It was very interesting reading articles written by Parinaz Gandhi (starting with "Relevance and resilience," Parsiana, August 21, 2012) and viewing the photographs taken by Jasmine Driver on the XVI North American Zarathushti Congress held in New York, August 2012. They did a fine job.
The main disappointment was that nothing was written about the people who really worked tirelessly for months and some for two years to make this Congress the success it was. Without the efforts of people like Piroja Press who was in charge of registration, Mehru Cama, chairperson, logistics who managed and coordinated the events, meals and hotel arrangements, etc and Arzan Wadia who oversaw the technical and audiovisual aspects, this Congress would not have gone as smoothly and seamlessly as it did. I do not know if Parsiana’s representatives even got a chance to interview them as the latter were too busy running the show in the background and were not in the limelight and seen of the stage.
Besides this omission, Parsiana did a great job in covering other aspects of the Congress. It would be remiss if these people were not acknowledged.
NERGISS BATTIVALA
USA
Parinaz Gandhi replies:
In our final installment on the XVI North American Zarathushti Congress report (see "Congress cognizance," Parsiana, January 21, 2013) we had included Mehru Cama, Piroja Press, Arzan Wadia and made sure that we named the heads of all the committees who had worked backstage. We had also featured their photos.
Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to interview them and in fact only managed to interview the Congress chairs after most of the delegates had left. This in no way undermines their contribution and we can well imagine their efforts that contributed to the smooth functioning of the Congress.