Impressions of Pakistan

Karachi is as large as Bombay with 15 million people but the discipline on the roads, like in Lahore (a much smaller city) is excellent. Everyone sticks to one’s lane, no hooting, no litter and no spitting. In our week’s stay in Karachi and Lahore, I counted only 21 beggars at traffic signals. One sees armed guards with a local version of Sten guns, at residential complexes, shopping malls, big departmental stores and government offices.

The Dawn and The National Daily are replete with stories of factionalism, domestic crime and parochialism. The Sindhis do not want to share the waters with the adjoining Punjab – same as between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

With one voice, the people say that their revenue, customs, police and civic officials are as corrupt as those in India — maybe more. No adverse remarks were passed about their judicature.

I will not dwell on the economic aspects here, but just mention that:

One USD fetches 46.05 Indian rupees; or 59.68 Pakistani rupees. One Indian rupee = 1.40 Pakistani rupees.

The hospitality of the Parsis of Karachi is well known and that of hotelier Byram and Goshpi Avari is proverbial. The Karachi Anjuman is fortunate in having Byram as its president, more than in one way. Most of the Anjuman’s meetings are held at his Beach Luxury Hotel, and the hospitality that goes with such meetings is at the cost of the Avari family.

Byram is also the president of the Dr M. N. Dhalla Institute which undertakes religious-literary activities and boasts of a library. The devout Karachi Parsis patronize two agiaries, keep updating the Dr Dhalla Library, organize lectures, observe religious festivals, speak Gujarati and are keen that our faith perpetuates.

There are less than 2,000 Parsis in Karachi. I could feel that there were some ripples there in Karachi, compared to our "waves” in Bombay, but the Anjuman is well-led and well-knit thanks to Byram and his co-trustees.

Most Parsis get consigned to the two Towers of Silence, flanked by the Minwalla and Avari colonies. Around two-three percent do get cremated or buried, as in Bombay.

The Karachi Parsis are as deeply religious as those in India, but are more liberal then those here. They are more pragmatic and business-like. They have the same problem of disposal of the dead, considerably solved by installing on the inside parameter of the two dakhmas, mirror-surfaced stainless steel sheets (four feet by eight feet) which focus the solar rays on the corpses, and accelerate their dehydration.

Prima facie, they seemed to be an economically healthy community, considerably self-reliant, and also self-mobile. They maintain their residential colonies well, and so also the Parsi schools.

The Parsis of Lahore are as beautiful as its city and their counterparts in Karachi. Their president Sarosh Challa had organized two lectures by me (against three lectures delivered in Karachi). Even there, the Avari hospitality was evident in abundance.

There are 40 Parsis left in Lahore! But they are as fervent as those in Karachi and in India.

The anjuman maintains a small agiary and an aramgah. Dr Dinshahji Jassawalla and his son, Dr Homi took us to a century old aramgah kept in good shape by the two gardeners and through the regular visits made by the trustees. Every single grave is well-kept with floral petals put over the tombstones at regular intervals.

The anjuman has vast lands which are coveted and the anjuman is worried as to what will happen to the agiary and the anjujman — as there is no influx of Parsis to that beautiful city. In the last 18 months, only two children were born.

As in Karachi, so in Lahore, we are respected for our probity, loyalty, business acumen and our proverbial concern for non-Parsis.

There is a smattering of Parsis in Quetta (where there is an agiary), Islamabad and Murree. I was told they hold large estates in those cantonments and are worried about their fate after, say, 20-30 years. Same reason: no influx and dwindling numbers.

How long the faith and the fire will survive where our name is great, but our numbers are extremely small, is a big question mark. Will these become another Aden from where both the faith and the fire have gone, and found relocations elsewhere? The paucity of priests — very well remunerated, by Indian standards — is a permanent question mark for the Pakistani Parsis, and so also for our smaller anjumans.

In India, we have taken a bigoted view that the holy fires cannot be merged. I reiterate, through your columns, that there is nothing in our scriptures which forbids such a merger. The big problem is bigotry, which I did not find in Pakistan.

BEHRAM T. DASTUR