Now I am convinced that the Indian Parsis have lost it. Are they doing this on purpose so that we can become extinct faster? Or do they not know how to react to the changes that are creeping in? I fail to understand their reasoning for this illogical behavior that one sees around us.
There are a dime a dozen Goolrookhs who visit the agiary and attend every ceremony and no one has stopped them. But since Goolrookh Gupta has been barred (by the Valsad Parsi Anjuman from entering the local agiary and doongerwadi) she had to take recourse to law to end such fascist, fundamentalist diktats. Hopefully this matter will be settled in her favor and those like her, but at what cost!
Even before this case is resolved, we now hear about the Calcutta no kisso (the incident in Calcutta where the navjoted children of a Parsi mother married to a non-Parsi were denied admission to the Mehta Adaran in the city) where the matter has been dragged to the High Court and some of the ever-ready Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees directing the affairs of The Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India have thrown in their support of the orthodoxy, naturally at our cost ("The Calcutta cauldron,” Editorial Viewpoint, Parsiana, August 7, 2017)!
What has become clear is the fact that a change of mobed in the Calcutta Adaran is the cause of this hungama as he is a pucca orthodox as against the earlier mobed who did not have a problem with the navjoted grandchildren of Prochy Mehta. In this age and time it seems rather hilarious, more so as there is hardly any movement of devotees in our agiaries. When such restrictions are imposed how can the community benefit?
When a regular flow of Zoroastrians from abroad come to pay their respect and homage to the Iranshah at Udvada, how do you figure out the Zoroastrian parentage of those navjoted abroad? When you cannot find any reason to stop them, then why this nitpicking for the Indian Parsis?
Who can stop anyone from entering our place of worship if there is no way to identify Parsis? I remember once my pure blooded, chust (staunch) Parsi cousin was asked "Tamé Parsi chhèo? Navjot kidhij? (Are you a Parsi? Has your navjote been performed?)” and my friend who had married an American and got their children’s navjote performed sailed in without a query! Where then is the sense? The first thing to do is to remove the "Only for Parsi Irani Zoroastrians” board which is a farce. If non Parsis entering our place of worship make it un-sacred, apavitra, then it has already been done. Have you ever heard about an agiary being re-consecrated because of parjats (non Parsis) entering ? Well I haven’t, but have seen and heard many cases of non Parsis visiting our places of worship.
By orthodox standards if these people are all sinners, well so be it. I am reading a beautiful book by Rohinton Nariman The Inner Fire, which clearly states that Zarathushtra himself was never born a Parsi. What more proof does one need? To my mind anyone who wishes to follow the path chalked out by Zarathushtra should be happily accepted without any qualms be he/she from Iran, Kazakhstan or wherever, as long as he/she is a true follower who has been navjoted without any compulsion or conversion. This is the only way for us to maintain our identity and sanity in this world.
RODA HAKIM
Vadodara
vadhakim@yahoo.com
The editors reply
At the Iranshah Udvada Utsav in December 2015, an editor of Parsiana and a correspondent of The Times of India were both asked if they were Parsis outside the Atash Behram. Offended, neither of the practicing Zoroastrians entered!