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Hindustan Times, India
July 3 2011
Armenians in Mumbai: A 200-year history
Aarefa Johari, Hindustan Times
Mumbai, July 03, 2011
Zabel Joshi (nee Hayakian), now Mumbai's last surviving Armenian, was
raised as a Lebanese Armenian in Beirut. She met her husband, a
Mumbai-based cloth merchant, on one of his numerous business trips to
that city. She married at 23 and moved to Mumbai in 1972 and now
speaks fluent Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, English, Gujarati, Hindi and
Marathi.
The Armenians have a large diaspora spread around the world. The
Indian Armenians, though a small community, have been influential
merchants and jewellery traders who have set up churches, clubs and
educational institutions in port cities such as Kolkata, Chennai and
Mumbai. In Mumbai, however, Joshi is now the sole trustee of the
215-year-old St Peter's Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church in Fort,
where her three daughters were baptised.
`The Archbishop of Australia came to baptise me, and my pictures had
come in the papers,' said Joshi's youngest daughter, actor Tulip
Joshi, who is not a practicing Armenian Christian but has fond
memories of get-togethers with Mumbai's close-knit Armenian community
at the church.
Today, though the church is being renovated with funds from the
Armenian community in Kolkata, it has no priest and no Armenian prayer
services. A few years ago, Joshi opened up the premises to the city's
Syrian Orthodox Christians.
`Their beliefs are similar to ours, and it is important that the
church not go empty,' said Joshi. Besides Joshi's daughters, Mumbai
still houses a few people of Indo-Armenian ancestry, descendents of
Armenians who fled to India at the time of World War I. `Like the
Jews, Armenians were also persecuted by the Turkish and were thus
always on the run,' said Marion Arathoon, a journalist whose paternal
grandfather was an Armenian who settled in Lahore.
While retaining their ethnic language and culture, most Armenian
migrants have adopted India as warmly as India has adopted them. `I
have been to Armenia several times and travel to Beirut every year,
but today I consider myself truly Indian,' said Joshi.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Armenians-in-Mumbai-A-200-year-history/Article1-716653.aspx
From: A. Papazian
July 3 2011
Armenians in Mumbai: A 200-year history
Aarefa Johari, Hindustan Times
Mumbai, July 03, 2011
Zabel Joshi (nee Hayakian), now Mumbai's last surviving Armenian, was
raised as a Lebanese Armenian in Beirut. She met her husband, a
Mumbai-based cloth merchant, on one of his numerous business trips to
that city. She married at 23 and moved to Mumbai in 1972 and now
speaks fluent Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, English, Gujarati, Hindi and
Marathi.
The Armenians have a large diaspora spread around the world. The
Indian Armenians, though a small community, have been influential
merchants and jewellery traders who have set up churches, clubs and
educational institutions in port cities such as Kolkata, Chennai and
Mumbai. In Mumbai, however, Joshi is now the sole trustee of the
215-year-old St Peter's Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church in Fort,
where her three daughters were baptised.
`The Archbishop of Australia came to baptise me, and my pictures had
come in the papers,' said Joshi's youngest daughter, actor Tulip
Joshi, who is not a practicing Armenian Christian but has fond
memories of get-togethers with Mumbai's close-knit Armenian community
at the church.
Today, though the church is being renovated with funds from the
Armenian community in Kolkata, it has no priest and no Armenian prayer
services. A few years ago, Joshi opened up the premises to the city's
Syrian Orthodox Christians.
`Their beliefs are similar to ours, and it is important that the
church not go empty,' said Joshi. Besides Joshi's daughters, Mumbai
still houses a few people of Indo-Armenian ancestry, descendents of
Armenians who fled to India at the time of World War I. `Like the
Jews, Armenians were also persecuted by the Turkish and were thus
always on the run,' said Marion Arathoon, a journalist whose paternal
grandfather was an Armenian who settled in Lahore.
While retaining their ethnic language and culture, most Armenian
migrants have adopted India as warmly as India has adopted them. `I
have been to Armenia several times and travel to Beirut every year,
but today I consider myself truly Indian,' said Joshi.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Armenians-in-Mumbai-A-200-year-history/Article1-716653.aspx
From: A. Papazian