Welcome To Zasha

Perveen Nadirshaw Tayabali is a professional artist, portraitist, writer of children’s stories and adult fiction.

Perveen studied at the College of Arts and Crafts in Chennai and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the Sir JJ School of Fine Arts. She worked for a while as a textile designer with Bombay Dyeing and as a jewellery designer. After two years in the corporate world, she concentrated on painting, exhibiting at the Lalit Kala Academy and the Sarla Art Gallery in Chennai. After her marriage to Dr. Mujtaba Tayabali, a fellow artist, they held joint exhibitions at Cymroza Art Gallery and Jehangir Art Gallery. In 1993, she moved to England with her family, where Perveen continues to paint and exhibit her work in Cambridge as a member of the Cambridge Open Studios. Her paintings and client portraits, painted in oils and chalk pastels, hang in homes and offices worldwide.

Perveen began writing magical stories for her three children when they were little, then in 2004, when her husband, Mujtaba, lost his sight, she started working on her first novel, Seasons of Friendship, followed by Roxanne, to enable him to wander down memory lane. Her memories of growing up and living in Bombay are vivid, with the added advantage of knowing not only her grandmother but her great-grandmother as well. With knowledge gleaned from these two ladies, Perveen chronicles Parsi life and customs through a nostalgic lens in her writings. Her great-grandmother, Cooverbai Lalkaka, an artist and a writer, wrote the Behram Yazad story in Gujarati around 1900. Perveen hopes to translate this work once her third novel is complete.