We often read opinions in the Readers’ Forum of Parsiana that to improve our future prospects, adoption and conversion of ‘aliens’ should be considered without any concern for the cultural heritage, our tokham, bunak pasbani and purity of blood, for which our wise, devoted pilgrim fathers had sacrificed their entire prosperity. Will this remedy of conversion solve these problems or create unnecessary perplexity? Can we preserve our ideal cultural heritage by increasing some quantity, at the risk of losing our special identity?
Our glorious identity must be preserved to save us from total extinction. Instead of harboring the wrong notion of ‘What has the community done for me?’ We should ask ‘What can I do for my community?’ Our leaders must try and find out some remedy to solve unfavorable situations stated here:
It seems that the Parsi population only in India has decreased, but not in the rest of the world where they are scattered. After qualifying themselves with higher education many years of their life are utilized for career building thereby delaying marriage. The girls being more qualified they expect their husbands to be better educated with fatter purses — no compromise! Parsi boys hesitate to marry and have a family for fear of not being able to meet the higher ambitions of girls within their limited income.
The scarcity of affordable housing is a major reason, as young couples prefer to stay separate rather than stay with their parents.
In an aging community, deaths are more than births.
Birth control and small family is preferred by all on the rationale ‘mogvari bauh chhè (there is increasing inflation).’
Interfaith marriages is also a reason. When girls marry, they lawfully belong to the in-laws (‘chhokri saasré ni kéhvay’). When Parsi girls marry outside their community, their children have no rights to enjoy any privileges of the community and hence are considered to be non-Parsis.
The Zarathushti religion professes conversion of convictions and false notions in our mind but not conversion of people.
NOSHIR DABOO
Ahmedabad