Suspense and Subculture with Sandra Parshall

If you haven’t yet discovered Sandra Parshall’s novels, you’re in for a fabulous treat. Sandra is the author of the critically acclaimed Rachel Goddard mysteries: The Heat of the Moon, which won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel; Disturbing the Dead; Broken Places; and the upcoming Under the Dog Star (September 2011). She serves on the national Sisters in Crime board. A native southerner, she now lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and two cats. You can read more about Sandra and her books on her web site (www.sandraparshall.com) and at her group blog (www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/).

Your novels feature a little-known American community known as the Melungeons. Who are they, and where do they live? How large a community is it?

Melungeons are among several groups sociologists call “tri-racial isolates” – people of mixed race living apart from mainstream society, usually because they were excluded and forced into isolation. Melungeons have lived in the southern Appalachian Mountains for at least 400 years. Common physical traits are Caucasian features (including blue eyes) with dark skin and black hair, reflecting a mixture of Turkish or Portuguese, Native American, and in some cases African American heritage. Well into the 20^th century, Melungeons were considered black and suffered the same legal discrimination faced by African Americans. In earlier times, as white settlers moved into the region, the farmland of Melungeon families was seized and the people were forced into the remotest areas, where they lived in small communities and seldom interacted with the outside world.

Today, many people with Melungeon heritage still live in the southern Appalachians, but no distinct communities remain. Melungeons have assimilated into mainstream society (as my character Tom Bridger has, and his father before him), although I’ve heard many stories about the bigotry they still face if their skin is dark. In the past, the very word Melungeon was detested by the people it labeled, but the Melungeon Heritage Association has helped to create a sense of pride and a desire to know more about their history.

What are some of the myths, legends, or speculations about this community? How much of what we know about them and their history is fact?

Melungeons have always been considered descendants of shipwrecked Turkish or Portuguese sailors who moved into the mountains and made new lives for themselves, intermarrying with Native Americans and, in some cases, escaped slaves. In recent years, the Melungeon DNA Project has proved that they are genetically similar to present-day residents of the Mediterranean region. The legend of their origin is apparently correct.

A lot of books call themselves psychological suspense but the pleasure of reading your first novel, The Heat of the Moon, is a truly hypnotic experience. What did it entail to get into the minds of your characters for this book, both the psychologists and their patients? 

I wrote The Heat of the Moon in first person in Rachel’s voice, so the only POV I had to express was hers, but of course the writer has to know every character inside and out. A lot of readers have told me they hated Judith, Rachel’s mother, but because I know her so well I feel great sympathy for her. She did something horrifying and unforgivable, but it was a response to terrible things that happened to her. Rachel’s selfish younger sister Michelle was easy to understand – don’t we all know dozens of people like her? But her selfishness hides a terror of facing the truth about her family, so I can feel compassion for her too. Judith might be a practicing psychologist, and Michelle might be on the verge of becoming one, but both could use a little psychological help for themselves! Theo, the older psychiatrist who helps Rachel, is the ideal compassionate, wise counselor.

What kind of research do you have to do for your books?

That depends, of course, on the story. Research, for me, is done on a need-to-know basis. Sometimes I must have the information before I can start writing. Other times, a question comes up in the course of writing and I go searching for an answer. For The Heat of the Moon, I read a lot about memory in general and suppressed memories in particular. For Disturbing the Dead, I researched the history of the Melungeons in Appalachia. 

I've found Doug Lyle's blog (http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/) tremendously helpful when it comes to such delightful topics as describing wounds, describing a corpse at various stages of deadness, etc. Lee Lofland's blog (http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/) is a goldmine of information about firearms and police procedure. I have a shelf – several shelves, actually! – filled with books about crime investigation, forensics, etc., and I use them when I need to check something quickly.

Because yours books are such taut, smooth reads, we readers tend to assume the words just flowed from the author’s pen in one easy stream. How did they really unfold?

