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Parsi New Year 2025| Amyra Dastur: On this day, my mum's goal is to fill the entire dining table with food
On Parsi New Year today, Amyra Dastur talks about how it's the day of family and food for her and the traditions that they follow to have a ‘double’ celebration
For Amyra Dastur, August 15 holds an extra special meaning as apart from Independence Day, it’s also about celebrating Parsi New Year, and one more celebration. “Incidentally, the new year always coincides with my dad's birthday on August 15. So, we celebrate Parsi New Year and dad’s birthday on that day. My mom cooks an insane meal and the entire family comes together to celebrate. So it's all about family for me,” the actor says.
Ask her about the festival’s traditions that she and her family follow and Amyra Dastur shares, “We all play cards, and this is the one tradition we follow. All my cousins come and we meet at about 12 in the afternoon and we start by playing cards. There’s a lot of yelling and screaming in a fun way. We are very serious about cards, and it's all about the winning aspect of it as we all just want to win. A competitive space comes to these games.”
Amyra insists that the celebration has to take place at her parents’ house and nowhere else: “It has to be my mom's house because she will not cook or bring food anywhere else,” she laughs, adding, “We all prefer that because everybody loves my mom's cooking and she is the best cook in the family. She starts prepping for the meal two days early because there are at least 18 members coming to the house. It's like a huge thing for her and she does it single-handedly. Nobody is allowed to come in to help and I can't cook to save my life, so I don’t even offer. It's all her, her kitchen, her recipes that have been passed down from generations, so there's no way she'll even teach someone else unless you're a family.”
Sharing some of the dishes that are made on this day, the actor lists down prawn patia, Parsi mori daar, chicken cutlets, bheja cutlets, brun pav and patra ni machhi. “My mouth is drooling just talking about it because it's so homely and made with so much love. There's a lot more stuff that my mum also makes because basically in her head, the dining table has to be full of food, like there's no room for even plates or anything. Her goal is to fill up the entire dining table,” she smiles.
Amyra admits that with Parsi New Year being the one day of the year that her entire family comes together, makes it more special. “There's no message or an invitation that gets sent out. On this day of the year, we all know that we have to be here. Even when I would be filming, I would tell my manager and my director that on August 15, I have to be in Mumbai at my parents' house, come what may. It's just the one unsaid rule in a way in our family and trust me, you don't want to miss it too because of the food. As everyone actually comes for the food,” she says.
This year’s celebrations are even more exciting for her as her brother has come down from London. “He is here especially for this as even he missed the food while living there,” she quips, adding, “I'm excited because this time the full family is in attendance. There are no issues, no fighting, you put aside all your differences, and you have to be there. It’s my mom’s rule that you can have no fights in the house on Parsi New Year because she's cooked with love, so you cannot contaminate that.”
