Watch: A play in Mumbai on Parsis called Geedra of Thrones

There are people outside of Mumbai who think Parsis are a figment of our imagination You cant blame them says theatre director Meherzad Patel Sixty thousand is literally the crowd in this area But we are so loud and boisterous that one Parsi sounds like 50 Parsis We look at swear words as punctuationThe way we treat our car our bike our food our drinking habits we dont consider it as alcohol I have a oneyearold and at weddings theyll dip their finger in a drink and give to the baby Thats the initiation into the Parsi culture Who in their right mind could make this upMeherzad Patel theatre director 30Twice a year during Nowruz in March and Parsi New Year in August Patel finds new ways of taking the mickey out of his community In 2014 he cooked up The Buckingham Secret in which the inmates of the Buckingham Palace were actually Parsis in crown jewels In Amar Akbar Akoori 2017 a Gujarati a Bohri and a Parsi live as PGs in an old Parsi dames house all pretending to be ParsisThis Nowruz hes created Geedra of Thrones a Gujarati play in which the throne room is the trustees office of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet BPP The premise is that the government sends a letter saying that your community is about to shut down because you are too few to be called a religion Pick another religion or pack your bags and get out The trustees have been given the task of informing the Parsi public While this is no laughing matter Patel says On Nowruz if its not funny its not going to work Its a fictitious story because we dont want to make fun of the trustees But yes if youre holding a public post we will make fun of your officeThe BPP trustees have opened themselves to ridicule because they regularly make headlines for their catfights As a tiny community you get to know everything instantly And yet if you ask any Parsi of the seven trustees names nobody will have a proper answer Initially there was no election Seven honourable people were nominated by the people in charge of these funds And then the powersthatbe decided to set up a ballot The minute it goes from a nomination to an election you become a politicianThe play addresses the thorn in the flesh of every Mumbaikar While we fight for breathing room in Nallasopara the Parsis dispose of their dead on Malabar Hill Any Parsi will tell you that theres enough funds to support every Parsi alive for a couple of generations easily But its not the job of the seven trustees to come up with these formulas Theyre not politicians they behave like that but theyre not Theyre not allowed to come up with principles laws and agendas Theyve been given a set of guidelines This is what you need to do with this money Thats all Its like a trust fund thats handled by somebodyIn the play the youngest trustee played by Shazneen Acharia is 32 and the oldest played by Moti Antia is 84 The age difference doesnt matter because They all behave like 20yearolds For instance Antia tells us later as a matter of great pride that she nurses a whisky a day Patel and his cast have woven the play with oddities like thisIn our play theres a lady whos very particular about a set of 12 handwoven embroidered napkins her husband gave her The husbands dead but shes held on to it Parsis are big hoarders My wife loves collecting plastic bags Today she says I knew this day would come Hes banned it but I have it I had an uncle who passed away recently who had 35 years of newspapers in his house Why What are you doing with it Thats very normal An expiry date on a can means nothing These are funny things that work Were not making fun of the way someone believes in god or religion but the communal aspects are epicWhere Tata Theatre NCPA NCPA Marg Nariman Point When March 21 5 PM and 730 PMEntry Rs 300 to Rs 1500To book bookmyshowcomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates