Parsee Film “Wings of Fire”

In 1986 Shri Nathji and HH Priya Nath watched  Zubin Mehta’s film on Television: “Wings of Fire” depicting the life story of Zoroaster, the Founder of the Parsee religion.

Shri Nathji enjoys the film immensely and recollects his association with Parsee devotees of his, Homi S. Karai – who had first met Shri Nathji in Calcutta in 1937 and had seen in Shri Nathji a bright Flame, the light that Zoroastrians worshipped, and whose mother was miraculously cured of cancer; Justice Nanavati who said Shri Nathji’s advent on earth and his marriage had all been spoken of in the Parsee scriptures and who had been miraculously cured in a Bombay Hospital when doctors had given up all hope; and there was also Commander Shroff of the Indian Navy in Bombay’ as also Mr. and Mrs. Naazar who had named their daughter, Almighty after Shri Nathji had held her in his arms.

Wings of Fire is the first and only dramatic movie to be made about the Zoroastrian  religion and its people.  In 1982 Zubin Mehta the renowned conductor, then the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, agreed with Cyrus Bharucha that a film about the teaching of Zarathushtra was due to be told to the world at large. For over 1000 years, the Iranian and Indian Zoroastrians have been very silent and in turn lost the history and meaning of their own great religion. It was never intended to be a Parsee answer to Ben Hur or The 10 Commandments. Cyrus Bharucha, Jamshed and Meherji Madan produced a film with deep research and filmed it in a style that would be entertaining and educational at the same time. The film spans 3500 years of the history of the Zoroastrian people covering the life of the prophet, the heights of the Empire of Cyrus and Darius, the defeat of the Persians by Alexander, the coming of Islam, and all the way to the life of the Parsees in modern India.

Some of the leading actors of the UK and India star in the film- Nigel Terry as Zarathushtra, Paul Shelly as Vishtaspa, Amersh Puri, Syeed Jaffery, and Soni Razdan are amongst the stars that play pivotal roles in this dramatic and spectacular film. The research was done with scholars all over the world from Columbia University, to England, Toronto University and India.