“Disposal at Doongerwadi”

Like Phiroze Javeri ("Disposal at Doon­ger­wadi,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, July 21, 2006), there may be many learned members of our community who may have thought of alternative scaven­gers to dispose of bodies of our decea­sed community members in a decent manner, but like me kept their mouth shut in order to avoid further controversy.

It all began, when my son was only eight years old. I took him to the Museum of Natural Science and History in Los Angeles. When he saw a stuffed big bull elephant, he asked the guide, "How did you find such a big elephant?” She replied, "All over the world we have a society to keep an eye on unusually large animals and we keep track of them.” My son then asked, "Do you kill them when you see them?” The guide replied, "We don’t kill them; we protect them. We keep a close eye on these animals. If they die of natural death or in an unlikely event a poacher kills, we take possession of the body and stuff them.” Again my son asked, "What do you do with the meat? Do you give it to villagers?” She replied, "No. We insert 50 to 60 Rhino Beatles in his body and they will eat all the meat within a few days. After eating, they remain in the body and die within a day or two. We then flush out and stuff the animal.”

This was more than a quarter century ago. I wondered if it could serve as an alternative scavenger, but the problem was who is going to insert the beatles in a dead body and are we going to raise them to have an abundant supply? What if some undesirable elements spread rumors of beatles coming out of the body and crawling all over the Towers of Silence? I axed the idea.

I also thought like Javeri of introducing pahadi kutra (wild dogs) instead of hyenas. A pack of them would do a good job, but one of them might attack the poor nassessalar. This problem could be solved by providing them with a little gadget. When you press the button it sends an electronic signal in their ears that makes dogs nervous and they confine themselves in a corner.

This gadget is provided to all mail-men here so that when they deliver mail, no dog would attack them. I dropped this idea because: What if one of the dogs injured his eardrum in fight and became deaf? If the electronic signal does not work he could attack the nassessalar. Or, if one of the dogs falls into the bhandar who is going to rescue him? Further they have a tendency to tear off limbs from the dead body. Some sensitive people would not like it and would oppose the idea of having them in our Towers of Silence. Lastly, who is going to clean the ‘doggy-do?’

Then I thought of the ajgar (python). He would swallow the body in one stretch and there would be no problem of bones. While reading about their habits, I understood that they would rather go hungry instead of eating a dead body. They like rats, so I thought of putting semi-conscious rats over the body in order to tantalize him to eat the body, but again I learned that after eating one square meal they will go hungry for a number of days or weeks depending upon the shikar (kill). Naturally, I looked for other alternatives.

Then I visualized a giant circular water tank filled with flesh eating marine lives. My observations were: Crocodiles eat meat but alligators are vegetarian. They both are territorial so anybody invading their territory they will kill. They are moody eaters. They can go hungry for one full year without food. If we have one of them, we may see bodies floating in the tanks for one full year. We see them slowly moving on the river banks, but don’t underestimate their speed. They can run upto 30 miles per hour. If one of them jumps out of the tank and runs after our good nassessalar, he will be an easy victim. If one of them falls into a bhandar, the rescuing effort will not be easy without the help of people outside our community. Under the circumstances I dropped crocs from my list.

In cartoons we see piranhas and barracudas eating up live humans like the crumbs of a cookie. In real life they are not that voracious eaters. Yes, they eat human bodies but their appetite is much less than what is projected in films. The real voracious eater is the snake-head fish available in salt water or river water. They grow up to seven feet long and they can remain on ground (without water) for three days. Being voracious eaters, they can kill entire species of perceived enemies.

There is one more marine animal I have in mind. It is our good old kachbas (tortoise). Most of them are vegetarians, but there is one soft shell tortoise that eats meat. They are abundantly found in Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and other Indo-China territories. Luckily for us they are found in and around the delta of our holy Ganges river. They thrive on dead bodies in the Ganges river and they live as long as 150 years. They mate only once every two years but they produce a good number of offspring.

I know that while building dakhmas, we perform elaborate ceremonies, among which is khilo (heavy copper bolts) and tano (cotton thread) tied ceremoniously to protect the sanctity of dakhmas from evil spirits. In other words it is like earth acupuncture or Feng Shui. As far as earth-acupuncture is concerned, we have a good earth-acupuncturist and a scholar, Khojeste Mistree. I wonder, if we all could find a good solution from our scriptures and agree on building a tank in our existing structure without disturbing the khilo and tano ceremonies.

ADI B. GANDHI

Los Angeles, California