SOONOO, SOONU, SOONAMAI, FaredoonJI & BurjorJI
1. First cousins Soonoo and Soonu are named after their grandmother Soonamai.
2. Soonamai was the wife of Faredoonji, who founded a shop selling Zoroastrian items on Princess Street, with his partner Burjorji.
3. Soonamai died early. She was looking after a relative when the building gave way and crashed suddenly.
4. Her children, Piloo, Alla and Jamshed, were just in their teens. So, when Alla (top middle) and Jamshed (bottom right) grew up, got married and had a girl each, there was no doubt about what the name should be.
5. Soonoo and Soonu were like sisters, growing up together on the 2nd floor of Cooper Building, above the family’s shop.
6. Then, their aunt Piloo was in charge of the shop, coming in at 6 in the morning and closing by 8. Sunday open. Piloo was a spinster, the shop her baby, she let her nieces help her run it grudgingly.
7. By 2000, Soonoo and Soonu had taken over, updating the famous Faredoon & Burjor gujarati calendar to both english and gujarati and extending the shop’s services to delivering sandalwood for special prayers to the fire-temples in the locality.
8. That way worshippers could comfortably go to the Atash Behrams for their tandarostis and machis. Faredoon & Burjor had already sent over the sandalwood sticks and name-lists.
9. Ganga, their deputy, now sits where her mother Heroo once did. In covid times, forgetting the discipline of Piloobai, Ganga came up with new shop times- सुबह ११.30, Lunch time 1-3, 3 to 5:30 PM, Sunday बंद.
FAREDOON & BURJOR
229 Cooper Building, Princess Street.
21st March, 2022.
Supported by:
Photos by Philippe Calia.
SUKHAD NU PACKET CHHE?
