On a Return to Roots trip to India, youngsters
from the diaspora with a Parsi lineage get an opportunity to reflect on the history, culture
and Zoroastrian religion
Shaun Walker
This extract from Shaun Walker’s article "The last of the Zoroastrians: A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion” has been reprinted with permission from The Guardian, August 6, 2020.
My grandfather had never been a tall man, and now he looked absurdly small, no bigger than a child. Swaddled in off-white sheets like a newborn, with just his head and the soles of his feet visible, his eyes were open and mouth disconcertingly agape, as if in surprise. His corpse was slightly raised from the floor, lain atop a rickety wooden stretcher. Beside the body, two priests......