The House of Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran recently concluded the first batch of a basic Persian language course for Mumbai’s Parsi community.
The course, which consisted of 51 sessions of one-and-half hour each conducted over four months, was held at Wadia Baug, a Parsi residential colony in Parek and was attended by 15 students.
The Culture House of Iran in Mumbai said that the course for learning Persian language and literature was conducted, with the efforts of the House of Culture and support of the Saadi Foundation in Iran which provided the study texts.
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The course was conducted by Darayush Zainabadi, a Persian teacher formerly with the K R Cama Oriental Institute, a research organisation set up in 1926 in Mumbai. The books for the course were published by Saadi Foundation in Iran. In addition to the textbooks that included the consonants and vowels of the Persian language, short words and sentences, present and past tenses, the teacher also explained the historical and sacred places of Zoroastrians in Iran where the religion originated.
Zainabadi, a resident of Bandra, said that the Iranian culture centre is promoting the Persian language, the language of the land where India’s Parsi trace their origin.
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He said that the older generation of Parsis in Mumbai learnt the language in school like he did.
“Parsi institutions like the Bharda School had Persian teachers and they used to take great interest in the language,” said Zainabadi who studied the language in school and at the University of Mumbai.