I write a very messy first draft that isn’t fit for human consumption. I would never allow anyone to see it. I throw in everything that occurs to me as I get to know the characters and let the story take shape. The first draft is not fun in any way. It’s a form of self-torture I have to go through to get to the other side. When I begin rewriting, deepening the characters, sharpening the story and working out the kinks, I start to enjoy the process. I’m editing – mostly cutting unnecessary words – right up to the minute I send the manuscript file off to my editor. And by that point, I must say, I thoroughly loathe the book! Fortunately, I regain some enthusiasm for it by the time it’s published.

Your books feature characters with interesting careers. What was your career before (or while) you became an author?

I was a newspaper reporter in South Carolina, West Virginia, and Baltimore. That experience exposed me to a lot of situations and people that have been useful in fiction. I’ve never based a character entirely on a real person, but I’ve used bits and pieces of real people’s personalities and backgrounds in creating characters. For a long time, my only “career” was that of unpublished writer, but I’m glad I stuck with it until my dream of publication finally came true.

We're glad too! The first three books of the Rachel Goddard series weave back and forth between two primary settings—Washington, D.C., and the rural Virginia mountain country—and the points of view of your primary character, veterinarian Rachel Goddard, and her romantic interest, Detective Tom Bridger. Rumor has it you’ve just wrapped up writing book four. Do we get to know more about these people and settings with the new book? And what else do you have in store for us?

Rachel left the D.C. area and moved to the mountains of southwest Virginia to get away from bad memories and start over. As she discovered in both Disturbing the Dead and Broken Places, however, the past will follow wherever you go. She’s learning to deal with her past, but in a future book, it might come back in a major way to disrupt her life with Tom in Mason County. Tom has his own bad memories: he still blames himself for the road accident that killed his parents, brother, and sister-in-law.  However, the new book, Under the Dog Star (to be published September 1), keeps both Tom and Rachel so busy they don’t have a lot of time to dwell on the past. The story is about the way people use and abuse animals, but it also involves the seriously screwed up family of a prominent local doctor who is murdered by a vicious killer using a trained attack dog as a weapon. Rachel isn’t part of the mountain culture, and she clashes with Tom and some of the local people on a number of issues. Holly Turner and Mrs. Barker make return appearances, and of course the young deputy Brandon is back.

I have to ask--how many more books do you envision in this series? Any plans for a new series or standalone? Do share!

I don’t have a definite number of books in mind. I often feel as if the series is just beginning to gain traction with readers, and it’s hard to resist people who say they want more. I would like to write other things, though – not necessarily another series, but perhaps standalone suspense. I have a suspense manuscript that I’d like to rework. The future tends to happen on its own terms, regardless of our careful planning, so who knows what I’ll be writing in a few years? With the publishing world changing rapidly and drastically, I’ll be happy to be published at all!

Sandra, thanks for joining us today! 

Mayan Doomsday With Jessica Andersen

Today's guest is Jessica Andersen, bestselling RITA and RT nominated author of more than twenty Harlequin Intrigues and the Nightkeeper Novels, a hot paranormal series that sexes up the 2012 doomsday. For more information about the books and Jessica, please visit www.JessicaAndersen.com.

You have a doctorate and have done some interesting work in genetic changes responsible for certain types of glaucoma. What made you swap your lab coat for a pair of tracksuit pants (the generic uniform of a writer)?

Well, I write in pretty much the same clothes I wore to the lab (jeans and a comfy shirt), but I get your drift. I’d say it was a case of finding my passion, really. I was around all these people who would willingly stay late at the lab or come in on weekends, and who wanted to go out to lunch and talk about their experiments because they thought science was just that cool. So when I realized I didn’t want to continue down that road for the rest of my life I asked myself what I’ve always loved, and what I would want to talk about at meals, at night and on the weekends … and the answer was “stories with happily ever after endings.” So I set out to see if I could learn to write them, and maybe make a living at it.

The Mayans are at the centre of your Nightkeeper Final Prophecy series. What inspired you to write about the Mayans, and specifically, the Mayan doomsday prophecy?

