Two Stereotypes Share a Snack


A magazine ad from 1979. The gent on the left is the Tamil brahmin stereotype, with his forehead covered by a big caste mark (denoting, in this case, a worshipper of Shiva). On the right is a Parsi, member of a small minority group (Zoroastrians, originally from Iran) who are considered for stereotypical purposes to be lovably eccentric.

(I had written here that the name Parsi derived from Farsi, meaning Persian. Farah, in a comment, clarifies that Parsis emigrated from the Pars (a region in Persia), and hence were called Parsis. The Farsi language, the name of which I presume came from the same source, is not connected to the Parsis.)

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