Delhi to host first-ever large scale festival on Parsi culture
Tracing 3,000 years of Zoroastrian history through artefact from imperial periods of Iranian Zoroastrian history, textiles, coins and manuscripts, three first-of-their-kind exhibitions in New Delhi will celebrate Parsi culture next March.
The festival, ‘Everlasting Flames’, is being organised by the Ministry of Minority Affairs and will be held between March 19 and May 29, 2016. It will showcase antiquities loaned from 15 museums across the world including Syria and Iran, and will travel to India from the UK, where it was first organised by the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS) in November-December 2013.
“They haven’t loaned manuscripts to India in the past, so it needed some convincing. It’s the first time that Parsi culture is being celebrated on such a scale,” said Prof Shernaz Cama with UNESCO’s Parzor project, a key festival partner.
Feroza Godrej, who curated ‘No Parsi is an Island’, said, “The Parsi community is shrinking. Before we die and become museum pieces, we need to educate the world about this ancient civilization.”
The festival, ‘Everlasting Flames’, is being organised by the Ministry of Minority Affairs and will be held between March 19 and May 29, 2016. It will showcase antiquities loaned from 15 museums across the world including Syria and Iran, and will travel to India from the UK, where it was first organised by the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS) in November-December 2013.
“They haven’t loaned manuscripts to India in the past, so it needed some convincing. It’s the first time that Parsi culture is being celebrated on such a scale,” said Prof Shernaz Cama with UNESCO’s Parzor project, a key festival partner.
‘No Parsi is an Island’, an exhibition held in Mumbai’s NGMA in 2014, will also travel to Delhi. A third exhibition, ‘Threads of Continuity’, will tell stories of Parsi life.
Feroza Godrej, who curated ‘No Parsi is an Island’, said, “The Parsi community is shrinking. Before we die and become museum pieces, we need to educate the world about this ancient civilization.”
