As I joined the cricket fans milling out of the Brabourne Stadium on a crisp Mumbai winter evening in December 2009, I could sense its ebul...
As I joined the cricket fans milling out of the Brabourne Stadium on a crisp Mumbai winter evening in December 2009, I could sense its ebullient mood. They had been lucky to witness an innings of a lifetime – an almost-triple century (284 not out) in one day from Virendra Sehwag against a hapless Sri Lankan bowling attack.
Walking down Churchgate Street, I noticed a ubiquitous Mumbai institution: a raddiwalla with neatly arranged piles of books. Closer inspection revealed that most of them were Gujarati books of a certain vintage. An old Parsi book-lover had died and the family got rid of their book collection. As I rummaged through the novels and books on the Zoroastrian religion, I spotted a hefty tome with its cloth-bound cover depicting a dainty lady cooking on a kerosene stove. It was the first volume of the third edition (1915) of Vividha Vaani, a cookbook which had enjoyed cult status among Parsi households for over half a century. I snapped it up for a few rupees.
When I mentioned this to my friend, the scholar Virchand Dharamsey, he said not only did he have both volumes of the third edition but also a copy of the second edition of Vividha Vaani. Luckily for me,...
