Prayer hall publicity

A world body without the Parsi Irani tag was not welcome. And now to call a prayer hall an agiary and a fire temple is definitely not acceptable. The sad part of it all is that it has been published in a national newspaper, The Indian Express. The writer thought it fit to write the article giving the term agiary and fire temple credence, when every Parsi is aware that this is just a prayer hall, nothing more!

In the aftermath of such mischievous reporting, what will happen in small places when such articles are read? It’s most likely that curious non-Parsis will wish to enter the agiaries and how do we stop this? Or what will the poor priest do? Before he calls for help, the deed would have been done. And then what? Do we go through the whole 25-day ritual to purify the atash padshah, at a whopping sum, or open the gates once for all and sundry to come in and pray? Is this what we want? All I can say is if this be the ultimate motive then it will be the fastest way to total dilution... and believe me sad will be that day and an end for us all!

Who will take responsibility if such happens? So here I am back to repeating... please don’t involve the national Press as these stories are read by a totally different audience; one which is just curious to know what we ‘hide’ in our fire temple and what is so secretive about our place of worship. Let’s just keep our own problems as close as possible to ourselves without involving a non affected population.

I wonder what the pillars of our community are doing about this. Like always they pass the buck and think more of the world at large than the immediate problems on hand. Their silence speaks; no words are needed! O Khuda, only you can save us!

RODA D. HAKIM

Baroda