"This was the first year when there had been so many deaths and such few births, bringing our count to only 1,006 in our anjuman,” community member Rushad Cama noted at the September 24, 2017 annual general meeting (AGM) of the Shree Parsi Panchayat, Vadodara (SPPV), notes their November 2017 newsletter Zend. Pointing out that only 25 persons had turned up at the Khordad Sal jashan in August 2017, president Baman Cama stressed the need for community members to "mingle and know one another better.” Of their 1,000 plus members, 43 attended the AGM, states Zend.
"There were hardly a dozen people in attendance” at the garlanding ceremony at Dr Dadabhai Naoroji’s statue at Sayajigunj on September 4, his 192nd birth anniversary where Baman and co-trustees Aspi Vazifdar and Lt Col Adi Chinoy paid homage to the thinker and statesman. Reporting in the section on "Events,” Zend editor Meher Ginwalla notes that "one fears that if this continues, the (municipal) corporation would decide to discontinue the practice.”
Ginwalla adds that "some years ago, the then mayor Jatin Mody would invite members of the community to the hall at the Committee Gardens Planetarium on Navroz... where there would be a feeling of warmth and oneness. Gradually, the number of our community members who attended dwindled.... and the practice came to an end.” As Ginwalla puts it, "Nobody (is) to blame but ourselves.”
Zend also paid homage to the late Noshir Gazdar (pictured) who served as SPPV manager from 1996 to 2012, commending his humility, his hard work, integrity and punctuality and his rapport with government officials. Gazdar used to "transport our mobeds to the bungli and back, in his own car, whenever there was a ruvan (corpse), and this he did (voluntarily) for 20 years,” the newsmagazine points out. The current manager of the SPPV is Homi Patel.