When I was a kid, my parents used to take me down to Southern Mexico just about every spring. This was back when Cancun was just being developed as a tourist destination, so the ruins weren’t nearly as regulated and restricted as they are now. Getting to climb on, in and around them made a huge impression on me, as did the stories our hired guides would tell. So when I was looking for a new story idea and came across a reference to the Mayan Long Count calendar ending on 12/21/2012, I was like “wow, cool!” So I started researching the calendar and the so-called doomsday, and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to write a contemporary urban fantasy series about the people destined to save mankind when the doomsday arrives.

Your books are full of rich details, including settings and mythology. How do you go about your research?

I use internet searches, books and interviews, and research my stories extensively. But this is a place where I’ll give credit to my science background, not so much in teaching me how to do research, but in teaching me when to stop. When I edit a scientific journal article (which I still do as a freelancer), one of my jobs is to make sure that the authors give the reader enough information to understand the experiments they’re talking about in the paper, but only that much information. There just isn’t room in the average journal article to go off on tangents that might be cool but aren’t central to the study in question. Similarly, one of my big challenges as a writer is to give the reader enough information that the cool factor of the Mayan mythology comes across, but the story doesn’t get bogged down. When that happens, I remind myself: “It’s about the romance, stupid!” (Snickers.)

You have a wonderful knack for weaving romance, suspense, adventure and magic into one. The multi-layered stories span across the entire series. How do you keep track of everything so all the questions will be answered by the end of the series? Or are you planning on keeping us dangling?

Aw, thanks for the compliment! I do try, as I love to read multilayered stories and can’t find nearly enough of them on the shelves. However, it can get complicated! For the most part, the story threads are in my head, largely because they come from characters who have come alive for me. I do plan to answer all of the questions by the end of the series, but probably shouldn’t make any guarantees. The stories are evolving as I write them, so it’s entirely possible that there are threads here and there that I won’t come back to, mostly because the world took me in a different direction. But I think that’s realistic, too, as there are parts of my life that I’ve thought would go one way, but then took a left-hand turn and wound up someplace else entirely!

The relationships of the Nightkeepers are complicated, to say the least. You write from the point of view of so many characters with different backgrounds and talents. How do you get into their heads and make each one unique?

Hm. I guess I don’t really have a problem with it because they’re all so different, you know? When I was writing the first book (Nightkeepers) and it came time to introduce most of the characters, I really made an effort to give each of them a distinct voice and backstory, including lots of details that just kind of came to me without any real plan. That gave me a jumping off point for the later books, which was helpful even if it meant that sometimes I had to account for earlier details that might not seem to jibe with who that character turned out to be. But I think that, too, is realistic, because people aren’t one-dimensional, and sometimes have parts that don’t seem to go together on the surface, but go into making the inner person.

What has been your most memorable research moment in writing the Final Prophecy series?

Actually, it was a memorable post-research moment. I was at a booksigning and a couple of ladies came up to me and introduced themselves as being students of an author I had cited as a major research source on Mayan antiquities and culture. They said that although they didn’t usually read Mayan-set stories because the inaccuracies were so annoying, someone had recommended Nightkeepers to them and they had picked it up and loved it, and passed it around to their coworkers. That was a nice, nice moment for me J.

Quick question (no deliberating!)—who is your favorite Nightkeeper and why?

Lucius. I love me a sexy nerd.

How many books will there be by the time the series is finished? And the inevitable question--what will you do next?

There will be nine books and one novella in the finished series, with the novella in stores soon (Feb ’11) as part of an anthology with the awesome Gena Showalter, Shannon K. Butcher and Deidre Knight. As for what’s next … that’s classified!

The countdown is on to end time. Picture yourself on 21 December, 2012. What will you be doing?

I’m feeling a party. You coming? If yes, what (or who) are you bringing? LOL!

(Alli’s note: I’ll bring along chocolate, wine and Lucius for you and Strike, the Nightkeeper King for me. Deal?)

Jessica, thank you so much for hanging with us at Novel Adventurers and we look forward to the next instalment of the Nightkeepers.

