I am delighted that you have published a New Year edition of Parsiana (August 21, 2010) running into over 250 pages. I have counted the number of advertisers you were able to garner for the issue — 183 persons/companies/institutions. That is a lot more than the WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) can do. Their dependence is on a fruit drink manufacturer. As the drink has to be diluted before it is consumed, so should all the poison that they write be diluted or not read at all.
In the WAPIZ Page in The Free Press Journal of September 3, 2010 the late Jamshed Guzder has been eulogized as an industrialist, an astute businessman, a philanthropist and a true Zoroastrian.
On the same page, there is a tirade against the visit to a place of worship by Roshni D’Souza’s children. This piece states that anyone can be a Zoroastrian and get a navjote done, but to be a Zoroastrian Parsi you must have both Parsi parents or at least the father must be one.
I wish that some learned Parsi would advise me about who is a Parsi. In my childhood, my grandmother told me some stories about Zoroastrians coming to India as they were being attacked in Iran. We were given shelter here and adopted the ways and customs that suited us. As long as we did our own thing, we were left alone. Those who are termed Iranis are also from Iran, but they arrived much later. My grandmother told me that Farsi was a language and business title of that time from which the word Parsi was derived. If this is true, our narrow minded bigots who warm the chairs of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet’s (BPP) boardroom are no better than those who insist on establishing a community on the platform of a language or a trade.
I have serious reservations about this. I am, and always will be first a human being. Demographics determined that I am an Asian, born in India. It is an accident of birth (over which we have no control) that I am a Zoroastrian. I have, like all our kin, accepted the label of Parsi. It is easier to say and spell than Zoroastrian. Are we to understand that one has to be born in India to be a Zoroastrian Parsi? I am confused, but perhaps not as much as the Bilkul Ponya (utterly slow-witted) Parsis!
If we are to live our lives by orthodox tradition, tell the learned men and women of the BPP to dress as our ancestors did, to speak the language of our forefathers and to return to the ways of 1,300 years ago. While we adapt wherever it is convenient, this handful of people is bent on lying through their teeth and spoiling the names of other respectable citizens.
If there are priests who have "hurt the feelings of the community” (we should have an independent survey done by a non-community group for this), that is not emerging from the pages of Parsiana. I do not believe that the magazine prints only letters from liberals; it is very well balanced. (They even interviewed the chairman of the BPP and reported fearlessly.) We pay a subscription for Parsiana because we want and like to read it, while WAPIZ foists its news and views on 14,000 families every fortnight and pretends that it is appreciated.
I am not a very religious person but I believe that God is omnipresent, that one can converse with him in any language, at any time and from anywhere. There is no proof that He would hear me only if I go to a Parsi fire temple. I have been heard from a church, a temple and a mosque because I choose to believe that He heard me. I don’t need specified clothing, string or cap for Him to hear me. After all, it is the singer not the song that is constant, no matter whom you worship. There is a lesson to learn from the Christian philosophy: Always praise the Lord, ask nothing of Him for he knows what is best for you. Just thank Him no matter what may befall you.
JAMSHED IRANI
iranjams@yahoo.in