Aapro Cyrus Broacha, the Brand Ambassador of Humour, is back to trigger unlimited giggles and guffaws, with his hilarious take on the once-famous ‘PARSI OLYMPICS’!!! – in our exclusive column, ‘Cyrus The (Not So) Great!’

New Year is all very well, but we must remember one of the greats – our very own Pestonji Papadwala, when we enter the month of August. Pestonji was known as ‘Triple P’, as his middle name was Phiroze. As a young man, Peston was the Pole-vault champion of Bombay. He won 5 national championships – 4 because he was the only competitor who reached the venue on time. Remember – the British were sticklers for punctuality. Clearly, they were hugely influenced by Parsis.

After winning the prestigious Mountbatten Award for ‘Always Turning Up, Even When He Had Not Even Been Invited’, Triple P felt he had reached the zenith of an awesome career. If Gen-Z Parsis don’t know what zenith is, it’s just the name Zeenat spelt differently.

After retiring, Triple P became an accomplished painter. Mostly bathrooms, but occasionally the odd bedroom, though never ever the master bedroom.

As a voracious follower of sports, he realized that less and less Parsis were competing in the Olympics. Oh, and by less, I mean none. Every Olympics Games, he would check the list of athletes. After the India squad, he’d check Canadian, American, Australian, UK and New Zealand squads as well, but found no Parsi name. Although, he did find a Parvez Firdausi from Auckland competing in Archery. Unfortunately, Parvez was a non-Zoroastrian Iranian descent immigrant to New Zealand.

Frustrated and suffering from dementia, after having inhaled fresh paint drying in countless bathrooms, Triple P decided to come up with something monumental… something epic… something unheard of – ‘THE PARSI OLYMPICS’!!! His words, translated from the very rustic Gujarati, were, “If Parsis can’t go to the Olympics, we will bring the Olympics to the Parsis’.

68 years ago, on the 1^st of August, 1956, a Thursday, he launched ‘THE PARSI OLYMPICS’ at the then clean, now unhygienic, Oval Maidan, at Churchgate. The following were a few of the distinct events, he devised:

1. THE CAR START COMPETITION: This was a competition where, without using any key, Parsi Olympians would have to start the car as quickly as possible. This turned out to be a highly competitive and popular event, won by Popat Baug’s Burjor Dumasia with his Hillman, in the inaugural Olympics.

 

2. THE SINGING SIMULTANEOUSLY COMPETITION: Imagine a large number of contestants singing different songs at the same time. You would hear ‘Vesti La Guiba’, ‘Donkey Serenade’, and ‘Blue Moon’, sung simultaneously, in the spirit of open competition. The one contestant who didn’t lose his temper, would be given the Gold Medal. Sadly, at the inaugural Olympics, since all 7 contestants started verbally abusing each other, all were deservedly awarded Gold medals.

 

3. THE DRESS YOUR WIFE UP COMPETITION: A simple concept. Wives wore sarees and stood still. Husbands, then would have to remove the sarees, and then re-dress the wives in a second saree. Again, the contest met a violent end, as too may contestants were trying to undress other contestants wives.

Now, in 1956 at the Melbourne Olympics, USA won 33 Gold medals. In the same year, at the Parsi Olympics, the Parsis notched up 37 Gold medals. You can tell how seriously the Parsi Olympics were taken by this fact. In 1957, no Parsis got visas to visit USA.

However, unfortunately, when Triple P died in 1977, one day after Elvis, the Parsi Olympics came to a standstill.

So, this Parsi New Year, do please stop watching these second-hand Olympics in Paris and instead find old recordings of our ‘Parsi Olympics’, in honour of our Triple P – Pestonji!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! SAL MUBARAK!!