To answer Chris's question ("why the juxtaposition of Hindu (I assume "caste" is meant, not "cast"?) and Muslim (God Is Great) themes?"):
It is important to understand the importance of the Irani Restaurant in Mumbai's cultural landscape. These restaurants were the predecessors of the coffee shops of today - places where people could meet/talk/smoke/discuss politics/read the newspaper/gossip irrespective of their caste/religious identity. The Iranis, being Zoroastrians (as far as I know this is the only religion in the world to which you CANNOT be converted), made a selling point of their neutrality towards Muslims, Hindus and the various Hindu castes - hence the multireligious references in the "instructions". Sadly, the Irani Restaurant is virtually extinct today. I have an interesting picture of an Irani Restaurant interior which I can send off-list if anyone is interested.
The Parsi-Zoroastrian poet Gieve Patel (who writes in English) has explored this theme from another angle in a celebrated poem:
THE AMBIGUOUS FATE OF GIEVE PATEL, HE BEING NEITHER MUSLIM NOR HINDU IN INDIA
To be no part of this hate is deprivation. Never could I claim a circumcised butcher Mangled a child out of my arms, never rave At the milk-bibing, grass-guzzing hypocrite Who pulled off my mother's voluminous Robes and sliced away at her dugs. Planets focus their fires Into a worm of destruction Edging along the continent. Bodies Turn ashen and shrivel. I Only burn my tail.
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Aaron Stark<aaronsta at gmail.com> wrote:
>>What does "Irani" refer to (not "Iranian," I assume)?
>
> AFAIK, Iranis in India are an ethnic group of immigrants from Persia.
> Wikipedia says this about Iranis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irani,
> and from the very little I know about this through family connections,
> this sounds about right:
>
> "Most Iranis are descendants of immigrants who arrived on the
> subcontinent during the 19th and early 20th centuries, that is, when
> Iran was ruled by the Qajars and when religious persecution of
> non-Muslims was rampant. The descendants of the immigrants of those
> times remain culturally and linguistically closer to the Zoroastrians
> of Iran, in particular to the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman."
>
> As I just found out when I looked up the Wikipedia article above,
> apparently Iranis are distinct from Parsis (Parsees), another ethnic
> group within India with cultural and religious (Zoroastrian) ties to
> Iran. Ancestors of today's Parsis apparently came to India over 1000
> years ago.
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-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges