“An unzoroastrian act”

The article "An unzoroastrian act” by Berjis Desai (Parsiana, June 7, 2006) and "The sounds of silence” by Jamsheed Kanga (Parsiana, August 7, 2006), speak volumes on the injustices perpetrated in the name of religion.

Desai has quoted the panthaky of the Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Agiary, Poona, Eruchsha D. Dastur, as saying, "When a Zoroastrian lady has married a non-Zoroastrian, she has embraced the faith of her husband and to that degree ceases to be a Zoroastrian. Therefore, entering the precincts of the agiary, and the inner sanctum, is in my belief harming the holy fire.”

How has the panthaky come to the conclusion that the Zoroastrian lady who marries a non-Zoroastrian has embraced the faith of her husband?

Further, how does he decide that a Zoroastrian lady who marries a non-Zoroastrian desecrates the fire by looking at it? Is there any scientific proof or any other way to judge that the fire has been desecrated?

How is it that this lady will desecrate the fire but the man who has married a non-Zoroastrian will not and neither will his children who are only half Zoroastrian? Is the panthaky trying to say that a woman’s vibrations are stronger than a man’s?

Are these people who make these claims telling us that the fire we worship is so weak that it can be so easily desecrated? If that is the case then why do we worship such a weak thing? Why do we have it in our agiaries and why do we bow down in front of it and give it so much respect?

The Parsi community is supposed to be one of India’s most cultured, educated, intelligent, secular and admired community. Are we really?

BHICOO MANEKSHAW

New Delhi