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To someones face
Updated On: 19 January, 2020 12:00 AM IST | | Jane Borges
You can tell a Parsi from a mile. A photographer-stylist pair is focusing on the distinct physical attributes of a community with Persian origin for a project of black and white portraits that hopes to preserve memories
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While Umrigar and Thakkar requested that the names of their subjects be withheld, the completed project which they hope to turn into a book, will carry anecdotes from the life of every senior they have photographed. Pics courtesy/ Kurush Umrigar, The Pars
Its been a few months since F Wadia, 97, passed on. Unlike some of his more famous Parsi counterparts, the man who worked as taxi driver wasn-t a face that Mumbaikars recognised. But, a black and white portrait of him on a flier—slouched, his bony shoulders visible through the sudreh, his prominent nose and toothless jaw—has piqued the curiosity of many. Pinned outside a few cafés in the city, the flier urges onlookers to recommend names of elderly members of Mumbai-s Parsi Zoroastrian community, who can be photographed and featured in The Parsi Project.
A photographic archive that has been five years in the making is headlined by photographer Kurush Umrigar and collaborator Charvi Thakkar. The pair is trying to document the distinct and unusual facial features of elderly Parsis, determined by their traditional hereditary exclusiveness, through black and white portraits. Wadia was among the first that Umrigar photographed. He was 94 then, and despite passing on, continues to be the poster-boy of their project.
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