Readers' Forum
Housing and jobs
Over the years, a bogey has been created that if there are houses, there are no spouses. I think that this concept needs to be rubbished. Parsis throve in numbers when there was no organized housing. They also throve economically. Despite the best efforts to make the housing policy transparent, there is bound to be overt and covert cornering of flats - but I am not going into that here.
Close to 45 percent of Bombay's Parsis live in our colonies and baugs, for which we have to be thankful to those who built those. How do non-Parsis manage to procreate (I mean the decent, well-educated and well-placed persons) without a trace of organized housing for them? If we are dwindling in numbers, I feel it is by choice. It has become an irrational fashion to blame the providers of housing for the dwindling numbers. Even if a 20-room mansion were to be provided to an educated Parsi, he/she is not going to procreate a string of children. It is in the Parsis' psyche that we should restrict the numbers and add to the quality of life. What the community needs to face, up front, is the worrisome phenomenon of DINKS (double income, no kids)!
To say that we will die out, otherwise, is a bogey. We may emigrate in larger numbers but we will not die out. When Indira Gandhi nationalized the banks, in two stages, there was a misplaced fear (another bogey) that our job opportunities would vanish. Nothing like that has happened. Maybe, less Parsis are joining the banks (and joining other institutions). In a way, it has reimparted a sense of resilience amongst the young boys and girls who no longer dream of joining banks.
The community should stop further investment in housing and spend much more on education, medicare and religious education. It has become a fashion to study English and not read our scriptures in Gujarati. The community's elders should concentrate on interfaith marriages (one in three marries outside) and a spiraling rate of divorce (10 percent). Unless the community refashions its priorities, it will go helter skelter.
Close to 45 percent of Bombay's Parsis live in our colonies and baugs, for which we have to be thankful to those who built those. How do non-Parsis manage to procreate (I mean the decent, well-educated and well-placed persons) without a trace of organized housing for them? If we are dwindling in numbers, I feel it is by choice. It has become an irrational fashion to blame the providers of housing for the dwindling numbers. Even if a 20-room mansion were to be provided to an educated Parsi, he/she is not going to procreate a string of children. It is in the Parsis' psyche that we should restrict the numbers and add to the quality of life. What the community needs to face, up front, is the worrisome phenomenon of DINKS (double income, no kids)!
To say that we will die out, otherwise, is a bogey. We may emigrate in larger numbers but we will not die out. When Indira Gandhi nationalized the banks, in two stages, there was a misplaced fear (another bogey) that our job opportunities would vanish. Nothing like that has happened. Maybe, less Parsis are joining the banks (and joining other institutions). In a way, it has reimparted a sense of resilience amongst the young boys and girls who no longer dream of joining banks.
The community should stop further investment in housing and spend much more on education, medicare and religious education. It has become a fashion to study English and not read our scriptures in Gujarati. The community's elders should concentrate on interfaith marriages (one in three marries outside) and a spiraling rate of divorce (10 percent). Unless the community refashions its priorities, it will go helter skelter.
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