In your editorial "The Dadar duo” (Parsiana, March 21, 2016) you state: "In Bombay around 15% of Parsi bodies are cremated at the new Prayer Hall at Worli which commenced operation in September 2015.” Further, now 13 priests have enrolled for performing the obsequy ceremonies. The chairman of the Prayer Hall Trust, Dinshaw Tamboly has achieved amazing success in just half a year! Let me shed half a tear for the orthodox to help them in their weeping.
Without giving them time to stop weeping, you have carried a letter "Defunct dakhmas” by Piroja Homi Jokhi in the same issue, introducing readers to the ecofriendly systems of promession and resomation. That the system of dakhmenashini has failed is further underlined in the item "Navsari priest opts for burial.” One agrees with Tamboly, managing trustee of the World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust Funds who posted a comment on Parsiana’s Facebook page, referring to the late Ervad Homi Kotwal as having done a very courageous act in opting for an alternative mode of disposal. Tamboly calls Kotwal a "realist.” One should applaud the 81-year-old priest who was convinced that the traditional system had collapsed.
How can anybody go on straining to uphold dakhmenashini at a time when vultures are not available by assuming that they are serving the cause of ecology and nature and the will of God when in reality the elements are being monstrously abused, defiled and corrupted? Pollution can never be prevented in practical life, though it can be lessened. Even when vultures devour the dead, the soil is polluted by their excreta which falls to the earth.
The sad fact for the orthodox is a desertion of orthodoxy on all fronts. The interview with Jim Sarbh, "The terrific terrorist,” in the same issue, is yet another example of a growing trend which is uncomfortable for the sanctimonious. The young actor has declared that he does not pray in the traditional sense, since he neither wears the sudreh-kusti nor recites the Avestan prayers. One can imagine the ultra-orthodox commenting that Sarbh "is worse than a terrorist!”
Time is rapidly running against the community and the hope of more reformation among the unenlightened is a strong expectation devoutly to be desired.
RASHID G. KHOSRAVI