How did this unique project take shape? How long did it take from idea to final print?
Sooni Taraporevala: An email I wrote to my friend Mira Nair using one of the phrases coupled with an entirely unconnected email from Zarir Cama (former CEO of HSBC) saying how somebody should compile these phrases was the dual trigger that made me message Meher and suggest we embark on a book as co-publishers using the Internet and crowd sourcing to make it a collective effort. As a writer I marvelled at the imagistic inventiveness of the Parsi imagination and wanted to put it down on paper before it was too late. Meher unbeknownst to me was undertaking the same journey — so it was destiny that brought this about.

One of Meher’s favourites is “Rajajee nee juga ma derkajee” (a frog sits on the king’s throne) sent in by her mum. She’d use it when her kids would sit too long on her rocking chair, thereby usurping it. Illustration/ Farzana Cooper