Tourists to Mumbai (Bombay) are driven around Malabar Hill, where the city’s top elite live in a tranquil neighborhood that includes the Hanging Gardens. I was there as a tourist last May.

Driving by a large, heavily secured park in Malabar Hill, we also caught glimpses of the Tower of Silence where, astonishingly, vultures pick clean the corpses of the dead belonging to the Parsi ethno-religious community.

Or they used to. The vultures are getting scarce because of the pollution of urban growth. Now, solar panels and other means are being tried to decompose the corpses. But, ultimately, the Parsis may have to embrace cremation and burial. The neighborhoods are objecting to corpses that are not quickly dispatched.

I found the Parsis a fascinating group in Mumbai, India’s largest city with some 20 million in its metropolitan area. They are a miniscule minority, maybe 100,000. But their economic prowess is legendary. An estimated 60,000 in modern times have gone on to Dubai and other countries to invest in and run businesses, according to our guide. I was to meet later in Abu Dhabi a Parsi couple with a well-established off-shore marine business.

Who are the Parsis? They migrated to India from Persia in the 7th century to escape the invading Arabs and to establish new trade ties. When the British East Indian Company set up in Bombay in the 17th century, the Parsis came to take jobs. They became a favored group under British colonial rulers and benefited from British schooling. They built up their businesses and shipping networks.

They were descendants of Persian Zoroastrians who held a belief that fire, earth and water are sacred and hence they do not cremate nor bury their dead.

The Parsis have sought, as Indian nationals, to tightly maintain their own customs, strict marriage rules and religion. But it’s getting harder to do so. Our guide told us Parsis are significantly declining in numbers. Low birth rates and migration overseas are taking their toll.

The guide emphasized the wealth and accomplishments of the Parsis. The famous musician Zubin Mehta is a Parsi. And there are several renowned industrial families including the Tata family. The name “Tata” rang a bell and I decided to dig deeper into this family story.

The founder of the Tata Group, Jamshedji Tata (1839-1904), is considered the father of modern Indian industry. He was the first businessman in a family of Zoroastrian priests. He started with a cotton mill and quickly moved on to steel and many other industries. He built Bombay’s elegant Taj Mahal Hotel on the waterfront in 1903, reportedly because he was refused entrance as “a native” to a European hotel. It is on every tourist list to see – and to stay in, if you can afford it.

What is so interesting in terms of today’s newly emerging countries is to discover the Tata Group is the largest private company in India. It is led by fifth-generation family members. It has 98 companies involved in steel, chemicals, energy, information technology, consumer products and services. It operates in 85 countries. It employs 300,000 people. It is acclaimed for its commendable philanthropic, education and research activities which won it the 2007 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

This past year, Tata Motors was widely publicized for building the world’s cheapest car. The car called the Tata Nano will sell for $2,500 and is advertised to get 50 miles to the gallon.

In recent years, the Tata Group has been aggressively looking for investments overseas. In the United States, it bought the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston in 2006 and obtained a 30 percent stake in Energy Brands, a bottled water maker. In 2007, it signed a memorandum of agreement with Boeing to build Boeing aerospace components. In India, it has a joint venture with our gigantic American insurance company, American International Group (AIG). AIG was rescued last week by the U.S. government from going under in the current Wall Street crisis

Thus an observation of unusual Parsi funerary methods leads onward to this story of a remarkable Parsi family and its thriving modern conglomerate. The Tatu Group is on a current list of 100 companies in developing countries worldwide who are challenging the old order of multinational companies.

Ambassador Harriet Isom grew up in Pendleton and has retired to the family ranch. She was a career diplomat serving in Asia and Africa from 1961 to 1996.