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KARACHI: The aroma of sizzling Patra Ni Machi — fish wrapped in banana leaf and slathered with green chutney — drifted through a quiet home in Karachi’s Parsi Colony earlier this month. 

Inside the kitchen, 63-year-old Gulnar Cowasjee moved with the precision of memory, wrapping and plating each piece just as her grandmother had once done. 

“When I started cooking at home properly, my kids said, ‘Mom, you’ve got good taste. Why don’t you think of this as a business for Parsi cuisine?’” she recalled with a smile, flipping the fish on a pan.

Her home venture, aptly named “Ghar Se,” was born in the stillness of the COVID-19 lockdown, a small act of preservation for the food of Karachi’s vanishing Parsi community, followers of Zoroastrianism who migrated from Iran centuries ago.

“We never changed our niche to any other cuisine,” she said. “Mashallah, it hit off.”

Once a vibrant presence in Karachi’s civic and cultural life, Parsis have dwindled to just a few hundred in Pakistan. The 2023 national census recorded only 2,348 Parsis across the country.

And in Karachi, there are now only two main Parsi colonies, neighborhoods that once bustled with children cycling and families gathering for communal prayers. 

Many of the homes now stand silent.

“People have gone away. The parents are not alive anymore,” she said softly. 

The Parsi Colony near M.A. Jinnah Road where Cowasjee grew up has also emptied out over the years. 

“The houses have been looted blatantly, Burma teak staircases, doors, windows, artifacts. People have ripped old people apart. They have scared old people to get out of their houses so that the mafia can take over.”

In her own kitchen, though, tradition endures. Cowasjee has never cooked from books.

“I learned from my grandmother by seeing… She used to just pick up masalas and put it. And we never stopped eating her food because it was so delicious,” she said, remembering how recipes were passed down by sight, sound and scent rather than the written word.

From her grandmother’s hands to hers, the recipes have traveled through generations, each carrying the story of faith and community.

Take Dhansak, for instance, a slow-cooked blend of lentils, meat and spices served with caramelized brown rice. 

“In the olden days in Iran, when somebody used to die, the women folk used to cook the dhansak,” Cowasjee said. 

When the men returned from taking the body to the mountains, “they would return after a few days and eat a meal, a mixture of lentils and meat. So that became something which now people serve it.”

Over the centuries, Dhansak evolved into the community’s signature dish.

Other recipes mark different moments in life. 

Dhandal appears at weddings and Navjote ceremonies, the Parsi initiation ritual in which a child is formally inducted into the Zoroastrian faith. Ravo and sev — sweet puddings and vermicelli — also bring joy to festive tables. 

“Every dish has a sort of affiliation with an occasion,” Cowasjee explained. “In our community Dhandal, Lagan Sera Patia (wedding-style fish), it’s a very ceremonial dish.”

She remembers when food brought families together around long tables. 

“We used to have a table of 25–28 people,” she said. “Today, we don’t even have a table of two people.”

VANISHING LEGACY

Migration and modern life have thinned families and scattered communities. Younger Parsis have grown up distant from their ancestral cuisine, though they still feel its pull.

Cowasjee’s daughter Myra, a young lawyer, sees the gap but tries to bridge it in her own way. 

“If I speak personally for myself, I perhaps have Parsi food once in two weeks,” she said. “If I have to cook for myself, then I make something more on the Western side.”

Still, she finds subtle ways to keep the culture alive.

“I often tell my mom to send a bit extra to the office. I feed it to my colleagues, so they get awareness about how the food tastes,” Myra said. “They even order from my mom.”

For her, food has become a link between fading identity and everyday life. 

“I also try as much as possible to promote the culture and history that Parsis have left behind,” she said. 

“If I’m ever coming back with my colleagues from court, I try to let them know that this is something of cultural significance to Parsis,” she added, pointing out places such as the fire temple in Saddar and NED University — landmarks built by the community.

Indeed, generations ago, Karachi’s Parsis built some of the city’s best-known schools and civic spaces — from the Mama Parsi Girls’ School to parks and charitable trusts. They once gathered at Jahangir Bagh, their green enclave in the heart of the city, to celebrate festivals and weddings.

“Those places are gone, finished,” said Cowasjee. “That togetherness is not there anymore.”

As the caramel scent of Dhansak filled her kitchen, she admitted that with each family leaving, a piece of the culture disappeared. 

“It will vanish,” she said quietly. “There is no two ways about it, it will vanish.”

ANKARA: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to maintain a ceasefire following peace talks in Istanbul, Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry announced Thursday, after a dialogue between the two sides collapsed earlier in the week.

The sides plan to meet again at a higher-level gathering in Istanbul on Nov. 6 to finalize how the ceasefire will be implemented, the ministry said in a statement released on behalf of Pakistan, Afghanistan and mediators Turkiye and Qatar.

“All parties have agreed to put in place a monitoring and verification mechanism that will ensure maintenance of peace and imposing penalty on the violating party,” the statement read.

The new round of negotiations, facilitated by Turkiye and other friendly nations, was aimed at easing border tensions between the two sides who earlier this month exchanged fire, leaving dozens of soldiers, civilians and militants dead.

Despite the collapse of the previous round of talks, a ceasefire has largely held and no new border clashes were reported this week. However, both countries have kept major crossings closed, leaving hundreds of trucks carrying goods and refugees stranded on each side.

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif told the Geo news channel the decision to give peace another chance was made by Pakistan at the request of Qatar and Turkiye, and that the Pakistani delegation, set to return home Wednesday night, was asked to stay in Istanbul.

According to Pakistani state-run television, Islamabad said the talks will be based on Pakistan’s central demand that Afghanistan take clear, verifiable and effective action against militant groups.

In Islamabad, two senior security officials told The Associated Press that Pakistan has once again stressed that Afghan soil should not be used for what it called “terrorism” against Pakistan and that it appreciates the constructive role of its hosts and remains committed to seeking a peaceful resolution in good faith.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media on the record.

Tensions flared earlier this month after explosions were heard in Kabul, and Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes in the capital and bombing a market in the country’s east.

Afghan officials on Oct. 12 said they retaliated by targeting Pakistani military posts, claiming 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed. However, Pakistan’s military said the fighting left 23 of its soldiers dead and that its operations were targeting militant hideouts inside Afghanistan.

The clashes prompted Qatar to host emergency talks between the two neighbors, resulting in a ceasefire on Oct. 19. That was followed by four days of negotiations in Istanbul that ended inconclusively on Tuesday. Since then, Qatar and Turkiye have been working to bring the delegations back to the negotiating table, the Pakistani officials said.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, told a gathering of tribal elders in Peshawar that Pakistan seeks peace with all its neighbors, including Afghanistan, but will not tolerate cross-border terrorism from Afghan soil.

He said Pakistan in recent years exercised restraint and made diplomatic and economic overtures to improve ties, but the Taliban government instead supported the TTP, which was listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations and the United States over a decade ago.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks in recent months, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a group closely allied to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Many of their leaders and fighters are believed to be sheltering in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

The Pakistani military said Thursday it killed 18 militants in two separate operations in the southwestern province of Balochistan. In a separate statement, it said four Pakistani Taliban, including a high-value target, were killed as they attempted to sneak into Bajaur, a city bordering Afghanistan.