SOURCE: Kapadia, Novy. “The Parsi Paradox in The Crow Eaters.” In The Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa, edited by R. K. Dhawan and Novy Kapadia, pp. 125-35. New Delhi: Prestige, 1996.

In the following essay, Kapadia discusses the phenomenon of upward social mobility among the Parsi minority in Sidhwa's novel The Crow Eaters.

The Parsi are an ethno-religious minority in India, living mostly on the west coast of the subcontinent, especially in Bombay. In Pakistan, most Parsis reside in Karachi and Lahore. As their name implies, the Parsis are of Persian descent. The word Parsi means a native of “Pars” or “Fars,” an ancient Persian province, now in Southern Iran. They left their homeland over 1,200 years ago to save their religion, the teachings of Zoroaster, from being Islamized by the invading Arabians. They are followers of Prophet Zarathustra; their religion known as Zoroastrianism was founded around 2000 B.C. Its essence...