Just my luck that I had to review this book right after reading about the mysterious deaths of India's nuclear scientists.
For starters, this is not an easy book to read. If you are sensitive (like I am), you will have to put the book down multiple times to stop reading about the atrocities faced by the Zoroastrian people. While I studied at Parsi High School and lived close to the Parsi Compound, had excellent Parsi teachers, and we knew a little bit about their having fled Iran because of religious persecution, the extent of that persecution was not known to us at all.
We always knew the Parsis to be a lovely, jovial, happy people, welcoming in their homes but not in their fire temples or their religion. That their history is streaked in red, we had no idea.
This book is a mini encyclopedia of 2 separate topics, but one is more important than the other - Parsi history (and I mean, H-I-S-T-O-R-Y going as far back as the origin of the religion, and even before that), and the modern geopolitical situation in India-Pak-Afghan-Iran lands.
The 2 stories come together rather effortlessly, and end with a rather shocking hypothesis, which slowly becomes more and more credible. (Won't spoil it for you)
If you are looking for a book that is a mental gym, intellectually engaging and challenging, opening the mind to something totally unprecedented with a rather loud "Pop" sound, this book is totally for you.
If history is not your thing, please avoid. This is really a mini-encyclopedia that covers such interesting ground.
2 comments:
I owned a Mazda car once, but clearly there's more to that word than I knew. Perhaps I should read this book!
Hey Debra.. just checked.. that Mazda is Japanese.. Ahura Mazda is a Zoroastrian term.
And thanks to you, I learnt something today!
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