uncle that a Symphony Orchestra of India had been started at the National Centre of Performing Arts under the aegis of its Chairman Khushroo Suntook. He said the idea of the Indian orchestra sounded "wild and fantastical." He stayed on after, sitting in at a rehearsal. 

Three years on as Resident Conductor, working alongside conductor Marat Bisangaliev, Dalal is kept busy exploring "new territories with an orchestra still being built." He finds his temporarily adopted city warm and welcoming and audiences and local Parsi friends have embraced his handsome presence. Last year he conducted a series of well attended music appreciation classes making Western Classical music more accessible to newer Mumbai audiences.

Shireen Gandhy, 45, gallerist

Don't let that boisterous, lustrous spring of hair fool you. The head that lies beneath is a strong one. While much of the art market has slowed in recent years, Gandhy, at the helm of her gallery, Chemould Prescott Road (CPR), has not only managed to stay afloat but in the last year has taken her artists to the best fairs around the world. In a year which saw major downsizing in the budgets of the art world, her unstinting support of her artists and a substantial gallery practice is to be applauded. 

She has ably taken over the mantle of one of the oldest galleries in Mumbai, founded by her parents Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhy, and in its fifth decade CPR has spacious new premises, an admirable roster of artists, both established and the new. And you can bet your last paint brush that at an after party she'll be the first to shake her leg on an improvised dance floor. 

Kaiwan Mehta, 35, architect and lecturer

Mehta brought Peccha Kuccha nights to Mumbai. A Japanese concept where you have 20 slides projected for 20 seconds to tell your entire story, turned out to be a hit in Mumbai. An architect and writer he also teaches art history while pursuing his doctorate at the Centre of Culture and Society in Bangalore.

Mehta's book "Alice in Bhuleshwar -- Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood" documents fast disappearing architectural details and a way of life in his "native town" of Mumbai. He assisted as urban researcher on a recently completed project on Abu Dhabi that was seen at the Venice Biennale in 2009 and he is in the process of establishing, as one of its founder directors, Arbour, Research Initiatives in Architecture to be launched in October 2010.

He is a wonderful speaker and a joy to listen to as he walks into Jnanapravaha's Indian Aesthetics class, almost always kurta clad, unraveling myths and symbols for you.

Mehlli Gobhai, 79, abstract painter

If you know Mehlli well, then you will accept that a visit to his studio will involve several phone calls as the light changes during the day. The way the light falls on his canvases will influence the time of your visit. But a visit to the studio of India's foremost abstract painter is a wonderful morning into afternoon into evening kind of conversation that meanders, a persistent affable dog at your legs and, in the past, the cawing of a rescued and tenderly looked-after crow. And then the paintings. 

Parchment like weathered paper and canvas stack the walls and immerse you in the most mesmerizing grays and charcoals and reds all painstakingly layered and defined as the light changes in the studio and enters his canvas. Every flat surface is covered with books.

Having had successful shows with Chemould Prescott Road gallery in the past, we look forward to his next show with them in a few months as he promises to take on a new dimension in his canvases.

Sooni Taraporevala, 53, filmmaker

Petite and gentle under her trademark bob hairstyle, Taraporevala has packed in some amazing work in film since graduating from Harvard and NYU Cinema Studies. She wrote the screen play of Mira Nair's critically acclaimed cross-over film "Salaam Bombay" and subsequently the scripts for "Mississippi Masala" and "Such A Long Journey," among others.

Growing up within the community Taraporevala has chronicled the Parsis both in her book, "The Parsis: The Zoroastrians of Bombay" and in her critically acclaimed first feature film "Little Zizou" which won the National Award for the Best Film on Family Values. In both she captures the quaint, unique qualities and the fine nuances and eccentricities of this dwindling community that in years to come will be a documentation of customs that may have disappeared forever. 

Between writing scripts and screening her films at film festivals around the world, she roams Mumbai's streets with her digital Leica camera, capturing still moments in our busy city. 

Rishad Naoroji, 59, conservationist and photographer 

I have always found it ironic that as a Parsi, Naoroji should be so enraptured by raptors. He is an independent researcher specializing in raptor conservation. His definitive book, "Birds of Prey of the Indian subcontinent" took years in the making, perching on macchaans in various sanctuaries for months at a time and extensive travels around the country. His work over three years in Rajpipla forest resulted in the area of 500 square kilometers being turned into the Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary.

An accomplished photographer, he works closely with the Himalayan Club and the Bombay Natural History Society. Spend an evening with him and you will be regaled with stories of the wild not often heard in Mumbai's salon circuit; after all, such single-minded dedication is rare these days. Back in Mumbai from a recent trip to Mongolia, the man is busy sorting out 5,000 photographs that he's taken on the trip. That is, when his thick mop of gray hair is not at a music concert.