A Tour of Paris with Cara Black

My guest today is Cara Black, author of the best-selling and award-nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation mystery series, set in Paris. Her novels delve deep in the city’s history, social conflicts and cultural diversity, while also delivering a thrilling, satisfying mystery. Cara lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her next Aimée Leduc novel, Murder in Passy, will be released in March. To learn more about Cara and her books, check out her website at http://carablack.com/. On Tuesdays, she can be found blogging about France at Murder Is Everywhere.

Cara, the city of Paris is as much a character in your books as the people who populate it. Why did you pick Paris as a setting? Or did it pick you?

Sometimes I think Paris picked me. I was passionate to tell this story that became my first book, Murder in the Marais, it was as if it had to be done, to be written. Or maybe it’s the other way round, too. I wanted to read about present day Paris. A contemporary view that portrayed a city that I saw—seductive, full of contradictions, history—and I couldn’t find books like this. At least translated into English.

You set each of your books in a different Parisian neighborhood, and each story feels uniquely suited to that part of Paris. How did you research these settings?

These neighborhoods were villages that over centuries became incorporated into the ever expanding Paris. I’m always looking for that ambiance, what makes that district unique. So I read historical accounts, biographies, go to the archives, consult old phone books, join historical associations of that district. Get friendly with a local cafe owner, the kiosk vender, the kid who’s tagging buildings. Find out the weather of that time, the traditions, holidays everything that would be happening then. I consult newspapers of the day, to get the flavor, what was on sale that day, or happening in the news, the traffic. I tape-record conversations in the cafés, on buses, on the streets to get the sounds. I’ve visited the Morgue, gone into the sewers, the abandoned Metro stations, the underground quarries in the Latin Quarter.

Your stories all have a social or political theme that is connected to the Paris neighborhoods where they are set. What comes first for you: the theme or the setting?

The setting! I will have to “live” there for a year or more while writing the book, so I need to be drawn to this particular part of Paris, be curious about this quartier, feel a compulsion to understand it, get the ambiance. Also I need to discover how a crime would occur there and why. I want to explore the side of Paris that people don’t visit on the usual tourist route, the “real” Paris that I see, changing evolving and dealing with France’s colonial legacy, the past.

You’ve said that you made your protagonist, Aimée Leduc, half American because you yourself are not French. Yet she feels very French. How did you get into Aimée’s head and way of thinking?

Thank you. I might see a shop window and think Aimée would wear that, or she’d drive that scooter. She’s a lot like some of my French friends who are witty, warm, smart, and attractive and still have trouble with men...imagining that it gives us all hope. But to me Aimée is a contemporary young Parisienne like so many I see or know who have to pay bills, walk their dog and deal with life and men. Sometimes I just open her purse and find what could be inside, or put her in a café interrogating someone and she comes alive.

You’ve created a compelling side-kick in Aimée’s partner, René Friant. Why did you make him a dwarf?

Dwarves occupied a strange place in European history, in carnivals and at the royal court. But I wanted to show that René, a man with what people deemed disabilities, had amazing capabilities. Instead of just looking from the outside, seeing him as a “little man”, he has these incredible computer talents. And a black belt. I hope it makes for a character rich with possibilities.

Do you have a favorite experience or encounter with someone who helped you in researching one of your books?

There are so many. For me it’s about going to Paris, absorbing the feeling, the place, and hearing the stories. There’s a friend who lives in the 16th arrondissement and for years has nudged me to write about her “hood” - but it didn't seem  my kind of place, or Aimée's. Too chic, too ancien regime, etc. But my friend took me for walks and showed me Guimard’s buildings, the Marmottan Museum, and tried to open my eyes. We actually one day stood in front of a gorgeous place and saw on the plaque that Berthe Morisot, the painter, had lived there. We walked inside, since the door was open, and looked around the courtyard until the concierge, who must have been very bored, spoke with us then invited us in to Berthe’s old studio. Amazing, threadbare and very ancien regime, old wealthy French but full of light. But it was the trip to the Passy reservoir that I talked my way into which became a scene in the book. The woman from Eau de Paris took me under the tunnels in the reservoir that the French Gestapo used for torture. Chilling. My friend's aunt insisted that Passy was a village, I just had to find it and she proceeded to show it to me. Through her eyes, I discovered Passy.

