For quite some time now, the merits and demerits of dakhmenashini are being discussed by the Zarathoshtis of India and in Gujarati publications like Jam-e-Jamshed and The Bombay Samachar. This has opened a Pandora’s box among other communities with Dhun Baria giving an interview on TV and showing a video clip of the shabby interiors of our dakhmas.
Over the years the Hindu system of disposal of the dead has undergone much change, in keeping with the times. Earlier a Hindu corpse was taken to a smashanbhumi (burning ghat) where it was placed on a bier, covered with wood and burnt. Today fewer bodies are disposed of using this method as it is not only time consuming (it takes hours before relatives can receive the ashes), but is also a costly affair with wood costing a minimum of Rs 1,000 and more. With more and more people opting for electric cremation, the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) has provided electric crematoria with about 50 furnaces in and around Bombay. Electric cremation is not only time saving, it costs much less and saves wood which is in very short supply.
In order to avoid controversy and reduce pressure on dakhmenashini we should use the vast areas of land around the Doongerwadi which are lying vacant to build a special bungli, away from the main ruvan ni bunglis, with two electric crematorium furnaces. Relatives of those who wish to use the crematorium should, after the geh sarna (which the Bombay Parsi Punchayet should enjoin all the mobeds to perform irrespective of the method of disposal), consign their dear ones either to the dakhmas or crematorium.
People wrongly contend that since we worship fire in our agiaries we would be polluting fire by using cremation. I have designed, got commissioned, and used 16 furnaces in Bombay for the BMC. A crematorium furnace is built with the outer shell made of fire bricks. In the inner chamber where combustion takes place specially designed fire bricks are inlaid with very high temperature heating elements. The furnace is heated and maintained at 800°C. The dead body, which is consigned to the inner chamber, ignites at this very high temperature and combustion of the entire body is completed within 40 minutes without any fire touching the body. It is the intense heat of 800°C that devours the body.
Another wrong presumption is that smoke emanating from the chimney next to the furnace pollutes the atmosphere. The ashes and smoke coming out of the furnaces first pass through specially designed water scrubbers which remove the foul smoke and carbon particles and pure smoke is blown into the atmosphere through a common 20-meter high chimney. Also, the cost of two crematorium furnaces, with a well designed building housing them, will not exceed five crore rupees and construction can be completed in less than 12 months. Zoroastrians must consider these facts and then opt for either of these systems of disposal.
MINOO B. DALAL