On Saturday (July 10, 2010), there will be celebrated in Royapuram the centenary of the consecration of the only Parsi Fire Temple in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala. Gracing the commemoration of the establishment of the Jal Phiroj Clubwala Dar-e-Meher will be former President of India, Abdul Kalam.

The first Parsis arrived in Madras in 1795. To meet the needs of the community, the Madras Parsi Panchayat began collecting monthly contributions from members for a Mobed Fund from 1887; the fund was intended as much for maintaining a priest (mobed) as for eventually establishing a place of worship. A significant contribution towards this was made by Sir Dinshaw Petit of Bombay in 1896 and this enabled the purchase of a plot of land in Royapuram where the community had established itself. However, plans to build a temple in this plot were slow in taking off.

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Courtesy : Jehangir Bisney