Bombay was once synonymous with the Parsis. And, the Parsis with Bombay. Reading Delhi-based author-journalist Coomi Kapoor’s new biography of the community, The Tatas, Freddie Mercury and Other Bawas: An Intimate History of the Parsis (Westland), we are made aware of this, once too many.

Such was their presence in the 19th century, that unlike today where the Parsis are invisible in numbers, they dominated every sphere of life, be it business, education, trade, commerce or culture. The statistics are remarkably telling. Back in 1860, there were 615 Parsi students in high school in Bombay, compared to 441 Christians, 239 Hindus, 15 Muslims, and 22 others. Nearly 60 years later, though amounting to only 0.03 per cent of the city’s population, they earned 7 per cent of the engineering degrees, 5 per cent of the medical degrees, and 2 per cent of science degrees.