Leduc Investigations specializes in computer crimes. Why did you pick that specialty?

Computer security was a brand new field when I started writing, very cutting edge and, if you can believe it, only 3 firms in the U.S. in 1994 actually worked in this field. No Google until 1998, if you can remember. So I thought how cool is that if Aimée would be a computer forensics detective and be totally bleeding edge in technology. Not a field I, or many of us understood at the time. She’d have access through her computer skills to find out information in a different way and use that as a tool. Lots of hackers I’ve met and interviewed gave me ideas but they’ve always said “social engineering” is still the foremost and most effective. You can spend time to hack into a site, but like Aimée you could flirt and get someone’s password, bypassing a tech step and make it more real.

How do you research the law enforcement side of your books? Do you have contacts with the Paris police?

Yes, and I ply my police contacts with dinner and wine. I run a lot of ideas by them, ask if it could be plausible at that time and really appreciate their input. One inspector actually said, I spend time with you because I want you to get it right. My books aren’t police procedurals, Aimée’s a licensed PI who’s gone into computer security, but since police are involved I want the details right. And the French system is so different. In November I toured 36 quai des Orfèvres, the Police Prefecture, went up on the roof and to the room where they dry the scene of the crime clothes. The best part was going out and drinking with the homicide captain and going to a police shooting at the range - not in that order :). I’ve consulted French attorneys about adoption for my book Murder on Ile Saint Louis, and know several female licensed PI’s who help me with the nuts and bolts of running a detective agency.

Your next book, Murder in Passy, will be released in March. What can you tell us about Aimée’s next adventure?

This gets personal for Aimée and takes her to the chic 16th arrondissement where the maids wear pearls. When Xavierre d’Eslay, a haut bourgeois of Basque origin is murdered outside her home in the exclusive village-like quartier of Passy, circumstantial evidence makes Aimée’s godfather a suspect. Was it a crime of passion, connected to Basque terrorists or linking to a kidnapped Spanish princess?

Paris has twenty arrondissements, or districts. What will you do once you’ve finished setting a book in each of them? Retire? Or will you start another series?

Heidi, I’m thinking of a historical thriller. But I’ve got eight more arrondissements to go in Paris.

Cara, thank you so much for giving us such a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Aimée’s world!

Off The Beaten Track: Georgia

Kakheti Wine Region

This week we introduce the mysterious E. McClintock. She's an American writer and traveler and makes her living in the environmental field. Her first mystery, Monkey Love and Murder, is set at a spider monkey research camp in the Amazon and may or may not be sitting on an editor’s desk in New York. She’ll investigate when she’s back in the US. Her nearly finished second mystery is the first in a series about Miami politics.

Last year, I did what every expert will tell you not to do. I quit a very good job in the middle of a recession to write for a year. I called it a sabbatical year since it sounded professorial and hid the reality of my daily life, which involved moving across the country to live in my sister’s converted garage and working three days a week as my nephew’s unskilled but loving nanny.

I was diligent. I became a hermit. I often thought I’d made a huge mistake. But it was also wonderful, the freedom to write and write and write. But I knew something was missing. A real sabbatical, after all, needs an exotic destination—or so I’d learned from my professors in grad school. So I applied for a three-month project through a US government program that allows returned Peace Corps volunteers to do short-term volunteer assignments overseas.

While I knew my project would be in the country of Georgia, I didn’t know anything about my working conditions, where I would be living, or even much about Georgia. So I bought a guidebook and read Wikipedia and from every direction came opinions. From Russians, and Ukrainians, returned Peace Corps volunteers, and even friends of friends who had connections to Georgia. None of them were Georgian. Most had never set foot in the country. But they all had a story—about the men, about the countryside, about the food and wine. And always about winter.

