"I am a white English woman… I loved my father-in-law dearly and wanted to attend his funeral so, with my (six-month-old) baby in my arms, I sat through the service and followed the procession carrying the body up to the top of the hill,” recalled England based Barbara Bacon, writing to Parsiana on January 2, 2022, nearly five decades after the passing away of the respected ophthalmic surgeon Dr Aderbad Irani.
Well aware that the incident in Bombay in 1974 had triggered a community furor, Bacon requested a copy of the Parsiana issue of April-May 1974 that had carried a detailed report (see "The Doongerwadi ban”). She wanted to share the contents of the article with her "part Parsi” daughters and their children.
Barbara Bacon (l) as Barbara Irani 48 years ago
While Bacon had sat through the paidust, when objections to her presence were raised at the uthamna, she and her then husband Dr Daryush left the hall. The incident caused the Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees to convene an urgent board meeting to pass a resolution requiring family members to sign a statement that non-Parsis would not be permitted to enter the bunglis while prayers were being conducted and that priests should not perform any ceremonies if a non-Zoroastrian was present.
Parsiana had then coined a new term to describe the emotional outburst as "dakh-mania” — characterized by mental and physical hyperactivity triggered off by any reference to dakhmas. Some Parsiana readers had described the practice of not permitting non-Zoroastrians to attend obsequies of Zoroastrians as "absurd,” "inhuman,” "racist,” "shameful and wrong.”
Then 25 years old, Barbara, an orthoptist treating squints at Dr Irani’s eye clinic, was saddened by the resolution coming from a community that was supposed to be "the most westernized and forward looking.” She had then conveyed to Parsiana that she had attended the prayers "as any daughter would for her father.” She believed, "Merely saying prayers isn’t going to set you right with God. It is what is in your heart and in your mind which counts.”
In the course of the email exchange in 2022, Parsiana enquired whether the Iranis’ two daughters were navjoted, Barbara responded, "Unfortunately, the way things developed was not as expected as Daryush decided after his father’s death to return to England. Our marriage broke down and we were divorced, with an order for the children to remain in my care. As I am a Christian, the children have been brought up as such but they have been encouraged to make their own decisions as they grew up.
"Kelyn [whose second name is Meher (inspired by her grandfather’s mother)] became a barrister, took silk (became a Queen’s Counsel) just over seven years ago and then in October 2020 became the first woman to be appointed as a High Court judge from her chambers in the past 100 years. Cathy became a chartered civil engineer and is now a senior manager for a social housing company covering a large area of London and the south of England… When they were 18 they both decided to change their surnames to Bacon as I had remarried.”
While both the daughters appreciated that Parsiana had "dug out this piece of family history,” the email from Kelyn Bacon Darwin on January 6 specified, "We lost contact with our father and were brought up as Christians in the Church of England (CofE). I continue to attend my local CofE church in London. I don’t know much about Parsi traditions but I am in regular contact with (and meet up with) my half-sister from our father’s second marriage, and we celebrated a Navroz dinner together over Zoom (or something similar) last year during the lockdown!”
Cathy wrote two days later that she "started attending Quaker meetings about 20 years ago, rather sporadically, but have been a consistent attendee and am now a member for about 13 years (since my oldest son was born). I am living in London and don’t really have anything to do with the Parsi or Zoroastrian community as I was brought up by my mother and my stepfather and haven’t seen my father since I was about eight years old (he is now dead).”
While the Bacons have apparently moved on, dakh-mania continues to prevail among the Parsi community in Bombay!