Archive

In the late 1960s, when Neil Armstrong was about to land on the moon, a 14-year-old from Minnesota, USA named Joseph Peterson stumbled upon a copy of the Khordeh Avesta in the local library and devoured it within weeks. He then surprised his local librarian by spurning Mad magazine and sci-fi novels and began to read obsessively about this obscure unknown faith called Zoroastrianism.
He was enamored by the teachings of the faith which said every man has a rational choice, and that God created only good and not evil. He convinced his amused mother, a seamstress, to sew for him a white sleeveless undershirt with a purse stitched near the neck line, and began to wear it. He began to pray, first in English, and over the years in Avesta and Pahlavi, before a home fire. It would though be many years before he would meet another Zoroastrian in the flesh.
A book can suddenly change your destiny. This happened to Peterson, a gentle looking American Christian of medium height who wore orthodontic braces. After years of practicing Zoroastrianism in isolation, he came across back issues of Parsiana. He was shocked to learn that this universal faith had many adherents who were violently opposed to non-Parsis being converted to Zoroastrianism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He began to correspond with Dr Dolly Dastoor of the Zoroastrian Association of Québec who invited him to lecture at the Fourth North American Zoroastrian Congress. At the Congress, Peterson was gifted by many well-wishers several sudrehs and kustis, correctly stitched and consecrated. He was overjoyed.
His dream of being officially converted to Zoroastrianism no longer seemed distant. A Zoroastrian priest in North America, Ervad Noshir Hormuzdiyar, interviewed, nay almost interrogated him at length, to ascertain the genuineness and sincerity of his beliefs and his knowledge of the religion. Peterson appeared to be "called to” by forces beyond the rational.
Peterson wanted a quiet navjote, as he was not an exhibitionist. However, the liberals of North America persuaded him to agree to a public navjote.
On March 5, 1983, 27-year-old Peterson stood bare torsoed on a wooden paatlo (low stool) at the Arbab and Morvarid Dare Mehr in New Rochelle. Ervad (Dr) Kersey Antia [classmate of Dastur (Dr) Firoze Kotwal at the Cama Athornan Madressa], originally from a poor priestly family in Surat, invested him with the sudreh. For teary-eyed Peterson, it was a dream come true. For the orthodox in Bombay, it was the beginning of a nightmare.
First, polite dissuasion and then hate mail from the traditionalists in India followed. But his resolve further strengthened. The Jam-é-Jamshed Weekly lambasted the conversion, while The Bombay Samachar supported it. The Bombay Parsi Punchayet viewed it "with disfavor.” The ultraorthodox by their fanatic passion often drive middle-of-the-road persons to liberalism or even heresy.
Was Peterson a pawn in the power play of the rich liberal Parsis of North America? Or was it a banner of revolt against the xenophobia of a faith whose prophet enjoined conversion? Antia was no Martin Luther. He wilted under orthodox vilification from India and feebly termed the navjote as only a vohu jote (meaning good invoker as opposed to new invoker). However, after facing relentless continued abuse from the Athornan Mandal, Council of Vigilant Parsis and the Jashan Committee (all now moribund, but strident in those days), Antia threw caution to the winds and became the defender-in-chief of the navjote. He penned a mini treatise titled, The Argument for Acceptance in Zoroastrianism. The triumvirate of Kotwal, orthodox scholars Khojeste Mistree and James Russell (himself practicing Zoroastrianism in private) countered Antia’s arguments through another treatise.
What agitated the sensible orthodox was not the conversion of Peterson but his navjote. Kotwal put it succinctly thus: It is wrong to use the navjote ritual for accepting converts. The orthodox apprehend, and rightly so from their perspective that, almost imperceptibly, such navjotes will result in the obliteration of the distinction between Parsis and Zoroastrians. That would be the end of orthodoxy. And that’s what the liberals of North America perhaps wanted to ultimately achieve. White American Christians cannot be accused of being attracted by community benefits. Instead they were genuinely besotted by the faith. Peterson was a chemical engineer and IBM computer scientist without any personal agenda. There was no better specimen to sound the bugle of liberalism with.
Four decades later, Peterson’s daughters are Christians, a trifle curious about their father’s strange religion. That’s all. There have not been many navjotes of persons whose parents were not racially Parsis. So was it much ado about nothing? Like the navjotes of Suzanne Tata and Bella from Rangoon. What fate will befall Goolrookh Gupta, Sanaya Dalal and Prochy Mehta, the ladies currently seeking gender equality for the interfaith married? Their cases are before the Supreme Court of India and the Calcutta High Court.
It is highly probable that gender equality will be established sooner or later. Outright organized conversion, however, like Peterson’s, is unlikely in the immediate future. Even diehard reformists will concede that the closed-door policy has prevented the uniqueness of the community from being swamped by the great Indian melting pot. However, North America is a different matter. Interfaith marriages are the norm and non-Parsi spouses are treated on par with Parsis. In the coming decades, the carefully preserved distinction between Parsi, the race, and Zoroastrianism, the religion, may be obliterated.
Peterson, 65, runs a highly informative website called www.avesta.org demonstrating his continuing love affair with the religion he follows, not by accident of birth, but by rational choice.