According to Wikipedia, Georgia’s temperature is mild, even subtropical in some areas. But I was consistently warned it would be bitter cold. I’m from Miami so I was scared. I pictured myself tromping past crumpling Soviet era apartment buildings, snowdrifts looming above. Or shivering through dark nights in a tiny apartment, winds whipping through the cracks in the windows. I bought a massive down jacket. I named my blog A Winter Tale (http://awintertale.wordpress.com/). I packed for Siberia.

I arrived in late October to sunny, beautiful days that lasted through the end of December. It’s nearly mid-January now and the ski resorts are still waiting for snow, my three pairs of gloves and long underwear remain unused. And fortunately the tiny apartment with cracks in the windows didn’t work out. I was placed with a Georgian host family with central heat, 24-hour hot water and a driver to take me to work each morning in a heated SUV.

Vardzia Cave Monastery

Only my guidebook mentioned the hospitality and generosity of the Georgian people. But it’s the thing I’ll remember most, the main thing I’ll tell people about. Georgians I’d just met threw massive supras (celebrations) in my honor with musicians and piles upon piles of delicious food and wine. They took me on long sightseeing trips and welcomed me into their families. They rarely let me pay for anything. And my host family, well, they took the generosity up about fifty notches higher. It’s been overwhelming and I admit to feeling unworthy.

I’m nearly finished here in Georgia, as is my sabbatical. I plan to travel for a few weeks in the Middle East but then it looks like I may have a good job waiting for me back home (fingers crossed). I’d like to claim I had this all figured out when I quit my job eighteen months ago, but mostly I’ve made it up as I went along. It’s been scary, often hard on the ego, but I was lucky to have some savings, a few consulting jobs, and supportive family and friends to help me along the way. And in the end I would say, don’t listen to the experts, they’re often wrong.

Mezuza's Magic

Raised by Communists, I knew little of the traditional Jewish culture, especially about its symbols and rituals. When I first saw a small, strange-looking trinket with Hebrew lettering on a doorjamb of our relatives’ house, I was curious.

“It’s a mezuzah,” my uncle explained, and added jokingly. “It’s a Jewish good luck charm. Keeps the evil energy away and brings good karma into the house.”

I liked the idea, but, raised by the same Communists, my uncle was wrong, which I found out years later. While mezuzahs are indeed placed on doorjambs symbolically, they don’t have anything to do with good luck. Nor do they bear any connection with the lamb's blood placed on the doorposts in Egypt. Rather, it is a constant reminder of god's presence and god's commandments.

In Hebrew, mezuzah (מְזוּזָה ) means doorpost . It is a piece of parchment called klaf contained in a decorative case inscribed with two sections of Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael,” from the Torah's Book of Deuteronomy, in which God commands Jews to keep his words constantly in their minds and hearts. The prayer begins with the phrase: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God," and goes on for quite a while. When passing through a door with a mezuzah on it, one is supposed to kiss thy fingers and touch the casing, expressing love and respect for god and his will.

The mezuzah should be placed on the doorposts of every Jewish home. Mezuzot (plural of mezuzah) should also be placed in every room within the home with the exception of bathrooms because bathrooms are unclean. According to the Jewish law, the mezuzah should also be affixed to gates leading to communal places, synagogues, schools, and even on city gates, symbolizing the sovereignty of the commandments over the Jewish social and communal life. In other words, you must not forget that god is watching over you – even for a split second.

A lot of work goes into making a simple mezuzah. It may seem that the most complex piece of it is the case (which can be a work of art in itself), but the real effort lays is the creation of the parchment. The scroll is prepared by a qualified scribe, sofer stam who has undergone many years of meticulous training. The verses are written in black indelible ink with a special quill pen. The parchment is then rolled up and placed inside the case.

And now, a trick question: why is that most mezuzahs are attached at a 45 degree angle instead of vertically or horizontally? The answer lays in the Jewish culture – notorious for their debating talents, surpassed perhaps only by Italians, Jews can argue forever. So did the two medieval Rabbis Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam; they could not agree whether the precious symbol should be placed horizontally or vertically. Finally, they compromised, settling on the golden middle. Ever since, Ashkenazi Jews tilt the case so that the top slants toward the room the door opens into.

