Resolution refrain

We, the Zoroastrian priests of United Kingdom, pay tribute to the Vada Dasturs in India for their leadership and wisdom in giving the mobeds and the Zoroastrian community a clear message and direction in the performance of the ashirwad and the navjote ceremonies in accordance with the tenets of the Zoroastrian faith.

We give our wholehearted support to this resolution and thank them for their care and concern for our community.

Ervads Eruch Daruwalla, Farokh Daruwalla, Murzban Dastur, Rayomand Gazi, Keki Kanga, Murzban Karkaria, Sam Karkaria, Zarir Patel, Farhad Sethna, Murzban Sethna and Zal Sethna

The recent controversy as regards the fatwa of the Parsi High Priests could not have come at a worse time! How many centuries will it take us to learn that God has no religion? That He fulfils Himself in many ways? That till the human race gives up its theories as regards conversions, inter-marriages, and allows us to follow our own paths there is only going to be chaos? This is the 21st century. Man has evolved (or so we thought) to realize that God is pure spirit. He can be worshipped by any devotee belonging to any caste or creed. Today, more than ever, we need to become good human beings, loving and caring towards our fellowmen; not losing our identity in fighting over conversions, cremations and such rubbish which does nothing for our spiritual progress, except to get caught in a chakravyu of useless controversies and futile discussions which lead nowhere.

I am proud to be a Zoroastrian. Let me progress in freeedom and free will. Will I become small if I marry a good person outside my community? Can my children or my spouse not partake of the glorious tenets of our noble religion? Why does a high priest have to impose his will on the community when he himself has erred in the past? e.g. the navjotes of the Wadia family? Let us learn from our mistakes and not because some dastur, however vada, has told us to believe his version of right and wrong! It’s time all these regulations are scrapped and our small community does not get bogged down in meaningless controversies. Soon there will be no Parsi community but only a tribe of disparate human beings who are getting smaller by the day because some dastur said, "No conversion. No inter-marriage. No this or that.” Leave us in peace, please!

GOOLOO MEHTA

The Vada Dasturs’ fatwa has suddenly shaken up the ‘thinking Parsis.’ Yes we are dwindling in numbers and this is a statistical fact, but signs of an upward trend would have been possible had we accepted children of interfaith marriages, where any one parent is a Parsi. But the resolution of the Vada Dasturs has with one stroke of their pen negated all the progressive views. If their diktat is to be followed then sad be the day for us. As Anil Thakraney writes in the Sunday Mid Day, April 6: "It would be such a tragedy if we lose these wonderful people: the damn milk will taste bitter all over again.”

If the rich and powerful can get away with it all then one can only surmise that the Priests "ubhro kaahri rayaaj (expression of pent-up feelings)” is because as they feel sidetracked and neglected. To end in the words of Thakraney "Bottomline: Better to have ‘half Bawas,’ than to have none at all.”

RODA D. HAKIM

Vadodara

Our priestly surgeons have been dreaming, thinking,/Planning, preparing an original prescription for us,/Unique and curious, but certain to succeed.

It is for our survival,/A dying community; and in passing,/For conserving our age-old prosperity.

We are the Parsi Zoroastrians,/(In short now called Zeds)/Pure of blood, Persian Parsis, so fair, so good, so select.

A claim has been made/That if we decapitate (us)/— Metaphorically speaking, of course — /The Whole will survive and be saved.

The community for sure must accept/The program to decapitate, (in pairs)./Rejoice, celebrate; now we won’t die./So long as we Zeds/Of undiluted blue blood/Can keep ourselves alive into bite-less old age — /Toothless, spineless, aimless, at last.

The surgical instruments/On offer from six great holy men/Are on world-wide display:/Opinions and views, requests,/Declarations; and some commandments/To be intelligently deduced.

In their published letter/They have claimed that their views/Coincide with the community’s./But I find no indicators of how/They arrived at the conclusion/That the community are sharing/Their special brand of thinking,/Especially ex-communicating.

Let us carefully examine their plan — /The Alice-in-Wonderland prescription./With a tiny mathematical inversion/We come upon a quixotic solution:/Detect, reject, select for amputation,/Limbs or parts that give offence/To the purveyors of dreams/And our Reverend High Priests;

The torso that is left/May be regarded, they suggest,/As a surviving, thriving/Unevolving Whole, quite wholesome,/Surely the best in the world.

In the "requests” to the men/Holding the purse-strings — the custodians — /Can be detected the holy commandments

The holy men have declared that our community/Is, and indeed can only be, made up/Of folk living, breeding, dying with their/Commandments in mind. Consequently,/Great care must be taken/If we intend to access/Our properties, our ceremonies,/Our places of worship and prayer,/and those beautiful gardens,/Where some of us go, when dead;/Although numbers are steadily decreasing

In order that anyone may "enter,”/He will have, perforce, to be /A card-holding member of the Great Zoroastrian Party (GZP)/Furthermore/He should be, should have been,/Should confine himself to always being,/A parent/a child, as the case may be,/Of pure Persian blood to the last platelet,/Besides being obedient to the holy decrees.

The most baffling of all is the matter,/Of which six High Priests have rather/Unexpectedly made a clean breast:/Unhesitatingly, they have urged/Custodians of the Parsi Punchayet/To follow their lead in treating/As invalid, the marriage of couples/Who may choose or have chosen

To wed by the law of the land!/No matter if the couple be/Dyed-in-the-wool Persian, that is, Parsi Zoroastrian./And they have "requested”/Our respected custodians/To safeguard our Parsi property./Consequently/Parsi Zoroastrians must take it/That marriage by law is worse/Than what globally prevails — the practice/Of partners living together in bliss/Rather than tying the knot.

Oh tremble, good Zoroastrians, tremble/Zoroastrian couples, pure and simple,/Married by law though they be/Are soon to be disabled/From bringing forth "legitimate” children/Who could qualify for the Party’s card/And the consequent benefits

The law provides merely a contract/Ashirwad makes marriage a sacrament/And the self appointed Zoroastrian Court provides/For the forfeiture of cards and benefits/The couple’s pure blood notwithstanding./The edict has gone forth/Do not marry by law —/You will lose your Party cards,/You pure and faithful Zoroastrians

How graciously they propose/To decapitate and reduce/Our number, so our/Whole may not be lost to us.

Vah !

In our Zoroastrian diaspora, some Jejeebhoys/Tatas, Bhabhas, Wadias,/Manekjis, Cursetjis, Godrejs/Shall lose their positions of nobility,/The scions of every distinguished family.

It makes us sad beyond measure,/That the abhorrence openly declared/To the mixing of bloods in marriage/Extends, Oh horrors!/To the mixing of logic with thought.

Let us act with all speed,/With our proverbial grit,/To stall the holy remedies.

Holy men can afford/To scoff at the civil law/Including the judgement in "Bela”./They may disregard their Lordships/Who sit in wigs at the Hague/To dispense an equal justice/To the plaintiffs of every State.

But

At the end of the day,/When it comes to the test,/Our trustees must face the music/Should they undertake to bell the cat;/’Tis they who must pay/(not from our funds, I should say)/To compensate in heavy damages/Ordered by courts to set right/

Injuries done to people/Who are brave and true and free.

FEROZA H. SEERVAI