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I strategically waited in the corridor to pull Zane aside before he entered the living room where the family had gathered in anticipation. I patted his forehead and said, "Now, you remember everything that happens in the nahn, right?”
He nodded enthusiastically. "First I have to recite Kem na Mazda. Then I have to do the kusti ceremony. Then I have to chew some leaves and spit them out on a plate. Then I have to take only one sip of the holy water. Then Mamma will bathe me in milk and then…”
I abruptly seized Zane by the shoulders. "Now listen to me very carefully. Remember the part about the holy water?”
He bobbed his head, eyes big.
"You’re supposed to swallow the entire thing. Don’t leave a single drop behind.”
He cocked his head in confusion. "But Mamma said to take only a tiny sip of the holy water.”
"Mamma was lying,” I said urgently. "This is a test. God wants to see if you trust your big sister.”
"But...”
"No buts!” I said firmly. "Think about it, Zanu. Drinking more of the holy water is only going to make you... more holy. Doesn’t that make sense?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

He nodded slowly, the small cogs in his brain turning, testing the logic of my claims.
"Good boy,” I smiled widely before he thought too much into it. "Now go, everyone’s waiting for you.”
I waited with bated breath as the nahn took place. It was only immediate family and the priest, a short pre-ceremony before Zane’s navjote. Everything was smooth sailing.
That is until the priest placed the glass of "holy water” in Zane’s awaiting hands. It wasn’t a big glass, maybe the size of a shot glass. Zane studied it, then glanced at me, resolution glimmering in his eyes. My parents exchanged a bewildered look. I sat tight.
Before they knew what had happened, Zane swiftly tilted his head back and downed the entire glass in one go.
"Zane, NO!” Mum yelped in alarm.
But it was too late. Zane had swiped his tongue across the rim for good measure and placed the glass on the table with a smack of his lips. He looked up at me, a glowing grin on his face. I couldn’t hold it in. I threw my head back and cackled, tears steadily streaming down my face.
Now Zane looked baffled, as he registered Mum and Dad’s horrified expressions and the priest’s twitching face that was struggling to remain solemn.
"What?” he asked innocently.
Mum sighed and pressed her forehead, "Zane, you weren’t supposed to drink the whole thing!”
"The holy water is actually…” Dad began.
"Bull’s urine,” I wheezed, as I clutched my stomach from the laughter induced stitches.
Zane’s mouth dropped open.
So Zane looking petulant and on the verge of tears on one of the most important days of his life really painted me as the malefactor.
His face was appallingly pinched, his large innocent eyes struggling under the compression of his scrunched-up eyebrows, his bottom lip quivering. He was trying to mumble the words of prayer alongside the priest, but I knew all he wanted to do was hurtle off that stage, throw a megalithic eight-year-old tantrum, and bury his snotty face in our mother’s midriff.
"Tiana!” Mum barked.
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I wiped my eyes, attempting to curb my guffaws.
Zane looked positively green. "Are you saying I… I just drank bull’s pee?”
At the word "pee,” I began howling again. Even the priest made an inelegant noise, concealing his snort.
Mum narrowed her eyes at me before tucking Zane under her arm, caressing his hair comfortingly.
"Don’t worry Zane, Tiana’s nahn was far more embarrassing,” Dad jibed, whilst patting his back.
I sighed inwardly, deciding that heaping up a plate of chicken farcha from the buffet as a peace offering would make good headway toward obtaining Zane’s forgiveness.
My laughter instantly sobered as the unbidden memory flooded back.
Delnaz, my older cousin, had carried out the tradition for me and my experience was particularly foul. She had pulled me aside, the same way I had Zane, except her tactics were a little different. I remember thinking she was being suspiciously gentle.
"Tiana, the holy water you’re about to drink,” Delnaz paused for dramatic effect, an expression of perfected devastation on her face. "It is the urine of a holy bull.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was gobsmacked. "What? Ew, no way.”
She nodded gravely. "Way. I just thought you should know the most well-kept secret in the Parsi community. It’s important to know the truth.”
She promptly steered me to the very same living room, my face fixed in a grimace. I was sceptical. Throughout the nahn, my eyes remained glued to the tiny glass on the table.
It looked harmless, like water. I considered making a run for it, but I knew my mother.
She’d simply drag me back and pour it down my throat herself if it came to that.
By the time the glass was placed in my repulsed hands, I was religiously chanting in my head, "It’ll taste like water, it’ll taste like water, it’ll taste like water.”
If bull’s urine was holy, then so be it. I would swallow it like a drain.
Grasping the glass, in one fluid motion I let the liquid trickle into my mouth. In that same moment, my brain triggered an alarm and shrieked: "Alert! Alert! Bull’s pee is trickling down your throat, alert. Foreign substance that was excreted from the bladder of a bull is in your body. Expel immediately. Immediately!”
I couldn’t keep it down. I viciously gagged, spewing the liquid directly onto the white garments of the priest.
There was a moment of shocked silence, but for the pitter-patter of the priest’s dripping vestments on the marble. Without looking up, I staggered to the bathroom to wash my mouth, gargling fiercely.
Needless to say, my drenching the priest in bull’s urine went down as one of the most legendary reactions to the nahn in the baug. It was all anyone could talk about for ages, much to my chagrin and mortification.
You’d imagine that I’d feel a smidgen of remorse over my petty actions on Zane’s navjote. I did. But only because I shouldn’t have acted out of vengeance, trying to get Zane’s taro (bull’s urine) incident to outshine mine. Other than that, absolutely not. It’s one of those stories that never got old and the laughter it elicited never lessened. Even Zane has a sense of humor about it now, chuckling at his childish innocence.
 However, I must say that after the incident, Zane became the embodiment of cynicism when it came to me. In hindsight, I learned that events that begin in embarrassment often turn into the best laughs and fondest memories.