Alas, my mezuzah is not affixed at any angle on my front door. I keep none. Once I learned it wasn’t an enticing good-luck charm that kept me safe from evil spirits, but a religious symbol designed to remind me of god every time I set foot outside the door or returned home, it lost its magic.

Keeping the Faith

An old photo of the
Parsee Tower of Silence in Bombay

Heidi’s column from Monday discussed the beautiful fire and water symbols of Zoroastrianism, Iran’s dominant religion until about the seventh century. That’s when Islam came to Iran and many Zoroastrians, fleeing persecution, migrated to India, where they blended their unique culture within the mainstream one.

Parsees (also spelled Parsis), as they are known on the subcontinent, are well educated, urban (most live in Mumbai), and relatively affluent. They’re a tiny group—estimates put their overall number at about 70,000—but even if you haven’t heard the name of this community, you’ve heard of some of its most prominent members: award-winning author Rohinton Mistry; the late Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen (his real name was Farrokh Bulsara); and conductor Zubin Mehta. Then there’s the billionaire Tata family, who own, among their numerous global ventures, Jaguar and Land Rover (through Tata Motors), Tetley tea (Tata Global Beverages), and the world’s tenth largest steel company (Tata Steel).

As a group, Parsees have maintained a relatively pure lineage (at one time, they were listed in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the most birth defects, because of their once-high incidence of intermarriage), but they are also uniquely Indian. They’ve adopted the Indian language of Gujarati, the women wear saris, and the religion has even borrowed a few Hindu customs, such as men wearing the holy thread around the shoulder and waist, the use of coconuts and rice during religious ceremonies, and the application of red powder to their foreheads (tilaks) during baptism and marriage.

They also meld some ancient Persian customs with Hindu ones. For example, one method for removing the evil eye in a number of Muslim countries, including Iran, is the burning of the espand seed (also known as esfand). In India, Parsees have modified this practice in a ritual called achu michu. The person performing the ritual says a traditional Zoroastrian prayer, known as the tandorosti, to wish the recipient a long and healthy life. Then they circle a tray, carrying a coconut, betel leaves, betel nuts, sugar, and yogurt (items commonly used in Hindu rituals), around the receiver’s head seven times. Sometimes a boiled egg is one of these items (definitely not a Hindu custom). Then water from a little flower vase known as a kutli is poured into the tray, and the tray is then circled again around the recipient’s head seven times. It’s interesting how similar this practice is to the Hindu custom of performing aarti to bless someone. In fact, in achu pichu, as in aarti, a tilak is placed on the recipient’s forehead and a sweet placed in his or her mouth, then the recipient touches the feet of the person giving the blessing. Still, it’s believed the practice evolved from the tradition of burning of esfand/espand seeds.

There’s at least one age-old Parsee custom that always seemed ultra exotic to me, even for India. It’s the method by which Parsees dispose of their dead. Zoroastrianism forbids burial, cremation, or disposal at sea because it would contaminate the sacred elements of earth, fire, and water. So instead, mourners in Mumbai carry the deceased up the steep Malabar Hill, an upscale part of town, to place the body atop the Parsee Bawdi, or the Tower of Silence. The idea is that vultures, other scavengers, and the scorching sun eventually decompose the remains, allowing the soul to join the spiritual world. India is one of the few places that hasn’t banned this ancient tradition, which makes it one of the few places, perhaps the only place, where Zoroastrians can continue it.

That may not be the only reason the community continues on in India. It’s believed that India and Iran share the same Aryan roots from Central Asia, which was once the stronghold of Zoroastrianism, before the two split off and the Indic people migrated south. One tantalizing remnant of this link is that the name for the Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, sounds much like asura, the Sanksrit word for demon. Had there been a war separating the Indo-Iranian cultures?

Either way, worldwide, Zoroastrians only number about 200,000 today. Estimates in Iran range wildly, from 20,000 to 90,000, depending on the source (many have emigrated since the 1979 revolution), with another 20,000 in the States and Canada, plus the 70,000 in India. It’s no wonder theirs is a small community. Zoroastrians have a low birth rate, they don’t proselytize, and their numbers keep dwindling as they marry outside their culture.

