Mumbai, India —
Burning sandalwood thickens the air in a room that’s so exclusive only a vanishingly small number of people are allowed to enter.
This is an agiary, a Zoroastrian place of worship for India’s Parsi community, where priests in white robes stoke a sacred flame around the clock and recite ancient Avestan prayers that have survived three millennia.
I stand before that fire, head covered. Here, I am reminded of my Zoroastrian ancestors, who once ruled a vast Persian empire, but were forced from their homes during the Muslim conquest of Persia some 1,300 years ago.
Parsis are their descendants, a people who fled…