But in an interesting twist, the religion is staying alive in other ways. In recent years, a Mazdean-Christian Universalism philosophy emerged, which says that the ideas of a benevolent god and the existence of evil in the world were originally Zoroastrian ones that Judaism adopted and which eventually made their way into Christianity. Swedish music producer Alexander Bard is a well-known convert. There’s even a Mazdean-Christian Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. While it’s not exactly a revolution, this beautiful, ancient faith carries on.

When Luck Isn't Enough

We’re only two weeks into the new year and for some, the celebrations continue. So to honor those who love wiping the slate clean and need some preparation for this year’s end (come on, it will be December before you know it!), here are some rituals popular in most Latin American countries.

What color are your undies? For those who want to be swept off their feet and have their desires for a grand love met, wear red underpants. If you’d prefer happiness and money, go for the yellow. If it’s prosperity you want, green’s the go and pink will help you out in the friendship stakes. White is for peace and hope. Or, if you’re after a new wardrobe, wear new clothes on NYE or put your underpants on backward (the color won’t matter). New lingerie will give you luck, but if someone buys it for you, you’ll get even more luck (or lucky!). 

Itchy feet? If you have the travel bug and need some help in that department, grab a suitcase and walk around the block at the stroke of midnight. The heavier the suitcase, the further you’ll travel. Others like to walk in and out the front door with the suitcase as the night progresses. 

Ball and chain, anyone? If getting hitched is on your agenda, then you’ll need to sit down and stand up 12 times when the clock strikes midnight. Tie a red ribbon around a photograph of the person you want to marry (don’t choose Antonio Banderas—he’s mine), and then sleep with the photo under your pillow. If you do this, then you increase your chances of the person asking you to marry them before the year’s end.

Business troubles? Lentils are the way to go if you want to improve the prosperity of your business. Eat a spoonful of lentils (preferably cooked) or give a handful to a friend. Some people like to take money out of their pocket and count it as the clock hits midnight while others prefer to stash money inside their shoes.

Broken heart? To avoid bad luck, pain and tears, fill a glass with water and throw it onto the street. Write down all the crappy things that have happened to you in the past year, and burn the list to erase the past. And as the clock strikes twelve, don’t forget to yell out “I will be happy this year!”

Holding a flame? Peace for your family and friends can be helped along with burning blue candles. Yellow brings abundance, red is for passion, green for health and white will help you possess a clear mind. And if you’re lacking in the brains department, try burning an orange candle.

Disharmony in the home? A clean house with dust-free corners and nothing broken will stop disagreements. Cinnamon sticks will attract luck while sweets in a dish will bring love. If you place three stones on the doorstep then you’re ensuring health, love and money. Throw in some thorns with your holiday decorations and you’re family will have good luck and peace.

Lacking in love? If your dinner table is decorated with your finest tableware and has at least one red candle burning, then there will always be love in your family. Something gold on the table will attract prosperity and before you eat dinner, make sure everyone eats at least one teaspoon of cooked lentils for prosperity.

Want to bubble from happiness? Toasting the New Year with bubbly is common amongst many cultures, and in many places the bubbles represent happiness. If you’re after prosperity, throw a gold ring into your champagne before you drink it. For the tee-totallers, bite the ring instead (I’m not sure how prosperous it is if you have to fork over money to the dentist if you break your teeth). For those with sweet teeth (that aren’t broken), make sure the baked dessert has three coins in it. Whoever gets the slice of cake with the coins has a prosperous year ahead of them.

Wishing away your life? Don’t worry about popping open a bottle of vino. When the countdown is on, eat 12 grapes. Pause after each one, make a wish and wait for the luck to happen (one of the wishes might be not to choke on a gob full of grapes). 

So the next New Years Eve when someone asks you what color underwear you have, don’t be offended—especially if the asker is from a Latin American country. With so many chances to increase your luck in love, money and happiness, why wouldn’t you start planning now?

What’s your favorite ritual to create wealth, love or happiness?